CHAPTER 188: WHERE IS GALE?
EMBER’S POV
Logan Reeves looks like demon wearing a man’s skin.
The polished businessman I’ve always known is gone eaten through by weeks of possibly not sleeping
or eating.
He’s thinner in the face, hollowed under the eyes, vibrating with an unhinged frequency.
His wolves form a loose circle that tightens as I skid to a halt, and every single one of them is watching
me with the flat, patient hunger of predators who haven’t been told whether to kill me or not
I try to step back and two of his men are already there, closing the gap behind me. The circle is complete.
“Seems you’ve gotten yourself into a little problem.” He tilts his head, studying the torn dress, the bare feet, the blood, with detached amusement. “Just like you always do. Causing trouble wherever you go, at the summit, at the trial, at that circus of a family dinner, and now here, barefoot in couture in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness.” He his tongue. “But it’s fine. It’s fine. This time, I’m not the villain. I’m
click actually here to help you. If anything, I’m the victim here. All I’m requesting is one little thing, and I’ll make sure those men don’t find you out here.”
He gestures toward the compound behind me, toward the flashlights and the shouting and the sound of Rafael’s pursuit crashing through the trees.
I can feel him coming, and the urgency of things keeps my heart pounding, every nerve firing off rapidly in
panic.
Every minute I spend standing still is a minute the monster only draws closer.
I don’t have time to ask how he found me or why he came all the way to Fairbanks.
All I have is a second, maybe less, and I reach for the same bank of energy Sapphire pumped through me
in the lodge, that deep well of power that sent Rafael flying and turned his men against each other.
(*
If I can scream again, if I can channel it one more time-
The sound starts in my chest and climbs my throat and dies there. My voice box seizes, the scream cutting off before it fully forms, and something hot and wet floods my mouth.
I choke, gagging, and my fingers fly to my lips and come away red. Blood. Pouring from my mouth and down my chin, bright against my pale skin in the moonlight.
I try again.
Force everything I have into my throat, every scrap of Sapphire’s power, every ounce of will result is a strangled rasp that produces nothing but more blood, thick and copper–tasting, spilling between my fingers.
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and the
C CHAPTER WHERE ISRAEL
Sapphire is gone.
The place where her voice lived minutes ago is hollow and empty, the well of power drained dry by what she gave me in the lodge, and whatever strength she lent me has burned through my body and left nothing but the bill.
I am on my own.
Logan watches the whole display with one brow quirked, his expression shifting from alarm to confusion
to something that settles on disgusted fascination.
“Are you trying to save yourself by choking to death?” He grimaces, lip curling. “That’s repulsive, Ember. I
won’t appreciate you dying before you give me what I’m here for.”
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, smearing blood across my skin, and the dizziness from the
heat swims through my vision in nauseating waves.
The forest tilts and rights itself and tilts again. My legs are shaking. My body is burning. And my wolf is
nowhere.
Fine. I’ve survived worse without her.
I steel my spine, straighten my shoulders as much as my trembling body will allow, and glare at Logan with everything I have left.
“Why are you here, Logan? What exactly do you want?”
“Where is Gale?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mm.” He nods slowly, like he expected that answer and has already decided not to accept it. “That’s unfortunate. Because I’ve been tracking your movements since the summit, Ember. Followed your little vacation convoy all the way to Fairbanks, camped my men on this perimeter for three days waiting for the right moment, and I didn’t drag a dozen wolves across Alaska in the dead of winter to hear ‘I don’t know.” He takes a step forward. “Let me rephrase. Where. Is. Gaie. Being, Kept.”
“I just told you, I don’t-”
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