A message from an unknown number shows up on my screen.
Rad.
>
CHAPTER40
We all race from the study toward the garage, but the moment I move to open one of the back doors of the SUV, Cassian puts a hand on it to stop me.
“You’re not going, Junes.”
“Cass, man, look—” Luca begins, but I cut him off.
“Saints fucking help me, Cassian. I’m coming with you. Don’t fight me on this. We don’t have the time to waste.”
“Youknowthis is a trap. Rad’s using Ian to get to you.”
I feel fury snap along my skin like sparks and I ball my fists. “You didn’t stop me from savingyourmate, and that was an obvious trap, too. Don’t you dare stop me from saving the man I want to be mine.”
Cassian’s face contorts in a snarl, but he drops his hand away from the door. “You stay behind me the whole fucking time.”
I promise him nothing as we peel out of the garage. I find Ian’s dot on my map app, just blocks away from Graeme’s row house. Fuck. He doesn’t even know he’s walking into a trap.
I try to call him, and when he doesn’t pick up, I punch his number again. I call a dozen times on our way to the outskirts of downtown Fairhaven, but his phone goes to voicemail every single time.
Luca takes my hand, lacing his fingers with mine, and squeezes. “We’ll make it in time, princess. Don’t panic.”
Marcus meets my eyes in the rear-view mirror. “We’ll make it in time because that sick son of a bitch won’t do anything if you’re not there to watch it.”
My stomach sinks and then flips as Marcus takes the tight turn into the alley at top speed.
We’re not just driving into a trap. We’re driving into my greatest nightmare.
Smoke rises from Graeme’s row house and, saints above, let us not be too late. I pray to every saint I can name, begging for my alpha's life.
The moment Marcus slows behind Graeme’s rental, I fly from the backseat, ducking under Cassian’s arm and shoving past him as I draw my scribe, a stunning spell already on my lips.
The back door has been blown off its hinges, and I race inside to find Ian towering over Rad, the same dark, avenging angel he was the first time I saw him, sweeping down the library’s stairs to come to my rescue. It was Rad he saved me from that day. Hiding behind a haunting, gruesome Baphomet mask, Rad had held his scribe to my throat and promised to eradicate my kind.
And now Rad is burned and bloodied on his knees before Ian.
“Do it, you fucking coward,” Rad snarls. “Let me live and Iwilldefile that witch whore you’re so fond of.”
Ian lets out a savage growl and raises his scribe to cast the killing hex.
One hex and Rad would be gone.
One hex and my torment would end.
One hex and Ian would be a murderer.
“Ian! No!” I shout, dashing to his side. “Don’t. He’s already ruined. He’s not worth going to prison over.”
Ian’s growl rumbles in his chest, and he doesn’t lower his scribe. “He’s a danger to you and will be for as long as he lives. I can end this now.”
Rad laughs, and the sound tells me everything I need to know. The loathsome alpha I was going to be mated to is broken, spiraling. Dangerous. Saints, he’s more threatening now than when he was on the very edge of frenzy and attacked me in the copse of trees beside the library, more menacing than when he crushed my windpipe as he choked me.
“Listen to your alpha betters for once in your life, you dumb bitch.”
