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“Azazel’s not working alone,” I said, closing my eyes against the spinning world around me. “He’s working with a fallen-blood wolf. His name is Tyler Bastille. He chased me through the fucking forest.”
“That doesn’t explain how you escaped, but it explains how Azazel has been doing his dirty work,” Johnny mused.
“Credence has an escape hatch built into the floor of her library. Sariel got me in before all hell broke loose,” I explained. “Tyler has a nose on him. He followed my scent into the forest, I escaped, Reese found me, and here we are.”
“And the headache? Did that happen before or after the forest?”
I chuckled weakly. “During, actually. You were right about the bonds.”
“Damn. Congratulations, but this is extremely shitty timing. You have to know that.”
“I do,” I mumbled. “I ache all over. We have to get Sariel back.”
His tone softened at my complaint. “I’ll take care of you, but we can’t exactly pull up to the estate after Sariel gave himself up so you could be free, Aria.”
I groaned. “He didn’t know,” I tried to breathe through the pain in my joints. “The bond wasn’t in place properly yet.”
Johnny mumbled something under his breath as we pulled off the highway. My stomach roiled, and nausea made me grip the car door for dear life. Sweat began to bead along my hairline as I fought the bile rising in my throat.
“I’m gonna be sick,” I warned Johnny as we swung into the driveway of a two-story house.
“Not in the car,” he said frantically, leaping out and circling to my door. He helped me out, and I barely made it to the bushes on the side of the driveway before I was throwing up Credence’s dinner from last night.
If Johnny hadn’t held me up, I would’ve face-planted right into my own puke. It felt like I’d expelled all my energy in the bushes on his front lawn.
“Let’s get you inside,” he said gently, hoisting me up bridal-style and carrying me into the house.
I could barely see anything through the pain in my head. My senses had begun to shut down from the prolonged pulsing aches.
The entire room was a kaleidoscope of colors while Johnny tracked through the house. Every step he took shot fiery pain through my body. I whimpered when he lowered me onto what I assumed was a couch.
“Can you drink something?” he asked.
I wanted so badly to wash the acrid taste of vomit from my mouth, but I didn’t think I could move without hurting myself. I was afraid I'd start sobbing if I did anything other than breathe.
The phantom pains started up again just as they had before, now mixed with the already agonizing state of my body. I couldn’t help the warbled sound that left me.
I couldn’t imagine what Sariel was going through. Whatever his father was doing was obviously hurting him. The evil bastard probably didn’t care that his son was in excruciating pain.
I shuddered as a wave of heat seared through me. The skin on my arm began to burn in earnest, and I made another distressed noise. I couldn’t hear well, but I could sense that Johnny was hovering near me, and that he was highly concerned by the sounds leaving me.
“Jesus fucking Christ, you’re breaking out inhives?!”
That would explain the burning sensation running along the backs of my arms and neck. Johnny said something else, but I couldn’t hear what it was.
He tried to turn me on my side, and I let out a pained breath when he touched my skin. I heard a faint gagging noise, and then the sound of someone choking.
Only when Johnny turned me onto my side and I felt the liquid trickling down the side of my face did I realize that the person choking was me.
I’d started choking to death on nothing.
Fear clogged my veins, and ice pumped from my heart throughout my body, chilling me from the inside.
I coulddiefrom being separated from Sariel. My urgency to get back to him was suddenly tenfold. Even so, I could do nothing but groan as a glass of water was pressed to my lips; I was forced to swish it around and spit it back into the glass.
“You’re doing good, sugar,” Johnny crooned. “Just keep breathing.”
Tears were trickling down my cheeks. I forced air into my lungs. The aches in my body had become one giant pulse until every inch of me hurt to the touch, down to my very skin.
