My stomach clenched as the back door opened. Every muscle in my body tensed, ready. Even my wolf, whose words of encouragement kept me going, waited with bated breath.
Havoc opened the door, and when he was halfway through, I launched myself at him. Either he underestimated me, or he loved any excuse for a fight because he tumbled to the ground like he weighed nothing. I rolled on top of him, jamming the nail deep into his shoulder while clamoring forward.
His hand wrapped around my ankle, making me stumble. Instinctively, I lashed out with the same foot he grabbed, smashing my heel into his teeth. His grip loosened, and I slipped free, stumbling to my feet and running.
Before I barreled into the forest, I glanced back to see Havoc’s beautiful, smiling face; both teeth and eyes crimson.
I counted seconds in my head, lost track, and started again. Pain was a distant memory, a dull ache. I couldn’t feel the pain in my hip anymore, just a tearing sensation whenever I moved strenuously. I had torn the knife out, almost doubling over as the silver handle burned my hand.
It made sense that Havoc would have a knife that harmed its user, to feel pain while inflicting it.
I spun around, my eyes practically rolling as Havoc’s joyful whooping filled the forest. It echoed in every direction, yet came from nowhere. I kept turning, losing track of where I had been and where I was going.
For the second time that day, I was tackled to the ground. This time, my face was pushed into the dirt. I clenched my eyes shut to avoid getting anything in them.
I was lifted from the ground, met with the smell of body odor and flowers.
“Tsk tsk, bad soul-eater,” Havoc’s voice was right by my ear. He laughed loudly when I jerked my head away.
I wrenched my eyes open, wincing from the dirt on my face. The Tracker held me again, the ever-silent grunt man who did as he was told. Havoc walked behind us, hands in his pockets, flashing his pretty grin.
“You ran for six minutes,” he commented helpfully. In that moment, I knew Havoc was the second biggest monster I’d ever met. “The other girls I play chase with usually only last for two.”
“No games,” the Tray said flatly, his voice unusually deep. He turned to face Havoc, the abrupt motion making my head swim. “You cannot kill this one.”
I realized it was just the three of us. The Executioner was back at the vehicle.
Even though it made my body ache, I reached out tentatively, a feather-light caress against the Tracker’s lifeforce, feeling its intoxicating warmth just inches away.
“Would never dream of it, dear Tracker,” Havoc shook his head, hand against his heart in a convincing display of offense. The look vanished, replaced with a carefree smile. “Besides, it’s the Executioner you should worry about. She’s the one gearing to kill her. I, on the other hand, think the Executioner looks lovely with her singular eye.”
I held back nausea as I was swung around again so the Tracker could face Havoc, snarling. If he kept spinning me, I wouldn’t be able to draw anything from him.
Thankfully, Havoc shut up long enough for me to get my bearings. I couldn’t take much or too fast. He’d notice the drain, or the Executioner would. I didn’t want her hands on my skin again; the thought sent a chill skittering over me.
My first instinct was to drain Havoc dry for everything he’d said since capturing me, but he was also one of the most dangerous. I had no clue if his abilities worked on me, but I wouldn’t put it past him to hold off until the last moment.
Instead, I bided my time, slowly pulling from the Tracker, stopping whenever he stiffened or twitched. We were back within a minute, telling me I hadn’t run far. Beneath my torn shirt, I could feel the knife wound knitting itself back together, taking away the stinging pain of silver in my blood.
I wasn’t ready to take down the three of them, but this was a start. My limbs no longer felt like lead, and the pain in my chest dulled to a slow throb. I stopped pulling from the Tracker the moment I was within sniffing distance of the Executioner. I feigned fatigue, groaning when I was tossed back into the vehicle.
Havoc grinned from the seat beside me, the bloody nail still in his shoulder. The quiet hum of the vehicle sounded as we coasted down the highway, away from the scent of burning houses and trees. Even as I watched black smoke curl into the sky and felt Havoc’s crimson eyes on my face, I refused to let fear take hold.
“Well, looks like the twinsies are back,” Havoc cheered, gleefully looking out the back window. “They sure heal fast.”
I did the same, but with an abject look of horror on my face. It churned in my gut and rose up in my mouth like acid, searing my tongue and throat so that no sound could slip past.
Upfront, the Tracker grunted, narrowing his eyes through the rearview mirror at two onyx-colored wolves weaving through the trees. My heart raced as I caught sight of them, desperately pursuing the vehicle that carried me away. Any flicker of hope I had shriveled into a husk when the Executioner spoke.
“I take back what I said; an eye for an eye doesn’t seem fair enough,” she said smoothly, giving me a single glance before turning to Havoc. “Can you kill them from here?”
“Of course,” Havoc scoffed, genuinely offended. He rolled his shoulders and flashed a lopsided grin. “Off the mountain or speared on a three?”
“Three,” both the Tracker and the Executioner replied in unison.
