Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
“You scent him.” That was the only possible answer.
Saint’s dark gaze flew to mine for a heartbeat before he broke into a sprint toward the right, off the street and into the alley between townhouses.
“Fuck!” I snapped, breaking into a run and chasing after Saint. “Zachariah!”
I heard the pounding footsteps of my brothers behind me as I followed Saint down the musty alleyway and onto the next street. The salt air hit my lungs, disguising the scent of nearby demons and anything else I could have possibly picked up on.
But Saint and Samuel were more than brothers. They were twins.
“For fuck’s sake, wait!” I shouted.
“Keep up!” he countered. Fucker was fast.
The townhouses facing the waterfront were anything but pristine. This entire section of the territory had been earmarked for demolition and development. Saint shoved through a selection of wide, yellow tape, warning that the area was condemned, and continued his headlong flight not up the stairs to the main entrance, but to the side, where a door waited five steps beneath the surface of the street.
I barely had my Sig unholstered before Saint raised his boot to the heavy wooden door and kicked it in with one shot. Splinters flew and he jumped headfirst into the darkness.
“Damn it!” Trusting my vision to flicker thermal if needed, I followed after my brother.
If Samuel was here, we’d know it soon enough. We’d all be sick on the floor from his unusual powers, completely at his mercy.
I threw out my power around us both. “Stop it!” I shouted. “If you continue without thinking, you’ll get us both killed!”
Saint stopped just before the wall of time that held us both suspended, his chest heaving, his eyes wild as he turned to me in the dark basement. “He’s either here or he just was.”
“You’re sure?” I breathed in, catching the subtle darker notes of Samuel’s scent. Bloodmadness had changed it too much for me to be certain, but I trusted Saint.
“Positive.” The strain on his face was enough to convince me.
My chest tightened. As much as I knew we had to hunt Samuel, had to end his existence, accepting that my brother had actually turned was…difficult. “Stay with me. We’ll search room by room. If he’s here, we have to wait for the others to catch up. Time is mine, brother. It is on our side in this scenario. Do not let your need for vengeance cost your life.”
“My life is already forfeit,” he snapped.
“Saint—” I started, unable to comprehend why he even thought that.
“Let’s go.” He turned abruptly and started stalking down the darkened hall.
I went with him before he breached the barrier of time. We took the steps and cleared the dilapidated house floor by floor, and even though I knew there was little to no chance of Samuel playing house above the ground level when there were clearly no blinds or drapes to block the sun coming through the broken windows, I covered every inch with Saint just so he’d be sure.
“His scent is stronger in the basement,” Saint muttered as we went back down the splintered steps and into the dank sublevel.
“He smells different to me.” We turned and followed the maze-like hallway deeper into the house.
“Me, too.” Saint shook his head in frustration as we cleared each room we came to. “It’s weaker somehow and yet…” Weapon in hand, he opened the last door, and we both fell silent.
The room was pitch black, and my thermal vision picked up on a form in the corner, and the shapes extending up the wall looked to be…arms. It was a person, but the heat signature wasn’t nearly warm enough—
“Shit.”
“It’s…him.” Saint aimed his weapon at the shape. “Drop the barrier.”
I snapped back my power and slammed my hand toward the wall, flicking on the light, and a second later, Saint lowered his weapon.
“What the fuck?” he whispered.
I moved to Saint’s side and stared in open-mouthed shock at the sight before us.
A woman lay slumped against the cinder-block wall, her arms held above her head by steel handcuffs around her too-thin wrists. All of her was too thin. Emaciated was a better word. The color of her hair was indistinguishable for the blood in it, and what had once been a nightgown covered her body in tatters. And her neck…
“Gods, her neck.” I moved to her side, but Saint was already there, moving faster than I’d ever seen.
“Her pulse is barely there.” His fingers rested above the jagged unhealed bite marks at her throat.
“Her temp is low, too.” I reached up and snapped the chains above the cuffs, the metal crumpling easily under my anger at how brutally the woman had been treated.
Familiar footsteps pounded down the hallway. By the sound of it, our brothers had found us.
“Could you assholes give us a little warning before—” Zachariah’s words cut off behind us. No doubt he’d seen the woman.