Savage Fate (Den of Shadows #5)

Chapter 7

Chapter

Seven

Every raven in the dining hall stopped to watch the drama unfold, and you could cut the tension in the air with a knife as Roxie marched toward me. My flesh tingled, and the urge to sprout talons and claw her pretty face off hemorrhaged through my bloodstream.

Would she still be so confrontational if she remembered that I almost sucked her soul out at Wrath & Ruin?

Of course, I couldn’t do that now.

Don’t you wish you could?

I shook the dangerous voice off and took a bite of my wrap as if Roxie’s presence didn’t bother me.

“Who invited you to this table?” Kortney flipped off the other female raven. “Shouldn’t you be kissing Captain Gia’s ass so she doesn’t fire you?”

Had Gia caught onto Roxie’s Rapture addiction? We were allowed to have fun, but guzzling down mystical drugs and hooking up with nightworlders was definitely frowned upon.

“Shut up, Kortney. This is none of your business.” Her attention swiveled to Axel. “And don’t tell me you’ve fallen for Tate’s bullshit and want to worship the ground she walks on again.”

Axel sneered. “What I do is none of your business, Roxie. You act like you’re a high-ranking raven when you’ve been demoted to the lowest position possible. Coltrane isn’t here anymore, and Hawk couldn’t give two shits about you.”

“After the way you treated him, who could blame him?” I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut. Getting into a fight with Roxie was a bad idea, but she knew how to push my buttons.

An embarrassed flush pooled in her cheeks. “Why can’t you just disappear? After you became a shifter, you should have stayed away like any other former raven would have.”

“I actually care about this organization and what it’s supposed to stand for even if I’m not in it.” She had no business being a raven. Why did she sign up for it in the first place? The girl literally had no desire to protect anyone except herself.

Roxie’s nostrils flared as her anger scented the air. “I’m not afraid of you, Tate. You’re just a waste of space nightworlder who needs to be taken out.” A vicious smile curved her mouth as she leaned toward me to whisper in my ear. “Maybe after you’re dead, I’ll comfort Fane like I did Hawk.”

The vile meaning in her words had a blood-red haze streaking across my vision. Fane would never touch her, but the image she projected into my mind was enough to have my control snapping. And then that damn voice had to push me even further.

Are you going to let her threaten you? If you had me, you wouldn’t hesitate to show her real fear.

I stood from my chair so fast it knocked over and slid across the slick hardwoods. Roxie didn’t have time to react before I slammed my fist into her jaw, blood spurting across the table from her split lip.

“Keep my mate’s name out of your fucking mouth,” I warned, my voice low, each syllable wrapped in barbed wire as my wolf drew closer. “Or you’ll regret ever meeting me.”

Kortney and Axel stood, poised to intervene while everyone else remained glued to their seats. Maybe they were afraid of me, or maybe they just didn’t care if Roxie got her ass handed to her by a shifter.

She spit a glob of blood on the floor and wiped ruby droplets from her chin. “You’re going to pay for that, Tate.”

“You came over here and started with me.” I rolled my shoulders and cracked my knuckles, longing to give her two black eyes. “No one threatens to harm or touch Fane without consequences.” As a sinister smile pulled my lips apart, my canines sharpened.

Roxie scoffed. “You’re not going to attack me in Corvin Manor in front of all these witnesses.”

“As everyone can see, you provoked me first.” I raised my voice so it echoed through the dining hall loud enough that everyone heard.

She peered around, noticing the attention and realizing no one was coming to her defense. Her teeth clenched, and I could see the move coming as she reached for the back of a chair.

Idiot.

I ducked as Roxie lifted the chair and swung it at me with a battle cry. The wood hit the ground, breaking and scattering. She didn’t stop there, though. The unhinged raven grabbed the bottle of hot sauce and threw it at me.

Again, I moved, and it sailed through the air, shattering on a wall and sending ravens scattering. Blood pumped through my veins as I blocked her fist, grabbed her throat, and slammed her against the table. A loud growl clawed up my throat as my talons sprouted and pupils thinned into diamonds.

“Don’t think for a second I can’t rip your throat out, Roxie.” The urge to do just that coiled around every muscle, and it took a shit ton of control to hold back. “You’re lucky I actually have morals, unlike you.”

Axel cursed and inched toward us. “Uh, Tate, maybe you should let her go.”

“Maybe Roxie should apologize for being such a hateful bitch,” Kortney said, grinning from ear to ear. “She’s been horrible to Tate.”

“Don’t instigate this, Tran,” Axel hissed. “I’m trying to defuse the situation.”

Tremors ran through Roxie as terror perfumed the air around her. “G-get off me,” she muttered, the color draining from her face.

Had the amulet been inside of me, would I have breached her mind and brought a fear to life? Would I have devoured the delicious energy her fright created?

