The dark magic sucked back into the skull as he de-manifested, his power pulled away from what I now knew to be Sybil’s cruel grasp.
A raspy, quiet scream pulled from my throat as I choked on my sobs.
My mates surrounded me, murmuring words of comfort, but I couldn’t hear them past the roar of my own anguish.
He promised to always be there for me, but now…
Thousands of fractures splintered my heart.
Because I knew.
No matter how much I fought it, no matter how much it hurt?—
Nebula was going to die.
And I was going to be the one to kill him.
27
HUNTER
The air was thick with heat and the thirst for vengeance, but it was nothing compared to the suffocating weight of Pandora’s silence. Her anguish was a living, breathing thing, slithering through our matebonds. She had been closed off since Nebula de-manifested, and though she hadn't said anything to us, I felt every jagged edge of her grief—her raw fury for Sybil Shaw, and the soul-crushing betrayal of what she was going to be forced to do.
It was all because of Nebula. He'd been with her since she was a child, but he had to be sacrificed for us to defeat Sybil. The knowledge of that impending loss was tearing my fated apart, fracturing her from the inside out.
We couldn't stop her pain, but we could damn well hold her together when this was all over.
Jesper’s voice cut through the tension like a blade. “We’re expecting heavy resistance. Intel confirms that infected demons are swarming the ritual site. The Supernatural Council sent word to the demons who worked here to leave and not come back until we told them to, but it seems they didn't take our advice.”
Ahead of us, Sandstone Springs stretched out beneath the moon’s glow, the once-pristine waters now tainted by the blood of the innocent demons who had been here. The scent of iron and decay thickened the air, choking out any remnants of the oasis this place once was.
“Fuck,” I muttered, running a hand down my face.
Demons were as stubborn as dragons and drakes, but this…this massacre could’ve been prevented if they had just left when the Supernatural Council told them to.
Pandora remained silent, but her power simmered just beneath the surface. Her rage pulsed through our matebonds.
Sybil Shaw and her cult had done too much and ruined too many lives—including ours.
Jesper turned to speak to us and the team of at least fifty agents, his grip tightening around the dark magic siphoning artifact in his hand. “If Sybil Shaw manages to complete this ritual, she’ll gain more dark magic and infect even more of her deranged cult members. We cannot let that happen.”
"We won’t," I snarled, my fists clenching at my sides.
As we stepped fully into Sandstone Springs, the scent of death was pungent. The ground was slick with blood, and bodies were torn apart in grotesque displays of violence. Limbs twisted at unnatural angles, eyes frozen in expressions of eternal horror across the sands. The demons who had once worked here, who had lived and laughed and fought for their own survival, had been reduced to nothing more than mutilated corpses.
The establishment had been reduced to a slaughterhouse.
My jaw locked as vengeance burned through my veins, scorching me with the need to right this wrong for the lives lost here.
“Fucking Fates,” Bram hissed, his chaos wolf manifesting beside him, teeth bared in a snarl.
“Looking for us?” a sickly voice called out, and it brought our attention to the group of infected demons walking our way from inside the sandstone building. “Sorry, but we can’t let you destroy our ritual this time. Mistress is aware of your intentions now.”
“Those cult members...they're the students from the Academy. The ones who disappeared when the wards broke,” Skel muttered with shock.
My breath hitched.
Students.
