Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
I bolted to the left and scaled the brick wall, my boots finding purchase on the rough surface. When I jumped down on the other side, a small crowd of humans gathered around a lump on the ground.
“Someone, call the cops!” An older woman yelled.
“An ambulance too.”
“I think it’s too late for that.”
Dread sank to the bottom of my gut as I slinked through the crowd unnoticed. As the gruesome sight unfolded on the sidewalk, the dread grew into a giant rock that ripped a hole in my stomach.
The corpse of a woman sprawled out at an unnatural angle as if someone had shoved her out of a moving car. Blood leaked from several wounds on her arms and legs, staining her clothing. Long black hair tangled around her face.
She wasn’t just a woman, though. She was a shifter. A bitten one.
A man squatted to check her pulse, but the scent of death already clung to her. After pressing two fingers to her neck, he shook his head and then rolled her onto her back.
Gasps ricocheted through the cluster of humans, and acid oozed up my throat. A gaping, bloody hole tore into her chest.
Where the hell was her heart?
“What’s going on?”
Fane’s voice in my head startled me. He must have felt my panic.
“Get here now. We have a problem.”
Had The Collective Hunt decided straight-up murder was the way to go?
Once Fane alerted Ari and the others, they rushed out of the compound. Thankfully, Barric had placed shifters in the police department, so when they arrived to clear the onlookers, we grabbed the deceased and snuck it into Silver Ridge.
Ravens had been called in to bring a nightworlder with compulsion abilities to wipe the memories from the human witnesses. We couldn’t have a coroner examine a shifter corpse, and we certainly couldn’t afford to have the news catch wind of a murder victim with a missing heart.
“Why would someone take her heart?” Saint studied the hole in the woman’s chest. “They used a knife too. In fact, there are no marks from claws or teeth. I only see stab wounds.”
Fane’s brows lowered down his forehead as he loomed on the other side of the metal table in one of the medical rooms in the compound’s basement. “Why would a shifter use a knife to kill?”
“It doesn’t make sense.” Saint straightened and jammed his fingers through his hair.
Ari pressed his palms into the table, his lips flattening into a thin line. “The Collective Hunt wouldn’t need to use a knife to kill.”
“Unless they were trying to throw us off their track,” Olivia said as she anxiously drummed her fingers on her arm. “But then they wouldn’t have dropped a corpse right outside Silver Ridge for us to find.”
Chills raked down my spine. There was something oddly familiar about the panther shifter. She didn’t belong to Silver Ridge, but maybe she’d visited or I’d seen her in Lunar Souls.
“The Collective Hunt has to be involved,” I said.
Gerry shook her head and flicked her hand toward the dead shifter. “This could simply be a separate situation altogether. Maybe this woman had a dangerous enemy.”
Ari nodded. “Unless any other victims turn up, we can’t assume this had anything to do with The Collective Hunt.”
Fane and I shared a look, but we didn’t need to speak words to know what the other was thinking. This wouldn’t be the last body we found. More were coming. And if it wasn’t The Collective Hunt, who else would have it out for shifters?
I shut off the scalding water, grabbed my towel from the rack, and stepped onto the plush rug outside of Fane’s shower, my hands trembling the whole time. They hadn’t stopped for the last hour after returning to Mohan Wilds. Fane would have noticed if he hadn’t made himself scarce, something he’d been doing lately.
He battled with himself daily, the mate bond pushing us together while his fear over Kaspin’s spell forced him to keep his distance. Most nights he slept on the floor beside his bed, unless my nightmares woke him, and only then would he crawl under the covers to hold me.
We hadn’t had sex since the morning he nearly killed me at his mother’s safe house. If we didn’t soon, I’d explode from all the desire and lust brewing inside.
We’d eventually break. The attraction between us could never be ignored.
I wiped the condensation from the mirror with my palm and leaned over the counter, staring at my reflection. Dark circles shadowed my haunted eyes. I’d barely gotten any sleep, and my appetite was nonexistent.
But who could eat after discovering that female shifter’s mutilated corpse with her heart cut out? My stomach heaved as I pictured the graying flesh and massive hole in her chest.
Could this have been a coincidence like Gerry speculated? Could this shifter be a victim of a personal enemy with no connection to The Collective Hunt?
Sure.
Was it likely?
Doubtful.
The sinking feeling in my gut told me this wasn’t a separate incident.
As I grabbed the brush off the counter, the steamy bathroom vanished, and a murky forest materialized around me…
My breaths came in ragged pants as I pumped my arms and legs, sprinting over fallen logs, my feet sinking into the soft needle-covered ground with every hurried step.
Something was chasing me, its presence closing the gap between us. If I slowed at all, I’d be captured and torn apart.
Pale-blond curls danced in front of my face, a stark contrast to the dark woods. Blue veins in my hands traveled and branched out beneath my alabaster complexion. A scar glinted in the moonlight peeking through tree limbs as I fled from the monsters…
A knock at the door yanked me back to the present, and I gripped the edge of the counter to stop from falling on my ass.
“Tate?” Hawk’s voice tried to penetrate the panic fogging my brain. “Are you okay?”
What the ever-loving hell was that?
The same intense fear I’d felt during the nightmare in Camus’s car filled me. But neither time was I the person being chased.
Something about it reminded me of my visions in Anton’s nursery. My nursery. Terror had engulfed my senses as if they were my memories.
Had the Infernal Sol cracked my noggin, causing me to hallucinate? Was I still going nuts even though the amulet was gone?
“I’m fine.” I shook the unease off and wiped the beads of water off my face. “Just give me a second.”
