No warm pulse of life met my probe. Just...silence.
“No!” I screamed, the sound tearing from my throat with such force that the windows rattled in their frames. “JADE!”
I had to get out, Jade needed me, the silence of the thread mocked me.
“LET ME OUT!” I bellowed. “SHE’S MINE!”
I had failed. Again. Just as I had failed others I’d tried to protect during my captivity. The warlocks had found the perfect way to torture me once more. My legs gave out beneath me, and I sank to my knees in the center of the room, Trevor had Jade. And I was trapped here, unable to save her, the thread between us silenced by whatever magic he had inherited from ancestors who had once owned me.
History was repeating itself in the cruelest possible way. And I was powerless to stop it.
Chapter eleven
Taken
Jade
The air still crackled where Magnur had stood moments before, I watched the empty space in the doorway, half-expecting him to materialize again, to change his mind about leaving me behind. I closed the door and pressed my forehead against the cool wood, listening to the deadbolt click into place. What good was a lock against someone who had set fire to my apartment? I wasn’t even sure the lock was meant to keep Trevor out so much as keep me in, safely tucked away where Magnur could be certain I wouldn’t do anything stupid.
Like follow him.
“Dammit,” I whispered to the empty penthouse.
I turned and leaned against the door, taking in the space that had felt so intimate when he was in it. Now it seemed cavernous, the high ceilings and minimal furniture emphasizing how small I was without him.
My phone weighed heavy in my hand. No messages. Not even a “got here safe” text, which seemed like the bare minimum courtesy when your mate goes racing off to confront a potential arsonist. But maybe that was human thinking. Did demons bother with text message check-ins?
I unlocked the screen and stared at the text app. My thumbs hovered over the keyboard, typing and deleting half a dozen messages before settling on something simple.
“You ok?”
I hit send, then immediately regretted it. What if he was hiding? What if he was in the middle of confronting Trevor and my text alert gave away his position? What if—
I slammed the phone face-down on the counter. This was ridiculous, Magnur was a literal demon. Trevor was just a man. A pathetic, obsessive man who had never shown any supernatural abilities in the years I’d wasted on him.
I pushed off from the door and started pacing, my bare feet silent against the polished concrete floors.
“This is bullshit,” I muttered, making another lap around the living room. “I shouldn’t be here.”
I should be with him, helping. Facing Trevor myself instead of hiding like some fairytale princess in a tower while the monster fought my battles. But I wasn’t stupid, either. As much as I hated to admit it, Magnur was right, Trevor was escalating in dangerous ways.
I moved to the windows, pressing my palm against the cool glass as I searched the skyline. Somewhere out there was Magnur, possibly confronting Trevor right now. And here I was, useless, waiting for news like women had been forced to do for centuries.
Something cold and heavy settled between my shoulder blades, I rolled my shoulders, trying to dislodge it, but thesensation persisted. It was like the feeling you get when you’re alone in a house and suddenly certain that you’re being watched.
I glanced at my phone again. Twenty minutes had passed since Magnur left. How long did it take to check an apartment?
The weight between my shoulder blades grew heavier. Something was wrong. I knew it with the same certainty I’d known to leave Trevor, a dark feeling building in my chest telling me I was in danger.
The overhead light flickered once, twice, then stabilized. I froze, every nerve ending suddenly alert as the light dimmed and brightened again, like something was drawing power from it. I tilted my head, listening. Since arriving at Magnur’s home, I’d been aware of a constant, subtle vibration, a background hum that I’d attributed to the building’s wards. They had been a steady presence, like the white noise of an air conditioner you only notice when it stops.
And they were stopping now. Stuttering. Fading in and out like a radio signal at the edge of its range.
“No, no, no,” I whispered, turning in a slow circle as I tried to pinpoint where the disruption was coming from. The sound diminished again, the magical frequency dropping.
The air around me changed, pressure building in my ears until they popped painfully. I swallowed hard, trying to equalize the sudden shift. The penthouse felt wrong, like the moment before a thunderstorm when everything goes still and heavy, charged with potential disaster.
Something was very wrong.
