Gabriel didn’t think twice about breaking his glamour. Didn’t spare a single fuck for the bartender, the servers, the other witnesses.
The moment that scent reached his nose, he was gone, blurring past the windows, crashing through the third door on the left, shocked to find the room empty.
Yet she was there.Somewhere. The scent of her fear was unmistakable. Sharp and metallic, crashing over him in hot waves.
He felt along the walls in search of another door, snatched the whiteboard from its mount, only to realize the scent was coming from… the conference table?
He tried to flip it. Noticed it was attached to some sort of platform. Wrenched it from the bloody tracks, revealing a dark stairwell beneath. He blurred down it, leaving the tittering mages behind him in the dust, no thought for what he might find there, only that it had better be his witch—alive and fucking unmarred.
No one followed.
* * *
The images came to him in flashes.
Hundreds of candles.
Hooded monsters.
His woman on her knees.
Red dress in the dirt.
The gleam of a blade against her pale throat.
And that was the last thing Gabriel consciously processed before everything turned red.
The taste of blood filled his mouth, warm and salty, divine retribution as he tore out the mage’s throat with his fangs. The others charged at him, throwing their useless candles, calling up ancient spells, praying to their demons, but Gabriel was too fast for all of them, nothing but a blur of broken spines and severed heads, bodies cleaved, rivers of blood washing away the salt, washing away the sigil, washing away the sin.
Unlike vampires, mages didn’t turn to ash and blow away. They died like men, bleeding and shitting, a carcass of rot and ruin left to mark their passing.
When the last one uttered his final cry, Gabriel knelt before his witch on the blood-slick floor. Her glamour had shattered, but once again she wore a mask of blood and violence. One he’d put upon them both.
Wordlessly he picked her up and rose above the filth, carrying her out of that death chamber, holding her tight against his chest as he marched up the stairwell, steadying himself with the rhythmic beat of her heart.
Still gathered in the conference room, the bartender and other staff members gaped, muttering about calling the authorities, calling an exorcist. Gabriel had no idea if they’d known about the cave, known that they were harboring a sacrificial cult. He didn’t care. Right now, there was only his witch.
Jacinda trembled in his arms, but it wasn’t fear Gabriel sensed. It was rage. So much of it swirling through her, he marveled she could even contain it.
“Tell me what you need, little moonflower,” he whispered into her blood-drenched hair. “Name it.”
“The… the beach.”
He nodded and carried her toward the exit, past the windows stretched out before the sea, past the bar where she’d called him Reggie.
Outside Shimmer, he tightened his hold on her, taking a deep breath of ocean air.
“Prince.” She dug her nails into his arms, her eyes full of fire, magic crackling all around her. “Hurry.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Jaci was a ticking time bomb.
Magic and emotion roiled inside her, none of it hers, all of it looking for a way out. If she didn’t get to the shore in thirty seconds, a lot more than a dozen crooked mages would be dying tonight.
“Prince,” she demanded, clutching his arm. “Hurry.”
Without another word, he blurred them to the moonlit beach. She leaped out of his arms, and then she was off, charging straight into the icy water. She sensed her vampire behind her, but she had no time to turn around, no time to warn him.
