“Stop looking over at him, Nix,” Bael snapped quietly at her. “He can hypnotize or kill just by meeting your gaze.”
“He looks familiar to me.”
“I don’t fucking care.Stoplooking at him.”
“How do you propose we get her out of here without attracting attention?” Thierry whispered, “To move against the flow of the crowd will be difficult.”
Squeaky wheels sounded from the front of the auditorium, and Nix’s gaze flicked from the basilisk shifter in his human form to the cart being pushed onstage.
Nix stopped breathing.
A limp, lithe body laid over the cart. Familiar blonde hair, speckled with blood.
Sarasa.
Dead.
Wheeledonto the stage.
CHAPTER 38
As hundreds of students continued to move inside, the massive room still managed to go quiet. Silent. Everyone paused in finding seats. Any side chatter died at the sight of Sarasa’s lifeless body.
Nix did not know what had happened to the kind cygnus shifter. She did not know what it all meant.
But Sarasa was dead and being pushed in a cart to show every student at the assembly, as if her corpse was a show-and-tell object to be shared.
As if she were nothing but a…
A ringing began in Nix’s ears as she watched Kellan smooth a hand over his suit. Kellan Oadess announced into his microphone, “Please, keep coming in and find your seats. Quickly.”
He is going to use her. As a prop.
The ringing in Nix’s ears grew louder. As if in a trance, Nix stepped closer to the stage.
“Wait,” one of the guys murmured, tugging on her arm as she proceeded in the opposite direction of where they wanted her to go.
“We need to get out of here,” Bael warned, sensing something. “Now.”
Was he sensing something dark within Kellan? Or Nix’s rising rage?
Sarasa’s lifeless body laid over the cart, limbs positioned so the students could see from their seats.
Why?
Just the day before, Sarasa had expressed interest in the future Nix depicted. A future where Nix would protect the prey shifters—without strings attached like the other alphas.
Had Nix’s speech…made Sarasa a target?
Was this a punishment for Nix’s going back in time?
“As I am sure you can see, one of your own was murdered last night,” Kellan said gravely into his microphone.
Murdered.
“She was unmated, leaving her vulnerable to attack,” Kellan told the students as they stumbled to take their seats and gazed upon Sarasa’s lifeless body.
“I want everyone to remain calm,” Kellan said loudly into his microphone when nervous whispers broke out around the auditorium.
