“I won’t come with you willingly,” Elijah growled weakly. “Neither will the others.”
“Yes, I know.” Astra sighed heavily. “Fate is challenging me, it seems. However, I’m smarter than that bitch. I’m smarter thanall the bitches.” Her lips spread into a wicked smile. “I didn’t lureyouhere, little brother.” Her gaze swung to Echo. “Hullo, brother’s mate.”
Suddenly, Astra blinked out of existence and appeared right in front of Echo. She didn’t have time to react before the world tunneled all around her.
35
Whistlingmoans and whining nudged Echo from unconsciousness. She frowned at the noise and then at the following chill that blasted over her body.
Wind.
Her eyes flew open, and the pain from her injury registered. She bit back a groan, feeling everything all at once. Not just the burning, throbbing, but the sticky blood coating her arm and shoulder, her clothes. The pounding headache deep behind her eyes.
The scent of grass and sea air in the distance, a scent no normal human could smell from here. But there it was. The North Sea.
Beyond the city of Edinburgh.
A groan brought Echo’s head around and her heart raced at the sight.
Kiyo was flat on his stomach, a silver knife twisted in his back. Echo instinctually moved to help him, and a familiar voice screamed, “Echo, don’t move!”
Her head whipped to the side in horror.
Odette.
Her hands and ankles were shackled, her back to Elijah’s mother. His father lay motionless at her own shackled feet. Margaret sobbed quietly beside them, her limbs trapped with metal cuffs.
No!
Echo moved again.
“Echo, no!” Odette screamed, her face tear-streaked. “There’s a stake in your back.”
The words unlocked the realization that the pain wasn’t just coming from her shoulder.
Now she felt the foreign object lodged in the middle of her back, way too close to her heart for comfort.
One wrong move, and she was dead.
She nodded. “Is … is Bill alive?”
Nancy nodded back, face stoic as ever. “He tried to fight and she knocked him out.”
“Astra?”
“Yes. We’re on Arthur’s Seat,” Nancy said flatly. “We brought Elijah here when he was a young boy. Why can’t people see us up here? Surely, someone will come. They’ll see. We’re on Arthur’s Seat, for goodness’ sake. They’ll come. They’ll see.”
Echo ignored her ramblings, realizing Elijah’s mother was probably in shock. “Where is she?”
“Coming back,” Kiyo grunted from his place on the ground. “She?—”
The air crackled and Astra reappeared.
She’d dressed the part in a pale aqua gown that suited her red hair perfectly. The soft muslin clung to her, layered swaths of fabric that suggested fairy princess and not the evil cow she really was.
“They’re coming.” She glanced between her and Kiyo. “It would have been better if I could have captured Fionn too, but he’s … Well, it doesn’t matter. Rose cares enough about you allto come to your rescue. Like I said, moronic. They know I’m going to use them to open the gate, and yet still they come.” She giggled to herself as she walked past them, the grass flattening beneath her bare feet and trailing in the fabric of her long hem.
“But first we can’t have the humans getting involved, can we … so a little spell, I think.” Astra cut Echo a smirk. “I need blood. Well, more like a sacrifice, really.” Her eyes hardened with madness. “This is for embarrassing me by not bursting into ash when you should have.”