Yes, I most definitely would have and reveled in every minute of her torment.

Don’t you miss that? Don’t you want to feel it again?

The evil voice in my head jerked me out of my daze, and I released Roxie’s throat, backing away before I did something regrettable. “Don’t provoke me again.”

She scrambled upright, panic still permeating her blue eyes. She sensed the danger I posed even without the amulet.

“You were going to kill me.” She glanced around the dining hall. “You all saw that!”

Kortney grabbed the chair I’d knocked over and pushed it back under the table. “Well, that’s what happens when you attack someone, Rox. They fight back.”

“She should be locked up for attacking a raven!” Roxie screeched. “Someone, help me subdue her.”

A humorless laugh slipped out. “I’d love to see you try.”

As Roxie stepped toward me, glass shattered, and screams resonated from upstairs.

Being a shifter, the noise traveled to my sensitive ears first, and I bolted out the door and up the stairs.

When I reached the ground level, my boots skidded across shards of broken glass. The scent of blood and death clogged the air. And it didn’t take me long to figure out why.

The body that had been tossed through a large window was sprawled across the hardwoods, blood still leaking from his wounds. A massive hole dug into his chest where his heart should have been.

A hard ball of dread formed in my gut when I stepped close enough to get a read on the guy.

Someone had killed another bitten shifter.

My wolf instincts took over, and I bolted out of the busted window, sniffing the wintery night air. A low snarl pushed between my growing canines as I inhaled the shifter’s blood and found a trail going left.

I took off down the sidewalk, adrenaline pumping through my veins. Human pedestrians barely noticed me as I slipped by.

If I had the chance to find the culprit cutting out shifter hearts, I had to take it.

And what if Barric was at the end of this trail?

A shiver raked over my spine even as fury lashed at my feet, spurring me on. I’d have to face that asshole sooner or later.

Would he have the Infernal Sol on him?

The craving for the demon amulet hit my bloodstream, and downtown Savannah blurred past me, the city lights and dark sky blending together.

Before long, the briny scent of the shifter’s blood intensified, and I sensed a dux demon ahead.

A dux demon?

I turned into an alley and nearly smacked into the tall creature with orange flesh and lethal spikes crawling down his shoulders. His nostrils flared as he sniffed the air, and a forked tongue flicked out.

“Shifter.” His deep voice vibrated my bones as danger swirled around him.

He towered over me, and his muscles bulged beneath his jeans and sweatshirt.

Blood also stained that sweatshirt.

“Why did you kill that shifter?”

When he smiled, jagged teeth crowded his mouth. “Tasty.”

He could have sucked the shifter’s soul, but why cut out his heart too? “Did someone pay you to?—”

The rest of my sentence was cut off as his talons swiped through the air, catching my shoulder.

Son of a bitch.

I ducked his next hit. “You really don’t want to fight me.”

Even though I no longer had Infernal Sol, I could still take one little dux demon. Hell, I killed one before I even received supernatural strength and speed from The Calling spell.

Are you sure you can do this without me?

The taunting voice in my head distracted me, and as the demon charged, I stumbled.

Thankfully, my reflexes kicked in, and when we hit the ground, I rolled him off. I snatched the transformative hilt from my boot, activated the blade into a knife, and pressed it against his throat.

“Did you kill that shifter, or did you simply do someone’s dirty work?”

Laughter shook him as I hovered above. “You’re going to taste delicious when I crack your skull open and suck out your brain. Yummy, delicious, and nutritious.” He attempted to buck me off, but I pressed my claws into his stomach. “So hungry.”

Ice trickled down my back at the familiar manic behavior. Was he one of the demons that had taken Ruin’s experimental Soulvation? Some were still suffering from the side effects.

That still wouldn’t explain why he tossed a dead shifter with his heart cut out into Corvin Manor, though.

I pushed the blade harder into his throat, drawing a line of black blood. “Tell me what you were doing with that dead shifter.”

“Tell me what you were doing with that hole in your soul.” He grinned as his eyes flickered toward my abdomen where the sun tattoo inked my skin beneath my clothes. “I can see the shadows it left behind. Were you unworthy?”

My heart stopped as his words slammed into me like daggers. How would he know that? Could he really see something missing?

While I was distracted, his fist swung out and crushed into my temple.

Pain exploded on the side of my head, and my ears rang. While blinking the spots from my vision, the dux demon tossed me off, and my knife slid across the ground.

Damn it.

My spine hit the concrete, the back of my skull thudding against the hard surface, creating another burst of agony.

A heavy pressure rested on my chest as the demon shoved his knee into my sternum to keep me down. His grin bore jagged teeth, and saliva dripped down his chin.

“You’re going to taste delicious, even if you aren’t fully intact.”

He gripped my jaw, pried my mouth open, and reached for my soul.