Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Cassandra hit the gas and we reached the foster home in a matter of minutes. Each second that ticked by had my heart thumping hard against my chest, my mind conjuring horrible scenarios about what we might walk into.
We climbed out of the car and instantly heard the screams.
I didn’t waste a second waiting for an order or a plan. I ran.
Bounded into the house, the girls behind me, and I swallowed back a cry.
The Sons are here, and I could hear them, feel their thoughts pounding at my mental shields. They’d already made it upstairs to where the bedrooms were.
“Save as many as we can,” I downright demanded before sprinting up the stairs and diving straight into a nightmare.
19
AJAX
Defeat had a certain taste to it. Bitter, of course, but also musty, like a house that hadn’t had a breath of fresh air from an opened door or window in weeks.
It tasted just like this.
“Fuck!” Dagon shouted, losing his temper and clearing the desk of the abandoned office, sending everything to the floor in a crash.
Saint stood by quietly, seething as he practically stared holes into the wooden floor. He was unreachable to us in his anger, lost to quiet rage that touched us all but consumed him.
“There’s nothing we can do?” Zachariah asked softly.
I shook my head. “Much to Jocelyn and Luna’s dismay, it’s been too long for the witches to work a tracing spell to see who has been here, and it’s not like stopping time is going to help us here. If Saint can’t scent him, no one can.” It had obviously been months since this house had been used, which meant Aurora had been held captive longer than any of us had realized.
The witches had the same problem with the house we’d found Aurora in. They could only trace back twenty-four hours.
And the trail wasn’t just cold. It was icy.
“The problem with hunting Samuel is that he’s hunted with us for so long that he knows exactly how to avoid detection,” Zachariah said, rubbing the bridge of his nose as Hawke’s phone rang.
“Yeah, well that’s a problem we’re going to have to figure out sooner rather than later.” I glanced meaningfully at Saint.
Zachariah nodded.
“What the fuck do you mean they’re gone?” Hawke snapped, squeezing his cell so hard I heard the plastic parts creak. His tone made my stomach twist into knots, and every head turned his direction—even Saint’s. “You have who in the—” Hawke shook his head. “Forget that part. We’ll deal with that later. Where the fuck is my mate?” His jaw flexed. “Yes, I think meeting us there would be the fucking prudent thing to do!” He stabbed the end button on his phone and slammed it into his pocket, then recited an address to the rest of us that had me blinking. “Apparently that’s where the females have gone. And I mean all of them except Olivia. Warrick Zorin brought them another list like the ones we’ve been finding on the Sons and the females all left the estate while Ransom was escorting Warrick to the dungeons.”
There was a mutter of swear words from every male in the room.
“That’s where Grace was raised,” I said, the hairs on the back of my neck rising. “I came across it while we researched her lineage.” And if they’d gone there after finding it on a list for the Sons… “We have to go. Now.”
“Fucking Valor,” Lachlan growled. “If she’s going to throw her body into every battle, the least she could do is be transitioned!”
Fear and rage warred for control of my body.
“You’ve been there?” Hawke charged my way.
“Driven by,” I said, immediately holding out my arms. I’d been there. I could wend. It was only a matter of how many of my brothers I could wend with me.
Hawke grabbed hold of my forearm before I even said his name. “Hawke. Saint. Dagon. Alek.” The deadliest of my brothers and the one who could mentally send back the location so the rest could follow after. Taking any more would leave me weaker than I wanted to be when I finally got to Grace.
What the fuck was she thinking, going after the Sons?
That her life is already forfeit.
I took a deep breath and tried to calm my racing heart as my brothers clasped my arms.
She was alive.
She had to be.
I would know if she had died. That shimmering tether that bound us as mates was still there, still vibrant, still…fuck, I could feel the echoes of her panic even this far from human territory.
“Here we go.” I focused on the house, the artful details of the Victorian architecture, and wended, dragging the weight of my brothers through space and time with me through the rush of frozen air.
My feet hit solid ground and I immediately shook off my brothers at the sound of gunfire coming from the house. They were here.