“I don’t know,” Declan said, “but they’ll come for us when they’re ready, and if the Savages have Lucien and Leonard, they’ll find us.”
“We’re going to find them,” Vicky said.
“What do we do about the tunnel?” Saber asked.
“Blow it,” Declan said.
Saber grinned. “My pleasure.”
“There’s a side tunnel down there too.”
“I’ll make sure it doesn’t survive.”
Chapter Nine
From behind thesafety of some trees, Declan watched as Saber’s last bomb detonated. The muffled explosion caused the ground to rumble, and the ripple of shock waves rolling across the earth vibrated through his feet. The trees shook around him, and their branches clicked together as they swayed.
From a few feet away from him, Vicky poked her head out as smoke and debris blasted out of the entrance and shot twenty feet into the air. The ominous creak of trees filled the air before the ground above the tunnel collapsed.
The trees above it toppled and fell with thunderous crashes that quaked the ground again. When everything settled, a pit in the form of the tunnels branching off in different directions marked the earth.
“If there’s any of them around, they’ll know we’re here,” Vicky said.
Declan gritted his teeth against the surge of happiness that the prospect of killing something brought him. Drawing on centuries of training, he took a deep breath as he tried to center himself in the now, but he couldn’t shut down his growing bloodlust. It was time to hunt these things down and make them pay for what happened here.
“We’re ready for them,” Declan assured her.
He stepped out from behind the tree and strode toward the sinkhole as Saber, Logan, and Asher emerged from their hiding places. Declan stopped a few feet away from the pit. Falling bits of stone and dirt still clattered against the side as they tumbled into the hole. If he got any closer, the ground would probably give way beneath him.
“Now what?” Asher asked.
Declan studied the sky as shades of pink and orange streaked across it. Until now, he’d kept the demon part of him at bay by focusing on something else. But his hope they would find anyone dwindled with every passing minute.
The more time that passed without knowing what happened to Willow and Lucien, the harder it became to keep the demon at bay. Pulling a lollipop from his jacket pocket, he unwrapped it, crumpled the wrapper in his hand, and stuck the candy in his mouth.
Strawberry.It was the only flavor he’d grown to like over the almost fifty years he’d been sucking on the things. Because of that, he removed it, rewrapped it, and placed it back in his pocket. He’d throw it out later.
He extracted another lollipop and cringed when the banana flavor hit his tongue. He focused his hatred on the candy rather than the boiling rage building inside him. Usually, it was a trick that helped to calm him; it wasn’t working.
Instead, he remained focused on the fact one of his brothers was missing and Willow’s beautiful face, which kept appearing in his mind. The wrath coiling inside him built until it became increasingly difficult for him to breathe.
His hands ached to tear the trees out of the ground as he tore through the woods in search of them. He would leave nothing in his wake and no place for any of their enemies to hide. The lollipop crunched as he bit down without thinking, and the hated taste of the center helped pull him out of his rising, murderous mood.
“Are we going to start the search for them?” Vicky asked.
He felt all their gazes on him. “I am.” Now that he was here, he couldn't wait to start the search. “The rest of you should return to the cabins until morning.”
They’d taken over another one of the cabins they stayed in the last time they came to this area of the world. When they arrived, there were a couple of fisherwomen staying inside the cabin, but they packed their bags after Declan convinced them it was time to go home.
“That’s not going to happen,” Saber said. “I’m not leaving here without searching for them.”
“We’re not leaving you out here alone,” Logan said.
Declan started to argue with them, but a howl silenced his words. The sound came from a good mile or so away and rose as more cries met it. The eerie, excited noises mingled until he couldn’t tell if there were dozens or hundreds of them reverberating over the land.
“What is that?” Vicky breathed.
“Savages,” Declan muttered.
