AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Without stopping to think, I gathered my hair and tied it up in a knot with her hair tie. The piece of me that had been reduced to a howling thrashing beast calmed immediately at that small connection to my Sunny.
“You’re such a sap,” Kingston said, but there wasn’t a hint of his usual disparaging tone. I thought perhaps if his hair was longer, he would’ve done the same. It was on the tip of my tongue to offer to braid his fur. This was what it’d come to. Savoring whatever scraps of her remained.
“Doesn’t it seem like this was a lifetime ago? Us here at Ravenscroft?” Thorne ran his fingers over the blanket draping her bed, pain flashing on his face.
“It was. We were not the same men...” I had to swallow, my throat too tight to give voice to the rest of my words.
“Life began with Sunday.” If Kingston had been in wolf form, he would have been droopy-tailed and whining.
Moira made a gagging noise. “Spare me your dramatics, boys. Besides, you’ll be with her soon if my vision means what I suspect it does.”
“Why didn’t we just go toIniquitydirectly?” Thorne scowled at the small tear in the bedspread as though the slight imperfection offended him.
“Because there’s a chance you wouldn’t get to Lilith in time. Trust me, if we do things my way, you’ll end up right where you’re supposed to.”
“We’re waiting, witch. The end of the world is literally in your hands right now.” Kingston was more worked up than he had been since she first left us. His body nearly vibrated with tension and tremulously leashed anxiety.
I knew it was the same for Thorne and me, though we were likely better at hiding it behind the masks we’d spent our entire lives constructing. Something told me competence and control would not last us much longer. We were all coming apart at the seams.
I was surprised I’d held back my berserker for so long. I knew that would change the second I had an actual enemy in front of me. Berserker or not, there wasn’t a whole fucking lot I could do to empty air. But the priest? I could do any number of things to him as soon as he was in my sights.
And I intended to do every single fucking one.
“Alek? Yoo-hoo? Hey, big guy, you think you could rein in the murder eyes?” Moira waved a hand in front of my face, pulling me back from the razor’s edge I hadn’t realized I was balanced on.
So much for that mask of mine.
“Apologies. My thoughts carried me somewhere... dark.”
“I can see that.” Then her expression softened. “You’ll see her soon, Alek. I feel it.”
Swallowing past the frustration and heartache, I nodded. “So how are you sending us in?”
Her grin was mildly terrifying. “Why, by magic, of course. Sweetie, can you whip out one of my special smoke bombs?”
“On it,” Ash said, pulling open the bedside drawer and tossing random items onto the comforter until she found a crimson orb roughly the size of a softball.
“You three stand in the middle of the room.”
“You’re not coming with us?” Thorne asked.
“The vision only showed the three of you. Now stop interrupting. Hold hands. You have to be linked together.”
Kingston gave her a dubious look. “What are we, kindergarteners?”
“You don’t want me to answer that.”
I grabbed Thorne’s hand first, then Kingston’s, shutting him up. “We don’t have time for this. Sunny is waiting for us.”
Kingston sobered and gave a tight nod. “Do it, Belladonna.”
Ash handed her the ball and stepped back. Moira took a deep breath, looking each of us in the eye. “Go get our girl back.”
It was the last thing I heard before the room turned into a wall of pink mist. I was still coughing, tears streaming down my cheeks, when we were instantly transported from Moira’s room into what I could only assume was some sort of sex dungeon.
“I didn’t consent to an audience, Lilypad.”
I nearly swallowed my tongue at the sound of Crombie’s voice from the large x-shaped cross he was strapped to.