The Tracker tapped the brakes gently, allowing the twins to gain on us. Havoc bounced eagerly in his seat, rubbing his hands together like a demented child. They were close now, and I could see the desperation in their eyes as they locked onto me through the window. My face, pale and covered in blood and dirt, reflected back at them.
Just as Havoc unleashed his power, I let loose my own. I didn’t have much, maybe even less than Havoc, but I had something he didn’t: my mates, whom I refused to let die. Giving myself up to these three had been to spare the twins, not to see them killed.
“No!” My scream mirrored Havoc’s laugh, but only one of our magics took hold. The twins’ eyes widened in recognition as I flung them back into the depths of the forest. I could feel every branch and tree they clipped as I pushed them further away.
In those long moments between heartbeats, I thought about Louis and Peter, pledging that they would not die alone. I felt guilty that I couldn’t make that same promise to Ethan and Kieran, that we would leave this life together. My desperation wasn’t selflessness-it was the love I felt for them, a love that meant keeping them from pain and torture at all costs. It meant sacrificing myself because I couldn’t live in a world where they didn’t exist. And I, I was more dangerous than both of them.
It felt like being hit by a truck, using more energy than I had. It threw me against the driver’s seat and onto the floor, where I gasped and sputtered under the weight pressing down on me.
“Damn it!” Havoc hissed, turning to the Executioner with a pout. “I want to go back for them.”
“Boss said to kill them if we had the chance, not to hunt for them,” she snarled, looking at the Tracker. “Step on it, we’re expected.”
I was defenseless as Havoc grabbed my arms and hauled me onto the seat, grimacing as he lifted a bag of crushed Doritos.
“You crushed my snacks, soul-eater,” he said before opening the bag.
“That was a cute little escape attempt by, Sophia,” the Executioner nodded to herself, not bothering to look back. Her voice was delicate and smooth, each word perfectly pronounced. “Congratulations, you spared your mates another week or so. Really, you should have let Havoc have at them. The boss will only make you kill them yourself.”
“Maverick won’t get a single thing from me,” I promised her, holding onto that truth, searing it into my heart so that even when things got worse-and they would-I knew I wouldn’t give in.
“You say that now, but you have no idea how persuasive he can be.” The Executioner turned in her seat, grinning darkly when I paled at the sight of her eye. It was now a raw, festering mass of flesh, failing to heal from the wound I had inflicted. She gave me a few long seconds to stare, but I refused to squirm. I hissed and recoiled as her cold fingers wrapped around my arm, sending waves of agony up my shoulder. “Goodnight, soul-eater. The fun really begins when you wake up.”
I couldn’t tell what was real and what was a product of my mind: screaming, thrashing, and snarling as people were stuck in mid-shift. Magic was everywhere-so thick you could choke on it, like sweet syrup turned into gas. Were the screams theirs or mine? Agony and hatred, hopelessness so deep that I wanted to curl up in the darkness and let it sweep me away. But I couldn’t, not with the faces of two beautiful men burned into my mind, etched so deep that no scalpel could ever mar the surface.
Still, the pain continued. Slashes of rage, slices of fear, bruises full of torment and captivity until it all melted into something painful and heavy, seated right on my chest. My eyes snapped open, bringing light and the faint echo of pain. I clutched the silken blankets thrown over me, a deep shade of navy under the yellow light of the lamps on either side of the bed.
Everything rushed back to me at once, ending with the panic-stricken faces of Ethan and Kieran’s wolves as I threw them back into the forest. I stumbled out of the bed, my legs wobbling beneath me. I groaned as my head swam, still aching and weak from the Executioner’s touch. Disgust and revulsion ran through me as I glanced down, noticing the sweatpants and tank top I had been dressed in.
I was in a fancy bedroom with a large bed covered in accent pillows, a sectional, and a bathroom bigger than one person should ever need. I whipped around at the sound of a lock being unlatched, followed by three more.
I knew what this was: a padded cell, an offer. The singular door made of what had to be silver held a small window at eye height. It was covered with a thin sheet of metal, giving no forewarning of who was about to come inside. Even in my weakened state, my magic lashed out with everything it had the moment Maverick Billford’s face came into view. His neatly trimmed hair, just a slight spattering of facial hair, enough to make him look his age. A man without life in his eyes, without emotion or humanity-just a pristine, neat version of Havoc.
“Hello, Sophia,” Maverick said politely, stepping inside with the Executioner on his heels. Her cold magic sliced into my own, searing my skin and making my already weak body feel worse. My legs finally gave out, and I crumpled to the pale carpet.
I noted the hulking guard outside, along with the Tracker’s ripe scent. I also noticed the Executioner now wore an eyepatch. If I remembered the jagged gash on her face correctly, the healed version probably wasn’t much better. I glared at her, hoping she knew I didn’t regret a thing.
“If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to speak with you before you consequently pass out again,” Maverick said in a rehearsed polite tone, one that could change at the flip of a switch. I reined in my anger, my absolute disgust for this man, and managed not to hurl as I looked him in his dead eyes, already plotting how I would kill him in his own land.