Oh.
He must have sensed my panic. A panic that wasn’t doing me any favors.
He may not be able to discernwhyI felt it, but he pulled me away from it. The sensation in my back has settled. It’s still there—a dangerous sensation that’s being triggered for reasons I can’t explain. But it’s under control again.
“Well,” I say softly, “if we aren’t dealing with shark shifters, what could be coming for us?”
His grin fades. “Like I said last night, I placed protections around this island from the moment we arrived. We shouldn’t be dealing with anything.”
“Creatures strong enough to break through your protections, then?”
He gives a single nod. “I’m not surehowthey could break through, but yes.”
With a shiver, I whisper, “I asked the wrong question before, didn’t I?”
Again, he nods.
“It doesn’t matter what kind of creatures lived here before,” I say. “It matters what killed them.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
At that moment, a high-pitched shriek breaks the air. It isn’t like a scream. More like the sound of something approaching so fast that it’s causing the air pressure to change.
Pain stabs through my head and I slap my hands over my ears. “Fuck.”
I’m suddenly pulled back to the moment when the spell around my cell broke open.
I’d felt apopin my ears as strong as this.
The male panthers have also flinched, jolting to the side with their eyes squeezed closed, hisses leaving their lips. Anarchy is grimacing, but it seems more in empathy for her brothers than on her own behalf, since her focus is on them.
Lucian has jumped out of his seat, tipping his head back as he gives a warning cry. “They’re in the sky!”
Except that we can’t see the sky because of the canopy.
Damn. If they’re in the air, it could explain why my wings were pushing at my back. Some sort of inbuilt instinct telling me I might need them.
Indeed, Lucian releases his own wings at that moment, as if in response to the threat. The dark shadows of his aura gatheraround his body and I see once again the face of a cold killer that he wore when I first met him.
Anarchy, too, is now poised on her front foot, her focus on the pathway back to the beach.
But I take a breath.
“We have a choice,” I say. “Diavolo can transport us out of here in the blink of an eye. We don’t have to meet these creatures head on—whoever or whatever they are. We could escape and go… somewhere else.”
Even though I need this place.
It’s given me the first peace I’ve experienced since I escaped from the prison and I haven’t yet done a single thing that I told the keeper I wanted to do.
Anarchy, Lucian, and the panthers are all angling toward the path, as if they’re about to break into a run, but I’m not sure if they plan to veer toward the keeper or head out toward the beach, where we’ll be able to see the threat.
“Run or fight?” I ask, casting my question at all of them.
The panthers snarl at me, their noses wrinkled. I’m attuned enough to their emotions to understand that they’re insulted.
Anarchy and Lucian answer me by veering wide of the keeper and heading in the direction of the beach. Lucian seems to have barely registered my question, but Anarchy arches an eyebrow at me.
“Oh, my Veda,” the keeper says, grinning at me by the time I reach him. “You already know the answer.”
