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“Fuck yes I do, baby.”
Marko’s mouth met mine and reality wasn’t clear. My body was taking over, but nothing else was adjusting right. For some reason, I prayed clarity would never come back. I wasn’t sure I could face the truth buried deep below. And it was there, just out of reach. It scared me. It was going to destroy me. What had I done?
Chapter 37
Hunter
Tessa. Answer me, dammit! Tessa?
“Well?”
Marko’s impatience left me gritting my teeth.
“She doesn’t answer. I’m not even sure she can hear me.”
“Tessa has to be able to hear you. You’re bonded. Fuck! What has he done to her?”
Marko paced the living room of the house we were staying in outside of L.A. For almost a week we had travelled around collecting survivors, taking them back to Austin. But it seemed the strongest of our kind was gone. Dead, during their own attempts to protect the vampires they were meant to rule. From Seattle to San Francisco, the numbers barely reached a handful at a time. We were seriously in trouble, and from what we had heard from the ones who had escaped in time to save their lives, it was worse on the East Coast. Martial law was in full effect. Military tanks and vehicles patrolled the streets twenty-four hours a day. Everyone who was visible was screened, and homes were constantly being raided. So far we had been lucky, but we didn’t stay in one spot long.
“Try again. We have to make sure she’s okay.”
“She’s physically okay,” I growled. “I feel her, Marko. She’s more than okay. She’s on some kind of fucking mission. I can feel her focus—her determination. She’s … like a fucking robot or something. She goes, goes, goes, but then her mind crashes. She gets almost hysterical, and then it’s like she reboots or something. She goes from the lowest of low, to okay again. Happy, even.”
Marko moved in closer. “You feel all of that?”
“It’s getting stronger as I do. She still won’t talk to me though.”
“Is that all you feel?”
The hesitancy was obvious as I broke my stare from him and turned to grab the black hoodie to pull over my head.
“Hunter. I asked you a question.”
“And I don’t want to answer it.”
“Hunter.”
The warning left the hair on my arms standing on end. I turned at my vampire’s defensiveness, baring my fangs through the rage that exploded.
“She sleeps with him and it makes both of us sick afterwards. She is confused and then she changes. What more do you want me to tell you?” I yelled. “I don’t understand what is happening any more than you do. Or she does, I think.”
The sheetrock caved like powder under Marko’s fist. Energy heated the air, swirling through his own fury and I reached out to the wall as the ground began to shake.
“He’s done something to her. He’s fucking done something. God, I will kill him. I will kill him, if I have to kill myself!”
“Calm. Down.”
The roar that left him only caused the surroundings to quake even worse.
“Marko, enough!”
Black eyes met mine and Marko had me pinned to the ground with his weight before I could so much as stop him.
“Show me what she sees. Show me through your connection. I want to look through her eyes. I want to know her thoughts.” His grip was trembling as he held to my face like a vice. “Show me! I want to know what’s wrong with our mate.”
My mouth opened but it was too late. Marko’s powers pushed into me and I felt us freefalling through nothingness. It all happened so fast that I wasn’t able to catch my breath before I was looking at a group of people sitting at a table. At the end sat Marko, grinning smugly as Colin stood behind him, at the door. But … it wasn’t Marko. I went back to his face. He looked oddly different. Even as I stared at him, I couldn’t quite figure out what was off. His eyes were a lot lighter, but that wasn’t it.
“The enforcers will go in first. They can get through the perimeter the members’ inside have set. Once they have taken their position, we will appear in the heart of the city’s great room. At that point, we will make the traitors pay for their treason against our king. I believe their deaths will lure in the imposter and the prince. Things may get heated, but they are not to be harmed under any circumstance. The king and I are more than capable of taking care of things from there.”