The raven had stayed with the Anders in my old room for the last week. I thought Mohan Wilds would do him some good, but it wasn’t my place to ask. Fane, of course, knew what I wanted, so he simply brought Hawk home with us the night we freed him from Ruin’s lab.
A lump clogged my throat when I thought of how much that meant to me. Even though Fane didn’t particularly like Hawk, he helped him for me.
The demon shifter would like him even less if he remembered that scene between the raven and me in the library.
After brushing my hair and attempting to steady my hands, I exited the bathroom as Hawk perched on the edge of Fane’s bed, the gray comforter wrinkling under him. His dark blond hair was disheveled and eyes shadowed, but anger didn’t twist his features anymore.
He was slowly coming out of that cloud of fury he’d been in for months.
“How are you feeling?” I asked and rummaged through the drawers Fane emptied in his dresser for my clothes. He wouldn’t be thrilled to find me hanging out in a towel with the guy I’d been in love with for years. “Did your session with Cirilla go well?”
Cirilla, the eccentric shifter with fae blood, had been teaching Hawk meditation techniques to deal with his anger. It seemed to be doing wonders for him. That and the Anders. This family was a healing elixir all on its own.
“She might be a little batty, but there’s some truth to her madness.” He flashed a wry grin and leaned back on his palms. “I think she and Julia are secretly best friends.”
I snorted on a laugh as I grabbed a pair of jeans. “They’ll deny it until the day they die.” Those two fought more than Fane and me. “Keep your eyes forward while I change unless you want Fane to claw them out.”
Hawk turned away as a shiver raked down his back. “He really would pluck my eyeballs out and eat them if he caught me watching you. Hell, he’d probably castrate me for being in here while you dressed.”
“You could have left when you saw me in a towel.” After slipping on a pair of underwear, I tossed that towel aside. “But you stayed.”
“I like living on the edge, Strawberry Shortcake.” He shrugged, and I could imagine the grin pulling at his lips. “Plus, it’s good to keep Fane on his toes. He can’t get lazy now that you two are mates.”
I shimmied into my jeans. “He won’t have a chance to get lazy, considering I have a habit of finding trouble.” The burgundy knit shirt fit snugly over my chest and hit right at the waistband of my jeans, showing a peek of toned abs when I moved. “You can turn around.”
Hawk whistled and wiggled his eyebrows. “On second thought, Fane should kick my ass for the fantasies I’m having right now.”
I flipped him off and tossed my wet towel on his face. “How about I just kick your ass, Brycen?”
“Feel free to spank me.” He pulled the towel off and winked. “I’ve been a bad boy today.”
A laugh slipped out, and I grabbed the towel as I passed by and hung it on the hook in the steamy bathroom. Joking around with him after more than a year of being on the receiving end of his hatred felt amazing.
When he’d stood by while his aunt kicked me out of Corvin Manor and the ravens, I never thought we’d be friends again.
“When have you ever not been a bad boy?” I asked, shuffling back into the bedroom.
“True.”
As light tremors still laced my hands, I crossed my arms and leaned against the doorjamb. “So, what brings you into the enemy’s lair?”
Some of the humor faded from Hawk’s eyes, dimming the gold flecks. “I heard about the shifter body dumped outside Silver Ridge.”
“It can’t be a coincidence.”
“Obviously.” Hawk dragged his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know why Barric would cut out a shifter’s heart, but The Collective has to be responsible. What other nightworlders would go after shifters like this?”
“My thoughts exactly.” I uncrossed my arms and fidgeted with my shirt before shoving my hands into my pockets. “Barric is more unpredictable than ever.”
Hawk’s gaze drilled into me, knowing exactly why. “We have to get that amulet back from Barric.”
No shit.
But Hawk didn’t want it for the same reason I did.
“What can he actually do with it?” he asked.
I shrugged and tried to ignore the emptiness in my gut. “Honestly, I have no idea. Barric doesn’t have demon in him like I do, and the amulet’s not inside of him.”
“But it could burrow inside like it did to you, right?”
The flood of jealousy infiltrating my veins had me fighting to keep my talons from bursting free. The mere thought of the amulet choosing Barric as a vessel made me want to fly off the handle.
“It’s possible,” I admitted through gritted teeth. “He can still cause serious damage with it simply in his possession.” Would Barric even know how to use the stone, or would it whisper words into his mind to show him the way?
It should be with me .
“We need to get witches involved,” Hawk said, unaware of the storm of fury crashing within me. “They don’t need to know about the amulet to scry for him.”
“That might work.”
“The ravens have some powerful witches at their disposal. We can go to Captain Gia for help. She’d be more than happy to provide some assistance.” His attention lowered to the bedspread. “I am still a raven. I’m just taking a break.”
Unable to stop myself, I pushed away from the door and rested my hand on his thick shoulder, hoping he didn’t feel the tremors. “It’s okay to need a break, Hawk.”
“My aunt would be seething if she knew I was staying with shifters. She might have had a cordial relationship with them, but she definitely saw them as nightworlders.”
“Fuck her.” She didn’t give a damn about Hawk and put him at risk just to obtain the amulet. “It’s a good thing she’s far away in Chicago, or she’d be hunting the Infernal Sol too.”
If word got out that Barric had it, he’d become a target for powerful demons who coveted the stone. Not many would have crossed Karn when he had it, and most hadn’t known it was even inside of me.
Barric might have been an alpha, but he couldn’t take on multiple powerful demons. And no one wanted to see what would happen if the Infernal Sol ended up with a demon hell-bent on truly harnessing that dark power.