“What?” I demand.
“Karma and Dice were taken. Chaz is with Roslyn.” Thad says, looking between us before his eyes settle on Slade. “As much as I hate to ask this, we need help. Roslyn is tracking them quickly. We gave her blood from everyone not long ago in case of something like this ever happening again. She’s on the trail, but we may need help busting in.”
“No,” Slade says before I can launch into action. “They could easily block your wolf if they wanted to—they’ve studied her and others like her for too long not to know how to circumvent such a possibility. They’ve been hundreds of steps ahead. They wouldn’t leave that detail unturned unless it was on purpose.”
“I’ll come with you,” I tell Thad, trying to remain calm, but feeling every molecule in my body doing all they can to explode with panic.
My sister is pregnant, and they have her. There’s no telling what they’re doing to her right this second.
“Fuck no!” Slade snaps. “Did you miss what I said? It’s a trap. They’re probably already dead by now, because they know these stupid fools will rush in blindly regardless. They wouldn’t bother keeping them alive at this point.”
“You can’t know that, and she’s my sister. My twin, Slade,” I plead, feeling my throat close up.
His eyes harden. “You expect to find sympathy from me?”
No, nor empathy. He wants his twin dead but can’t kill him for fear of it killing him as well.
“No,” I tell him quietly, walking quickly over to where Thad and Kimber have moved to during our argument. “But don’t expect me to do nothing.”
“It’s pointless,” he yells to my back. “I won’t come for you this time. You’re on your own if you do this!”
I don’t expect him to come for me, since I’ll die before I let them take me alive.
“Where is Roslyn?” I ask, staring at Thad. “You said she’s got their trail?”
He nods, reading his phone. “Zee is following her. Leah too. We don’t know these people like you do or the types of things we’ll encounter. We’re sure she’s been taken to the rings. There were three dark figures. They all looked like medieval knights.”
My stomach tightens with dread. I’d hoped they all died since they haven’t made an appearance since the rings. Not even one mention of them has been made.
“Harbingers of Death. They can’t use magic, but they’re made of it. Acidic fingernails, venomous bites, a poisonous touch, brutal, savage, mindless... They don’t have eyes, but they can still see somehow. Other than being creepy as fuck and dangerous as hell, they’re nothing more than slaves. They serve one purpose and it’s to inflict pain. Some of Slade’s scars were made by them. They were designed for torture.”
Thad swallows hard.
“If they inject the poison into their systems, they’re dead—or at least I don’t know of anyone to survive. It’s a slow, painful, brutal death. Black veins is a sign they’ve been poisoned, much like the blood-starved. They’re damn near indestructible with their armor—it’s cast from some type of poison itself. But if you can break the armor, you can break the monster inside.”
“Zee just sent a text. Roslyn is heading west, and she’s gaining speed,” Thad says, looking down at his phone.
I nod, but before I can go anywhere, a searing pain tears through my chest, and my breath leaves me in a rush as I collapse to the ground. An agonized scream tears through my lips... No. Not my scream. It’s from somewhere else... A cry for help. The desperate plea of a soul linked to mine.
Karma!
“I feel her,” I cry out. The panic. The fear. The rage. The pure heartbreak.
“Feel who?” someone demands.
Another scream leaves me, and suddenly I’m vacating my body, looking down on it as nothing but a red haze, seconds before I’m hurled away like a vacuum is sucking me in.
The same feeling hits me when I leave to possess another, but there’s nothing to possess.
Distant screams track me, but they fade as a myriad of noises and sounds pass me by in a whirl. There’s nothing but bright colors and chaotic nonsense slipping past me in the endless spiral that drags me too fast for me to look around.
Seconds before I slam into a room, I see the scene, and my heart hits my throat as the incubus falls to the ground, lifeless.
Another scream tears through my lips as I collide into the body not meant for possession, and hear the sobs of my sister inside my own head. No, not my head.
They killed him!
She recoils inside us... Inside us.