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“Miss me, baby?” Caleb breathes the words into my face. “Because I’ve missed you.”
A whimper escapes me as my nails dig into his arm, trying to wrench myself free.
“Enough.” Salomé’s voice booms from behind me. “It’s time to make the sacrifice.”
I jerk against Caleb’s hold, turning my head to see her wheelchair next to another man. I recognize him as the leader of The Disciples. His photo was in the evidence submitted for Caleb’s trial.
“It’s time, Caleb,” Alfred announces. “Let’s finish this.”
“I told you I wasn’t done with her yet,” Caleb snarls. “I want more than to bleed her dry. I demand my pound of flesh, as should you.”
“There isn’t time,” Alfred growls. “We had a deal. The witch will die, and she will die now.”
Tension lingers between the two men as they face off, and Salomé’s gaze slithers over me with a sick satisfaction. She thinks she’s won now, and as I consider it, I wonder if it’s true. Azrael isn’t here. The guards are likely dead. They must have brought a small army of Disciples to accomplish such a feat. What are the chances that I will walk away this time?
“Take her to Shemhazai!” Salomé orders, her voice rising to a crescendo to match the ferocity of the storm outside. “Now!”
Dread wraps its insidious claws around me as Caleb lifts his free arm, cocking a gun. “Do I look like I take orders from a decrepit old woman?”
“Caleb,” Alfred grits out. “This wasn’t what we discussed. We don’t have time—”
Caleb momentarily releases his grip on me as he steps toward the other man, challenging his authority.
“You know what I think?” Caleb asks menacingly. “I think I’m done taking orders from you too.”
I take a step back, and Salomé sets her eyes upon me, her lips parting in protest as she begins to roll toward me. At that point, I don’t think. I turn and set off into a sprint, heading for the library. Caleb’s muttered curse follows, as do footsteps behind me.
I fling myself through the door frame, hope alighting in me when I notice the bookcase to the dark wing is already open. But as I pass through, I nearly stumble over a fallen guard, slipping on his blood.
My stomach clenches in protest, the urge to retch strong as I right myself and try not to think about it.
“Get her!” Salomé shrieks. “Now!”
My feet slap against the concrete, echoing down the corridor as I run. I run as fast as my legs can carry me, the blood on my soles turning sticky. My lungs burn, and my heart races, but I don’t look back. I keep going, the thought of our baby—of Azrael and the family we swore to protect—driving me on.
When I reach the door I escaped through once before, my heart nearly stalls when I find it open. I’m so close I can taste it. If I can make it outside, I can find a place to hide. That’s what I keep telling myself. That’s the thought propelling me forward. But that thought dies abruptly when someone snatches me by the hair, yanking me back.
“It must be done, Caleb.” Alfred’s voice vibrates against my back as he presses a knife to my throat.
“Release her,” Caleb snarls.
“Caleb—”
Alfred’s words are pierced by the sound of a gunshot, followed by warmth splattering across my face. It isn’t until I feel Alfred’s grip falling away, only to be replaced by Caleb’s, that reality sinks in.
He just killed him. He shot him right behind me, covering me in his blood.
“Caleb!” I thrust my head back, making contact with his shoulder.
“Enough!” He drags me out the door into the rain. “I’m going to take what you owe me if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Then it will be the last thing you do.” Salomé’s shrill voice penetrates the darkness.
Caleb’s body stiffens behind me as Salomé presses a gun to his head. She’s out of her chair, not looking nearly the frail old woman she was in the hospital.
“Take her to Shemhazai,” she orders. “The time has come to pay the Tithe.”
26
AZRAEL
Blinding rain pelts my car as if it, too, would keep me away. The car spins out twice, and when I get to the house I wonder if I’m wrong when I need to slam the brakes so I don’t crash straight into the slow-opening gates.
But the sick feeling only deepens as I take in the dark house, not a single light on. It’s late though; maybe they’re asleep. Just asleep. Or the power is out. It could be with this storm.
I haven’t even climbed the stairs to the front door before I know I’m wrong. There, lying on the ground with his throat slit much like the two soldiers at the Wildblood house, is the man I’d rushed past earlier when I’d set out after Emmanuel’s frantic call. They’d known he’d call me if they took her. If they took Raven.
