Chapter 20 - Sam #2
I shoved that to the back of my mind. At the moment, that wasn’t important. At the moment, we needed to take care of the wraith. Still, that didn’t stop me from calling Rachel and telling her to stay home. She must have sensed the urgency in my voice because she didn’t argue.
“Be safe,” was all she said. I felt as though there was something more that she was refraining from saying, but right now, I didn’t have the luxury of trying to parse it out.
“You too,” I said, then hung up, already running out of the building.
We sprinted, running toward the oasis. People raced past us as they ran in the opposite direction, trying to run away from the destruction and chaos we could hear even from here. All four of us shifted as we darted into the fray.
Several demons swarmed the area, the greenery around the oasis rotting in front of our eyes as they attacked people and buildings, trying to cause as much devastation as they could.
Already, several other pack guards were attacking, some in wolf form, while others attacked the demons with iron, sending them scattering, keeping them away from the people still fleeing.
Toward the edge, the sand wraith loomed, sending swirling tornadoes of sand in all directions, uprooting more trees and tearing large chunks out of buildings.
Elias lunged forward, leaping for the nearest imp and taking him in its jaws. Teeth might not hurt them as badly as iron, but they were still an effective weapon. The imp squealed and writhed until Elias released it, and it tore off, racing toward the desert.
I turned back into a human and took a spare iron blade from one of the other guards, ramming it into the nearest demon. It twitched once at the edge of my blade and stilled.
Sand stung my eyes as I kept tearing into demon after demon.
Even as I did, something bothered me in the back of my mind.
The last time the wraith had attacked the town, it had caused far more destruction.
We were still recovering from it. This time, though bodies and debris lay scattered across the courtyard, the wraith seemed to be more interested in watching as opposed to being an active participant.
Something’s wrong, I thought, but I had no time to chase that idea as another demon lurched toward me.
Eventually, the bodies of all the demons lay scattered all across the oasis. The sand wraith had barely moved, its glowing eyes darting all over as it continued to watch with interest.
Panting, ignoring the cut that one of the demons had dragged across my arm, I marched over to the wraith.
“It’s over,” I said. All around us, the other wolves had finished their fights and began stalking toward it. “Give up now. We’ve beaten you, and you know it.”
The wraith watched us closing around it, its head swiveling as if trying to assess its options. It seemed too calm, as if it was right where it wanted to be.
“It’s no matter,” it jeered. If I didn’t know better, I would have said his eyes were dancing with mirth. “I have what I came for.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. Unease and alarm rippled down my spine at the words. Nothing about this fight made any sense. It had ended too easily, and now this ominous declaration. Whatever was going on, we were missing half the story.
It let out a gravelly chuckle that set my teeth on edge. “You’ll see soon enough, wolf.”
Then, before I could even begin to figure out what the hell it meant by that, the wraith had turned and begun gliding out of town, away from the destruction, back toward its lair.
The sound of swirling sand died into nothing, leaving the rest of us alone and bewildered.
Elias shifted back to human, his eyes narrowing as he watched the wraith leave. “What the hell was that all about?”
“Absolutely no idea,” I said, my brow creased as I stared off in the direction it had vanished. “But if you ask me, that was too easy. We kill a couple of demons, and the wraith just runs? That thing never flees, so what the hell is going on there?”
Elias frowned, his brow creasing as his gaze swept over the crowd, some realization creeping over him as his entire body grew tense.
“Where’s Emma?” Elias asked, his voice tight.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “I thought she was supposed to be up on high ground near the oasis.”
“She is,” Elias snarled. “But she didn’t use so much as a lick of magic. You saw the wraith. He wasn’t hurt. He just left.”
I thought back to the wraith. It had simply dodged the attacks, lashing out occasionally, going after a few stragglers or buildings.
But that hadn’t seemed to be his main goal.
The first time it had torn into town, it had seemed hellbent on wiping out everything in its path.
This time, it was more like it wanted to be seen.
Like it wanted the shifters to come after him.
“There weren’t any demons,” Drake said with narrowed eyes. “You would think that he would have brought along a few of them.”
“We know how to beat them, though,” I said. “Maybe that’s why.”
Drake shook his head, still frowning. “If I were the wraith, I would have brought them along, just for the numbers. They’re great distractors, and they can still cause a good amount of chaos. There’s no reason for the wraith not to bring them along. Unless they were needed somewhere else…”
Dread wrapped around me in tight coils, constricting like a python. I knew where Drake was going. Elias did, too. His face went pale as realization struck. His eyes went wide with horror, then narrowed in unadulterated fury.
“They went after Emma.” Elias raced toward the oasis. Just before he shifted, he called over his shoulder. “This whole thing was a trap.”
Drake and I didn’t waste any time. We dashed forward, shifting mid-stride as we followed Elias’s path.
As we ran, I prayed silently that we wouldn’t be too late or that we were wrong.
I prayed that we would find Emma right where she was supposed to be.
But even as I did, I knew deep down already what we would find.
We changed back to human to finish the climb, clambering to the top of the waterfall. As he cleared the lip, Elias stopped dead in his tracks.
“Shit,” he said. My stomach clenched. I had never heard Elias sound that horrified.
When I scrambled up next to him, the bottom dropped out of my stomach as I saw exactly what he was staring at, exactly what had instilled that much dread in him.
Robert stared up at the world with sightless eyes, his throat slit.
Emma was nowhere to be seen.
At first, it didn’t seem real. I simply stared down at the body, trying to wrap my head around what I was seeing because it couldn’t be real. Except there it was, right in front of me.
Elias was already searching everywhere, running from brush to brush, though we all knew it was pointless. If she were here, we would have already seen her.
“Emma!” Elias bellowed, hands cupped around his mouth as he called.
No answer, just the sound of running water from the falls.
I sniffed the air, trying to see if I could catch her scent. I could smell Emma. However, another stench wrapped around it, choking it and almost smothering it entirely. The smell of burning sulfur and smoke.
“Demons have been here,” I said, covering my nose with the back of my hand as I grimaced.
Elias snarled, running his fingers through his hair.
“I’m such an idiot,” he growled, and I could tell he was struggling to hold back his rage and panic. “You heard what the wraith said. We should have known from that alone.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, coming to the same conclusion as Elias far too late for it to do any good.
Elias barely heard me, continuing to pace and snarl as he ran his fingers through his hair. “The attack was a distraction,” Elias said. “A trick. He came here for the only person in the entire pack who could hurt him.”
I didn’t say anything, knowing that nothing I said right this minute would get through to him.
If anything happened to Rachel, I would probably be in a similar, if not worse, state.
Just the thought of it set my wolf on edge, and I had a sudden urge to call Rachel right now to check on her.
I didn’t want to worry her about this, but I did plan on telling the guy I had watching the house to stay extra vigilant.
I wasn’t about to let the wraith strike twice.
I was going to need all my wits about me, and the more I had to think about Rachel, the more distracted I was going to be.
Elias snarled, fingers curling into fists. I walked to stand next to him.
“We’ll get her back,” I said.
“Damn straight,” Elias snarled back, eyes burning with unbridled fury. “And I’m going to make that wraith pay for this.”
He spun on his heels and marched back down the mountain, heading toward town to come up with a plan to rescue his mate.