Odette. Think of Odette.
She was all that mattered.
And these two men weren’t innocent. They had killed innocent people for William. She’d seen them do it. Echo needed to remember that.
“Bring the car around. We can’t afford to wait for the sun to set.”
Jack gave her a grim nod, and he and Sajid stalked out of her hotel room.
There was nothing worse than traveling in the trunk of a car, but there was no other option. They needed to get to Antwerp in time for the concert. It started before the sunset, which meant Echo needed a safe way inside the building.
Once they were in, she’d do whatever it took to convince Elijah to come with her. If she couldn’t convince him, she’d kidnap him, and if that didn’t convince him, she’d have his parents kidnapped.
Absolutely nothing else mattered but saving Odette and destroying William.
As soon as he stepped onstage, Elijah knew.
The hair on his nape rose, his heart raced, and dread filled him.
He slowed as the band moved into position. The roar of the crowd, thousands of fans this time, hammered him like a wave, but it didn’t fill him with the usual euphoria.
The venue seated two thousand and was the last stop on their tour. Legends had played there. It should have been another special moment for the Strix.
Instead, Elijah could feel the pulsing energy of magic spread out across the ground floor and balconies above.
“What is with you, mate?” Adam yelled, slapping him on the shoulder and pushing him toward his mic at the same time.
Elijah blinked, trying to focus. The guys had been asking him for the last few hours why he’d fled to Antwerp without them andwhy he was acting so bloody weird. But he had no answers for them.
None that would make sense.
“Don’t burn out just yet, Eli,” Jamal had advised with sympathy. “We’re almost finished. Just one more gig.”
Yeah, one more gig.
His eyes scanned the screaming, singing, yelling crowd of fans, and just like in the market square in Brussels, the energy of the coven acted as a signature. Elijah spotted them, one after the other, standing militantly among the crowd.
Waiting for him.
Fuck.
Echo hadn’t been lying.
But had she inadvertently brought the Blackwood Coven to him?
Elijah had an entire gig to figure out how to get away from them. Adam hit the drums, leading them into their first track. On autopilot, Elijah began to sing, but before he’d even hit the second chorus, a strange fatigue settled over him.
The dread he’d been filled with became this overwhelming weight on his chest.
That’s when the first screams cut through the music, and he saw bodies start to drop in the crowd. Body after body.
What the fuck?
Horror filled him as his knees buckled and his lids grew heavy.
“Warlocks and witches can only draw power from the things around them. Earth, trees, flowers, animals, people. In order to cast spells, they have to sacrifice something in nature—draw the energy out of it to use it elsewhere.”
Oh my God … were they killing their fans to disable him?
