She stiffened in my arms, shoving at me as she screamed, striking at me with her fists.
“Jocelyn!” I shouted, deflecting the hits and sending my phone crashing to the pavement.
“Get away!” she shouted, scrambling back from me, her short, black dress riding up the back of her thighs as she turned and retched, vomiting over the curb as she scraped her knees on the sidewalk.
The second the scent of her blood hit me, all citrus and lavender, my nausea disappeared, and a completely inappropriate hunger took its place.
“Jocelyn?” I heard Alek shout through the phone.
“Damn!” I lunged again as she reeled, catching her before she fell into oncoming traffic. “Are you okay?”
“Fine!” She retched again, her body convulsing behind a curtain of purple hair. Now that was a smell I could live without.
“Fucking hell. It’s me, Jocelyn. Benedict.” My arm burned, and I knew there would be a new lie inked into my skin if I pulled back my sleeve.
She retched once more and fell against me, gripping my vest with wide eyes that stared into nothing. Her pupils were blown. “Benedict?” The panic in her voice broke my heart.
“It’s me,” I promised, lifting her by her elbows to get her off her scraped knees. Then gravity shifted as I got my first clear look at her face in the streetlight. “Oh, God.”
Her lip was busted and the entire side of her face was swollen and turning a shade darker than her hair.
“What happened to you?” I was going to fucking kill someone.
“I can’t see! They took her! Benedict, they took her! She said she didn’t want to go, but they told her they’d been sent to escort her home!” Her nails clawed into my skin beneath the fabric. She blinked rapidly, and the size of her pupils decreased slightly. “She said no, and when I stepped in front of her, one of them hit me!”
“I can see that,” I whispered, fighting like hell to keep my temper under control. “Give me a name, and I’ll kill them.” My pulse skyrocketed. “Was it the Sons? Were they human?” Was this a hit on the witches? My instincts told me no. They would have taken Jocelyn if that were the case.
She shook her head. “No, that’s what I’m trying to tell you! They were vampires. Big ones like you!” Her fingers curled in my vest. “Benedict, you have to find her. Promise me you’ll find her!”
“What vampires?” I asked.
“I don’t know. There were two of them, and when she refused to go, and the first one hit me, the other one said something…” She shook her head like she was trying to remember. “Then everything went black like the asshole yanked my eyesight right out of my head!”
Saint. He had the power to alter mental perception, but there was no way. He was with Zachariah and the others back at the estate.
“As soon as they blinded me, I started kicking, but then my stomach turned, and I couldn’t stop throwing up. I tried to follow them, but I couldn’t see! They took her! She was screaming, Benedict!”
“Who did they take?” My heart rate spiked to a hum as the pieces fell together. Samuel had the power to sicken anyone with a single touch…but that wouldn’t explain why I’d been nauseated.
You’re fine now.
“She’s gone!” Hawke roared through the phone. “And so are the motherfucking twins!”
Saint and Samuel had gone rogue. This wasn’t just nightmare bad—it was apocalypse-level bad.
“No,” I whispered, my grip tightening slightly on her elbows. “Please tell me you weren’t with—"
“Avianna.” Jocelyn went limp, her eyes coming back into focus as her gaze collided with mine. “They took Avianna.”
2
Jocelyn
My fingers trembled despite my efforts to steady them. Benedict’s narrow gaze noted the shaking as he handed me a steaming hot mug of tea. Thankfully, he didn’t comment on the show of weakness I usually never allowed.
I took the mug, sighing at the contact of the warm porcelain, and sipped. My stomach was tight and sour, and the peppermint tea helped soothe those aching pieces inside of me.
I’d been outside of Alek’s residence many times, and even hung out with Avi in her room a few times, but never had I been this deep inside the estate. The palace-like structure was equal parts fortress and elegance, and if I hadn’t been currently trying to manage my panic, I might’ve been tempted to sneak away from the Onyx Assassin’s gazes and explore the multifaceted vampire manor.
As it was, I could barely breathe enough to slow my mind, to clear it enough to figure out what the hell had just happened.
“What the fuck were you doing with Avianna?” Hawke, the growliest and most terrifying of the Onyx Assassins snapped at me, his hands slamming down on the long marble dining room table where I sat.