He straightened his cuffs.
“I have other things to attend to.”
I pushed to one knee and lunged toward him, throwing out a rope of shadows. They grazed his heel as he fucking luscelered out his damn door.
I stumbled to the doorframe.
I stood there, head pounding, face stinging, arm throbbing.
“Ronen!” Alexei shouted from down the hall. His dappled wings jutted from his back and jostled with his jog. “I’ve been looking for your ass—” He scanned me up and down. “What the fuck happened?”
“Lucifer. I think he’s infected.”
“Fucking Hells,” Alexei breathed.
Yeah. Something like that.
“Tell me you have the Dreads trailing Lucille?”
He nodded. “They should be getting to the Eternal Forest now. We can blink there. Unless…” He checked my wounds. “You need a healer.”
“I’m—”
Acute, piercing pain speared through our bond. I breathed a hiss through my teeth, taking her agony secondhand.
I immediately tried to connect to Rune’s senses, feeling resistance. I tried again, pushing past my mind-numbing throbs. But nothing happened.
Her mind felt empty, like when she fell asleep. Or when she’d been knocked unconscious.
Shadows eclipsed my eyes as I pulled out, my infrared vision turning Alexei into a red-and-yellow silhouette.
“What?” Alexei demanded.
“They’ve been attacked.” My voice sounded cold, detached, calm, disguising the murderous threat beneath.
“Then let’s go roll some heads!” Alexei barked, his wings ruffling.
“Let’s.”
There was death to reap.
Chapter
Forty-One
Lucille
Decaying leaves permeated the air as we paraded through Verdant Forest toward the Eternal Forest. We could’ve luscelered to our destination, but I wanted to give Ronen enough time to plant the seed with Sam. So far, our journey had been as uneventful as Oliver and Matt bickering and cursing at one another could be. I’d planned to intervene, but when I caught the tiny smirk tugging at Oliver’s mouth, I decided to let him have his fun. That was until Matt decided to spit on his back.
“That’s what you get, fa?—”
MJ notched and released an arrow before I had a chance to react. It sliced Matt’s ear, cutting off his disgusting insult and ripping out a satisfying hiss.
“You crazy, psychotic, b?—”
MJ raised another arrow as Aspen stuck out his foot and tripped Matt. He sprawled face-first into mud and leaves. Aspen stood over him with his arms crossed while Matt spat and glared up at him.
“Just be grateful it was my foot and not an arrow to the forehead.”
