“Harper?”
My brother’s voice...thin and hoarse, cracking on a single syllable.
I turn too fast, vision tunneling around the edges, and my heart plummets straight through the forest floor.
Liam stands several yards behind us, or what’s left of him standing. Smoke rises in pale wisps from his clothes, the remnants of a spell burning at the seams of his robe. His entire front is soaked red, the blood shining wetly across torn fabric. One hand is clamped over his stomach, fingers digging in as if he’s trying to hold himself together by sheer force of will. His wand lies abandoned in the dirt at his feet.
His eyes lock on mine for only a second, but it’s enough.
His face is pale. His lips tremble. He takes one fractured inhale, and then his knees buckle.
“No-” My voice breaks before the word is fully formed.
Liam collapses hard, his body folding as if the strings holding him upright were severed all at once. His head lolls, eyes rolling back until only white shows. A sound squeezes out of me, half-scream, half-silence, trapped behind the sharp rise of panic closing my throat. My legs refuse to move. My lungs go tight. The forest spins.
Ares steps forward sharply, wand raised again, his eyes wide in horror. Poppy gasps in horror beside me, alreadyrunning toward Liam’s fallen form, her boots slipping through leaves and mud as she drops to her knees at his side.
But I can’t move.
I can only stare at my brother’s body, crumpled and bleeding into the roots and moss, the smoke of dark magic curling above him like a ghost.
It hits me with the cold clarity of a blade pressed to my spine:
This was never about the poachers.
This was never about the forest.
This was never even about the deal.
My father has reached us.
And as the truth settles like ice in my bones, one thought whispers through the trees, curling itself around my throat with a familiarity I hoped I'd never feel again:
The devil has come to collect, every single one of us a pawn in his sick game.
36
THEO
Blood-curdling agony tears through the forest, a sound so raw and so human it rots the air around us. Every nerve inside me jolts. My hand flies out until it collides with Sebastian’s arm, his warmth instantly grounding me for half a breath before it’s ripped away. His fingers clamp around my wrist, not guiding but hauling, our bodies pitched forward as he drags me into a sprint. The earth is uneven beneath us; gravel bites my shoes, moisture turns the soil slick, branches snag at my robes. His pulse hammers beneath my touch, frantic and unsteady, a rhythm beating faster than the pounding of his feet.
That scream comes again...hers. There is no mistaking the shape of her pain in the air. It tears through me, steals breath from my lungs, coils dread in the pit of my stomach until nausea rises into my throat. Liam’s earlier sweep of the forest should have led us straight to her, but he has not returned, and each second he remains missing is a fresh spike of panic climbing my spine.
“It’s her,” Sebastian gasps, breath thinning into something close to panic. His tug turns rough, almost violent, as he jerks me forward. My shoulders wrench under the force of it, but I don’t protest. Nothing matters except following her voice.
Humidity presses damp fingers along my neck, clinging to every inch of my skin. Sebastian’s movements shift, no longer running blindly, but stopping to scan, to read the ground. “Tracks… all swallowed up,” he mutters. Moisture devours traces of their path before he can mark a direction.
Harper screams again.
The sound is worse this time, guttural, tinged with something beyond fear. My hands tremble uncontrollably, visionless darkness pressing harder against my nerves. Instinct replaces panic. My wand sweeps upward, magic threading through my grip as I tug sharply on Sebastian’s wrist and send us veering toward the only beacon I can sense: Liam’s presence flickering weakly in the distance, like a dying candle flame waiting to be smothered.
Branches whip against my legs as Sebastian pulls me back into his orbit, his hand clamping around my forearm to steady me. His breathing stutters. Harper’s sobs whisper faintly from ahead, small, broken noises that sound like someone folding in on themselves.
“Jesus Christ…” Sebastian breathes, voice cracking at the edges.
I tear my hand free of his grasp, refusing to be held still when every instinct screams to move toward her. The brush shifts underfoot; gravel skitters. Then Harper’s voice cracks across the space, trembling, threaded with desperation.
“Don’t let him over here, Seb.”
