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“If you want to go, we’ll go,” he said.

Sabrine said, “You can help me pick out the bouquet. You have a better eye for flowers than I do.”

“Sure,” Loren said, but she was still distracted by Darien. That was definitely sweat on his face, and he was wiping it off with the heel of his hand. “Darien,” she began. “Are you?—”

Flashing red and blue lights pulsed through the big windows, causing the water to shimmer like melted candy.

Darien’s boots pounded as he walked to the glass, Logan and Tanner getting up and following.

“Shit, did someone call the cops on us?” Tanner’s whisper sliced through the air as he joined Darien by the windows.

White light flared, but unlike the blue and red oscillating through the parking lot and streaking through the glass, this light wasn’t coming from outside.

It was coming from Loren’s solar amulet.

She didn’t even have a chance to draw a breath before clammy fingers were wrapping around her ankle, and she was sucked down to the bottom of the pool.

69

The Wanderer

ARBOR, STATE OF KER

Shay’s bloodroared as the window shattered. As Paxton screamed.

Roman threw his brother to the floor, using his body to shield the boy from flying glass, as Shay dove across the bed. Her bones barked in pain as she slammed into the table by the window and scrambled for the weapons in Roman’s bag.

She pried a handgun from the side pouch. Heart ramming against her ribcage, she slid across the closest bed, back to where Roman and Paxton were hunkered down behind it, and whirled on her knees, aiming the gun at the door?—

It flew open with abang,wood splintering as it hit the wall.

Don’s men stormed the room, guns glinting in the dark.

“GET DOWN!”Roman bellowed.

He pulled her down and covered her head as the roar of gunfire filled the room. The walls and furniture were blasted with holes, the stench of burnt powder wafting through the air.

As quickly as it had started, the shooting stopped. Shay’s ears rang, blood thumping through her head.

She should be dead—she knew that much. They shouldallbe dead, or at least injured, too many bullets—hundreds—fired tooprecisely to have missed all three targets. But they weren’t dead, and they weren’t injured, because?—

Because the shadows stirring through the room, wrapping protectively around them like great wings… Those shadows were Roman’s.

And they were darkening and swelling like a supercell thunderstorm.

Shay’s blood thrummed with a warning. Her skin tingled with chills. Nausea clenched her stomach as she watched Roman slowly rise from the ground beside her, pieces of glass and bullets sliding off his clothes.

As darkness surged around them, as if alive, shadows moving in a cyclone that blew their hair, the blinds, the quilts.

As Roman’s lethal power grabbed every assailant by the throat and lifted them into the air, where they dangled like puppets. Guns clattered to the floor. Their faces turned a deep shade of purple, their tracheas crushing like pop cans.

The shadows around their throats constricted—so quickly, Shay would have missed it, had she blinked.

And all at once, Donovan’s men were decapitated.

Blood sprayed through the room. Shay flinched, red misting her shocked face. Bodies and heads hit the floor and rolled.

Holy gods.