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Timon chimed in. “And here he comes now.”
The store door opened, and a man stepped out. Hair a distinctive copper color, he was about six feet two inches, athletic, and dressed in a suit and tie. The Fae—I knew from the pointy ears, but he also shared the same effortless style and grace as Osric—was holding the door half open, talking to someone inside.
Our group walked toward him, and Reccared’s heavy boots scuffing on the sidewalk must’ve made the Fae aware. He turned, looked at us, and said something more to the person inside. Then he smiled and winked right at me with eyes as shiny as sapphires. He was as handsome as Osric, but the red-hued hair made him look extra striking. A suited and serious-faced driver opened the door for him, and he slinked inside. The car pulled away, leaving only a few other cars on the street. But not Osric’s Porsche, unfortunately.
But still, Osric was Fae royalty and that other Fae guy looked like part of the social elite himself. Had it been Osric he’d been chatting to? I walked faster, eager to see the scowly Fae prince and know he was okay.
Osric was going to get such a tight hug, I couldn’t wait—
Inside the doorway was a male—I didn’t know what breed—with crooked teeth and a smile to match. His cheeks were pock marked and his head was desperately clinging to remnants of charcoal hair. But his unpleasant looks weren’t what pulsed shivers across my bones. He had that same darkness about him I’d felt at the party. The same one held by my would-be kidnapper.
I staggered backward into Timon, stuttering, “It—it’s him. It’s Jack—”
Jack 2 launched forward with lightning speed, both palms aimed at Reccared and Timon. Green reeks of smoke billowed from his hands, engulfing their faces, sending their powerful frames sinking to the sidewalk in choking gasps. And Jack 2’s hideous face was inches from my nose.
He pressed a palm over my mouth, but no green gas came out. No words of mine either. It was like my lips had been dipped in super glue and slammed tight. I tried to scream but it was no good. Some magnetic type of magic was binding me, silencing me with terrifying force.
I attempted one of Jax’s strikes—a solid jab to break someone’s nose—but my hand bounced off Jack 2’s face, like he had some powerful forcefield around him.
Grabbing me by the hair and shoulders, he dragged me inside the shop, punched me right in the gut and flung me to the floor, leaving me winded and disoriented as my head knocked on the hard tiling. “Glad you came to me,” he rasped. “I was sick of tracking you down.”
Then, with shocking ease, he grabbed both Reccared and Timon—who were gasping badly now, but thankfully still breathing—by their hair and dragged them into the shop, all the way behind the butcher’s counter. He took a claw hammer from within his butcher’s apron and smacked both of them over the head.
They were out cold. Dead even. God, I hoped not.
The killer was actually fairly slender, but whatever magic was assisting him was lending him incredible strength.
I tried to get to my feet, but I only managed to crawl to my knees before he slammed me back down, going to the front door and bolting it shut.
Then he turned to me, his full smile showing yellow, jagged teeth. “And such perfect timing you have.” He raised his arms and electricity coursed across them, through his chest and down his legs as wisps of that strange gas circled from his fingertips. “I’ve just been given my weekly top up.”
My heart was hammering. I was close to vomiting. “Please, please. What have I done—”
Pouncing, he picked me up by the hair and slapped me hard across the face. The sting was so sharp I stumbled to one knee. “What have you done? You’re one ofthem. That’s what you’ve done.”
“I haven’t—”
“You have! My mom was like you. Weak. Tainting me, when I should have been a pure blood.” Dragging me up so my face was within an inch of his, his eyes pitiless and black as a shark’s, his breath reeking like rotting meat, he snarled, “Look what was done to me. A half elemental. When I should be a full. You humans are all the same. Guilty.”
He began pulling me toward the counter, then the store backroom door. I tried with all my strength to scream but the force around my mouth was like a vise.
“I’m going to have fun slicing you up. Just like mom.”
Cecilia
Jack 2 dragged me through the back area of the butcher’s shop. I tried to squirm free, struggling, kicking, straining my neck and jaw with muffled wails. But it was no use. There was no way to escape the ferocious strength of his grip.
We reached a chunky steel door and he swung it open, flinging me inside and clunking it shut behind us. We were in an enormous walk-in freezer. Full of carcasses of cows and pigs hanging on hooks, with steel tables lining the area’s sides, piled high with what looked like frozen lamb and turkey legs.
Lying on the frosty concrete floor, dressed in my cotton blouse and skirt, I immediately began to shiver, my teeth chattering, as he stared, his grim smile and black eyes bearing down on me.
He waved a glittering palm in front of my face and my lips unlocked. I screamed straight away, as loud as I could.
He cackled, spit flying from his lips. “Go ahead. Scream all you want. These walls don’t just keep the cold in.” His raspy voice sank low. “In fact, it’s much more fun if you scream.”
From underneath his grimy, blood-stained apron, he produced a butcher’s cleaver, and my heart went from hammering to making jumping jacks. “Please. Please, you don’t have to do this. You can get help, you’re not well. You—”
“Shut up.” Inspecting the cleaver’s square blade, he grazed a fingertip down its razor edge, his teeth forming a gruesome grin. “I’ve heard it all before. Seen it all before. Though”—he paused, his eyelids lowering into slits—“I’ve not seenallof you before, have I?”
