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“You’re not allowed to die, do you hear me?” my sister’s voice whispered to me, pulling me away from the warmth the endless night offered me. “If you die, I will find a way to bring you back and kick your ass for leaving me here.”
“Love . . .” I mumbled. I love you. I love Mom and Abbey. I love Elias. Tell them for me. Tell them all. Those were the words I meant to say, but they wouldn’t come out.
Tires screeched.
A door shut.
I was vaguely aware of distorted voices and words I couldn’t make out anymore.
A single tear escaped my eye, falling down my temple and into my hair. My body lifted up, and I could have sworn my soul was trying to leave the broken corporal form that lay on the wet pavement.
I blinked slowly, looking at the sky one last time. The smiling crescent moon gazed down upon me before dark, ominous clouds rolled across, blocking it from sight. She’d disappeared. I had hoped tonight she’d be on my side. Just this once.
My sister’s voice called to me from a distance, but the void was quieter. Warmer. It opened its arms, and I let it envelop me.
They said I’d been born on a cursed moon, but they never said what that had looked like.
In my final hour, I saw it for what it truly was. The moon didn’t pick sides.
She was always cursed, just like me.
CHAPTER 26
Elias
“You’ll have five minutes, maybe,” Seraphina said. “Any longer, and the portal will become unstable.” Sweat dotted her brow as she dipped her hand in the magic basin. My blood offering coated her fingers. She touched her palms together and red, glowing magic exploded between them.
As her hands swept outward, the magic spread, twisting and forming into swirling shades of orange and crimson. She rotated her hands clockwise, above her head and below her waist, then again counterclockwise. All the while, the portal spread, growing in size.
“Ysa, Kieran.” I only needed to say their names, and they were there. While I was more than capable of killing Markus, handicapped as I was by the lack of a functioning eye, it wasn’t Markus who concerned me, but the possibility that Mathis and Andreas would be on the other side as well. If they were, we’d be fending off scores of shifters, and I wouldn’t let my arrogance endanger Dannika that way.
Not wanting to waste a moment of our time, I stepped through the portal.
It was like going through a window. The wind blew harder on the other side. Complete night fell over us, with only silver moonlight and two glowing orbs moving toward me. I blinked, squinting my eye. A double-bladed halberd formed in my left hand. I crouched, fingers touching the pavement.
It was only in the two seconds between stepping through and kneeling that I realized what it was hurtling my way—and there was no time to move.
Tires squealed. The scent of burned rubber permeated the air. I threw my arm up to block my body. Metal dented, then warped around me—forming a mold around my arm as I stood my ground.
The truck’s weight bore down on me, but I pushed back. Acting as an impassable barricade, I met it headfirst and shoved my weight forward. The wheels let out a squeak as it bounced back. Kieran ran around to the right and ripped the door off its hinges. Ysa went to the left and did the same.
Underneath the stench of shredded tires and leaking oil—blood ran heavily. And not just anyone’s blood.
Danni’s.
“Where is she?” I growled, the words only barely understandable when my fully elongated fangs were out on display.
“Here,” Ysabeau said, standing still in front of the passenger door. On the right, Kieran had yanked Markus out of the driver’s seat and had him pinned on the ground.
I ripped my arm from the mottled steel cage and went around to the side. In the front seat, a pale, feverish Dannika was strewn across Adora’s lap. Her eyes were closed. Breathing labored. Blood gushed from her stomach where her sister had pressed her own shirt into a wound, trying to stanch it.
The halberd disintegrated beneath my fingers.
“Give her to me,” I demanded, already reaching for my mate even as Adora hissed.
“No! You’re the reason she was out here tonight.”
Shame. Guilt. Remorse. They all battled next to other emotions. Anger. Rage. Possessiveness.
