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Because you couldn’t survive off hatred. Or anger. Not for long, anyway.
“What is it?” I asked.
The three wolves behind Demetrius inhaled, Sarah shot me a warning look, Searle squeezed my elbow.
“I’m asking as a Chronicler’s Apprentice,” I told Demetrius, then I stared back at Sterling. “Do I need to log that?”
It was Garrett who said, “It’s our assurance that the arctic Mortcombe holdings will transfer via escrow if triggered. If no trigger, escrow expires.”
Sterling seemed very silver, and very remote, but as present and heavy as the autumn moon low in the sky.
My heart howled, my soulhowled, every part of me hurt so badly my ears buzzed and I was in that terrible numb momentjustbefore it all crashed. My soul howled to Sterling to saysomething. Anything. To comeback.
But he didn’t. He simply stared, low and silver in my sky, as out of reach as when he’d been scales of flesh in my dreams.
And I wasn’t in my body anymore, I wasn’t even in mysoulanymore. It didn’t feel like it was happening to me.
Demetrius passed the paperwork to Sarah. “Searle, Summer, you can go outside. I am not lingering here to deal with this. Mortcombe, I’ll check the surveys when I return.”
“They’re current,” Sterling said, tone frost and ice.
Searle put his hand around my waist as I walked, somehow, down the steps and across the foyer.
Sterling grabbed my wrist. “Wait.”
My body jolted with his touch. Every nerve seared. I gasped in real pain.
Searle shoved me behind him. She ismine.”
Sterling’s growl made the three wolves behind Demetrius whimper.
Hector whisperedwhat the fuck.
Demetrius shoved himself between Searle and Sterling. To Sterling, he growled,“Nevertouch one of mine again. I don’t care if you’re losing your mind and seeing ghosts. Iwillend you.”
Sterling snapped his attention to Demetrius.
I tried to breathe.
“Donotlose your mind,” Demetrius warned Sterling.
Garrett pulled open the front door. Hector looked bewildered but engaged in the well-honed art of shutting the fuck up.
Searle took me by the hand and herded me towards the door.
Garrett grabbed Searle by the shoulder as Searle passed.
Garrett’s expression saidI will kill you.
Searle smiled, cruel and arrogant, and shrugged Garrett’s grip off before ushering me out of the house.
I rememberednothing after getting into the SUV to the airport. Hamid had made all the arrangements, and my mind just…stopped. Various snippets of memories burned into the surface of my recollection. Getting on the jet. Thanking the person who had brought me lavender tea. The jet flying towards darkness and coming out the other side into dawn. The jolt of a landing that was a bit rough.
It wasn’t until I was greeted by half a dozen somber-looking FrostFangare that my brain snapped back into my body and proceeded to get back to actual work.
I’d never been to Norway, and it was similar to Montana, but at the same time, completely different. I tried to take it in, but it all seemed gray and flat, despite being anything but. Searle held my hand through all of it. I barely felt him. I barely felt anything.
But when we arrived at the remote, gorgeous heart of FrostFangare and saw Elder Alpha Mikkel, my brain kicked over and everything came into sharp, terrifying, temple-pounding focus.
