Marion cackles as she straightens, lifting a mocking eyebrow at him. “I’d like to see you try, mutt.” She walks to the dusty bookshelf, picks up the copper bowl, and glares at Clayton, who’s leaning on the wall in front of us with a smug look on his face. “Bring my grimoire.”
He simply nods and strides out of the room. Marion goes back to where Logan is seated and takes out the knife she used to cut me earlier. The moment the blade slashes through Logan’s forearm, fury blisters my insides like napalm, and my wolf goes off the deep end as I struggle against the silver restraints, not even caring about the intense pain and the metal singeing me. A menacing growl rumbles out of me with the promise of bloodshed.
Logan swears under his breath.“Ava, I’m okay, baby. Stop struggling; you’re only hurting yourself.”
His words are able to cut through my wolf’s haze of rage, and I immediately stop moving as our gazes lock. I let out a shuddering breath. In the momentary silence without screaming or melting flesh, I feel beads of sweat go down my face and between my shoulder blades like tears.
Marion collects the blood she needs from Logan into the copper bowl and drops to her haunches in between the bloody circles. She starts painting another intricate symbol on the floorboards between our chairs, interconnecting the circles like athree-way Ven diagram as Clayton returns to the room, holding a leather-bound, ancient-looking book.
She stands, wipes her bloody fingers on her dress, and takes the book from Clayton’s outstretched hand. “Bring the hearts. Take them out and place them over the symbol in the middle. Carefully, don’t smudge the blood.”
Like a good little soldier, Clayton does as she instructed, and with each heart that he pulls out of a jar, my stomach constricts painfully. I wonder which one of those is Tony’s.
While Clayton is busy with the hearts, Marion arranges some unlit candles around the circles. As soon as he finishes placing all of the hearts in between our chairs, he steps back, and Marion flits through the pages of the book until she settles on one. “I can’t wait to see you, my love,” she murmurs and then starts chanting loudly in a foreign language that sounds like a combination of Latin and Hebrew, the black veins under her skin pulsing with power and shifting relentlessly.
As her verses reach a crescendo, giant flames flicker to life from the candles, and the floor starts shaking as if we’re in the middle of an earthquake. Deep crevices form in the floorboards and walls. They bypass the symbols completely as wood splinters fly everywhere and the air thickens with a suffocating, black fog.
The witch turns to Clayton and says, “Now.” Then she continues chanting.
He prowls toward me with a predatory gait, and when he reaches my chair, he takes the silver knife out of its sheath strapped to his belt. His demented gaze flits to Logan. “You’re going to watch as I carve her heart out of her chest just as I watched you kill my sire in cold blood. You’re going to feel what it’s like to lose everything.”
I’m already lightheaded with how much blood I’ve lost, and my heart thunders in my ears with the realization that this is it. This is how I die. At least I had a few more months to live on myterms. At least I found my fated mate.
“Ava, look at me, baby! Give me those beautiful greens.”
Clayton plunges the blade into the center of my chest.
As blood floods my mouth, I look one last time at Logan, memorizing his striking features. The slope of his eyebrows over his honey eyes that are now filled with anguish and swimming with regret. The fullness of his wicked lips and the hard set of his jaw. “I wish we had more time,” I whisper as a tear crests over my eyelashes and rolls down my cheek.
“No, no, no, Ava! Stay with me, baby! PLEASE! Don’t you dare close your eyes!” Logan pleads, his voice raw, desperate. “AVA!” He struggles against the restraints, his skin sizzling. “AVA!”
I try to keep my eyes open, I do, but my eyelids are so damn heavy. “I’m sorry,” I murmur brokenly.
I don’t want to die…
I think I’m in love with you.
The last thing I hear is Logan letting out a sound so visceral, so full of agony it hurts more than the blade cutting into me.
35
Logan
Ihave never been more helpless. Never more than in the moment I watch the blade go through Ava’s chest.
The image of her eyelids fluttering closed is forever seared into my brain. I cling with desperation to every shallow breath she takes into her lungs as I struggle against my restraints, the silver not letting me shift. I grit my teeth and push through the white-hot pain, ignoring how the chains burn through muscle and bone. I finally manage to break my right hand and slide it out of the thick silver chain.
Fuck.She’s losing so much blood.
Too little too late, Kaiden pops out of thin air behind the witch. She stops chanting and turns around. Her hands lift into the air and blasts Kaiden with power from both palms. He blocks themeasily, his eyes churning with his own power—flecks of gold swirling with red.
“W-what are y-you?” she stutters, and her eyes widen in fear.
Kaiden disappears again and appears right in front of her. He easily twists her neck, breaking it with a sickening crack, and her body thuds lifelessly on the floor. The rogue whips his head around, and the moment he senses the unadulterated power coming from Kaiden, he lets go of the knife still embedded into Ava’s chest, shifts, and takes off through the door on four legs. The glass from a window shatters as he jumps through it, making his escape.
“What the fuck took you so long?” I bellow while I manage to free my other hand.
Kaiden crouches and helps me with the chains around my ankles. “The witch used strong blood magic for the wards. It took longer than we anticipated for Malik to break through them.”
