My hand flew to my mouth as I shook my head. “Noah, is that you?” I was surprised I could speak.
An Aberdeen with fangs? A vampire hunter with canines that were long—extremely long—and deadly? No fucking way. If his parents could see him now, they would shit their pants.
He opened his arms and laughed. “One and the same, cousin. Like the new me?”
Um… fuck no. “What are you?” Disgust came through my tone loud and clear.
His red eyes were brighter than a full moon in a dark sky. His cheekbones protruded outward as if he was trying to shift, and his nails curled around his fingertips. He looked like a cross between a shifter and a vampire but only because his fangs weren’t thick like the wolf shifters.
Holy nutso. Carly had whipped up some type of new beast. My guess was she’d combined Dane’s DNA with Sam’s.
He jumped from the rooftop, landed on two feet with ease, and feigned a pout. “Not a fan of my new look?”
As despicable as he was, I couldn’t look away. “Fuck no.”
He closed the distance between us and sniffed my neck. “You smell delicious.”
I pushed him, and he flew backward and hit the van. How did I have the strength do that? I glanced at my hands as though they held the answer.
Noah belted out a laugh. “Seems someone else has some powers. Must be that vampire blood that runs through your mom’s family.”
Or I was getting help from my four little ones—but he didn’t need to know that.
He stalked toward me. “Now, you can either fight me or be a nice girl and get in the van.”
I would love to tango with my cousin, but the only weapon I had was my banshee scream, and he was wearing earplugs. Not to mention, he had claws and fangs. If he was truly nonhuman, then my scream wouldn’t affect him. Above all that, I was cold, covered in mud, and soaking wet. I hadn’t slept but maybe three hours, if that, in three days. I was hungry for food and craving blood like no one’s business, my body ached, my legs were saltwater taffy, and the only thing keeping me sane other than rage was knowing Sam was on his way.
“Aren’t you supposed to cut off my head if I got out of line?”
He retracted his fangs. “Rianne’s not in charge. Granny is.”
Oh joy. It was my lucky day. Well, I had two questions answered. Carly was alive, and so was Harriet. Damn the bad luck.
I raised my hands. “Lead the way, cousin.”
If Noah had taken the plunge into monster territory, did that mean Rianne had too?
As he ushered me into the back of the van and handcuffed me, I wanted to ask, but he slammed the door in my face.
14
LAYLA
Istood in front of a floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the lush green treetops that spanned the landscape for miles. The same thick wooded mountains that I’d trampled through for the last two and half days. Noah had brought me into the belly of the beast hours ago and handed me off to a guard who escorted me to this room. What time of day was it? I couldn’t tell since storm clouds covered the sky.
So far, no visits from Harriet, Carly, or Rianne. I bit a nail, wondering if Rebekah had gotten away or if enough time had passed that Sam was in the area.
I shuddered as the rain outside pinged off a metal railing that rimmed the perimeter. I was on the fourth or fifth floor or maybe even higher. Numb was the word to describe how I felt for a variety of reasons, but none of them disoriented me more than seeing what Noah had become. To say shock had me immobilized was an understatement. It would be even more of one if I found out Rianne had followed through on giving up her humanity.
I still couldn’t wrap my head around my sister’s decision. Then again, she probably didn’t understand mine either.
The other thing that had me rattled—this room and view. Both were eerily familiar, as though I’d been here before, which, in a way, I had—in one of my nightmares I’d had at the hotel outside of Chicago that day Intech had taken Sam.
Lush green treetops spanned the landscape for miles. For a beat, I struggled to figure out where I was. When I spun on my heel, my surroundings changed once again.
The expansive room was sterile, the air cold, and I hugged myself, shivering. The lights were bright, almost blinding, but something in the distance caught my eye. I slowly walked in that direction, squinting to read the three letters within the red circle stamped on the wall. The first letter was a capitalEfollowed by a capitalM, but the third one vanished when a shiny object to my right caught my eye. My pulse went haywire when my gaze landed on a stainless-steel table. But it wasn’t the table that had me sprinting over to it.
No. No. No. My bare feet slapped against the tile floor that felt like a slab of ice. I pumped my legs hard, my arms in sync like I was running the 100-meter dash in the Olympics.
