Yeah. Definitely a trap.
Inside, we waited a beat for my eyes to adjust, then swept the room. This was an old Victorian, notorious for creaky floorboards and banging pipes, yet the silence was so all-consuming we could’ve heard a spider cross the room. I couldn’t even hear the rain outside, despite the fact that it was streaming down the windows.
That was eerie enough on its own, but something else was bothering me, too. I couldn’t put my finger on it. It was just… off.
We continued through two other rooms, finding nothing, finally meeting up with Emilio and Darius in the dining room in the middle of the house.
Darius shook his head, indicating they’d had the same results on their search. Gesturing to his nose, he mouthed, “No scent.”
That was it, I realized. The thing I hadn’t been able to put my finger on. Last time I’d been here, the house had smelled lived in—Norah’s perfume, coffee, cooking, cleaning supplies.
Now, it was just… a dead zone.
“Cloaking spell,” I mouthed back, finally figuring it out. The magic tingled my nose, skittering over my scalp. It was definitely witchcraft, designed to camouflage the scents of any creatures a shifter or vamp might’ve detected.
Perfect. So not only were we going in blind, we were going in without smell, too.
I tightened my grip on my knife and jerked my head toward the stairwell. Whatever creatures waited in ambush, Asher was running out of time.
The men circled me, scanning the room as I took the stairs, one agonizingly slow step at a time.
From the top landing, a long hallway branched off in two directions, with several rooms on each side and a large window on each end.
I tugged on Ronan’s arm, gesturing toward the right. The two of us crept along the hallway while the other two took the left branch.
I’d just spotted the glint of a metal chain dangling from a hatch in the ceiling—the door that led to the attic—when the window at the other end of the hallway exploded.
* * *
“Get down!” Ronan shoved me to the ground as two bloodsuckers crashed into the hallway in a rain of glass and terror, lunging for Darius and Emilio. I’d barely caught sight of them when two more crashed through, and Ronan took off toward the commotion, ordering me to stay back.
I got to my feet, ready to ignore him. To throw myself into the fight.
But then I remembered my promise to Darius.
I was not built for carnage and mayhem.
I was built for magic.
I’d asked them to buy me time, and that’s exactly what they were doing. The best way for me to honor that—to help them—was to keep my promise.
It almost tore my heart in two, but somehow I managed to turn my back on the fight. On my family.
I sheathed my knife. Then I reached for the chain and pulled, catching the ladder that slid out from the hatch. Behind me, a wooden door splintered, and the yelp of a wounded wolf filled me with a primal fear.
But even as the battle raged, I refused to turn back. I climbed the ladder, hauled myself into the attic, and pulled the hatch closed behind me.
I’d just gotten to my feet when a broken voice spoke, cutting through the muffled sounds below.
“Admit it, Cupcake,” he slurred. “You missed me.”
Forty-Three
Gray
Hope sparked in my chest. If Asher was flirting, maybe he wasn’t as far gone as I’d feared.
“Save your strength,” I said, crossing the dim, dusty attic to reach him. Other than the chair they’d chained Asher to, and all the markings on the floor beneath him, the room was completely bare. Even the walls were blank—nothing but studs and wooden slats.
