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“Call us if you need us,” Axel said.

She reached for Hunter at the same time he clamped his hand down on her forearm and she teleported them to Thalia’s front door. The moment they popped in, a chair scuffed against the wooden floor in the kitchen and murmurs sounded around the house.

What’s the plan, angel?

Fuck a plan, Hunter. That fucking bitch has my mother. I’m going to fucking kill her.

Neri ripped open the front door and noticed two shifters lounging on her mother’s couch as if they owned the place. They leapt up, not hearing Neri and Hunter drop on the front stoop or moving to open the door. She pulled the knife out. By the time the shifters advanced, she was ready.

She killed the first with ease. A little surprised how his head detached from his shoulders with little force, she blinked, searching for a trap. But when she found nothing, she then glanced down at the head in her hand. She threw it through the open front door and onto the lawn before she back flipped off the now dead shifter and onto the shoulders of the second.

Hunter’s hand surrounded the second man’s neck. Neri’s weight provided leverage for Hunter to rip the shifter’s head clean off his body before he threw it in the same direction the first one had taken.

“Kitchen.”

They walked side-by-side into her favorite room and Neri’s heart dropped. Zahava held a knife up to Thalia’s neck. She also thought Thalia was a threat because Zahava wrapped a rope around her torso and the chair tying her arms at her sides and trapping her.

“What do you want, Zahava?”

Instead of answering Neri’s question, Zahava’s eyes kept flicking toward Hunter, accessing him in a way Neri didn’t understand. Not sexual, because of the hardness in her brown eyes, but a puzzle piece she couldn’t fit until that moment.

“Who is this?”

“None of your fucking business.”

Zahava pressed the knife harder against Thalia’s neck and this time, Neri spotted a speck of blood that welled from the tip of her knife digging in. Rage rushed through her and for a moment, and she wanted to kill. But knowing Thalia’s life was in danger, she knew she couldn’t be rash, although her panther brain fought against reason.

“This will get you nowhere. Why are you here?”

The question triggered Zahava’s anger, and she directed it back toward Neri.

“You left me,” she screamed.

Neri blinked at the accusation. She was twelve when she met Thalia and before that, none of the foster homes she stayed in made her feel safe. The families who had taken her in didn’t hide the fact they saw her stay in their home as a paycheck. As long as she stayed out of the way and didn’t eat much, they ignored her. But they and many others grew tired of her and within weeks, she moved on to the next home. Neri had been lucky Thalia decided she wanted Neri for good.

“I didn’t leave you. The orphanage shut down, and we were all sent to different foster homes. I had no control over where I went, much less where you went. Why would you think I left you?”

Zahava twitched before she shook her head, refusing to believe what she was saying. She paced, which allowed Neri to teleport to Thalia and cut the ropes holding her mother. “When I signal you, inch out the back door.”

Thalia nodded and Neri teleported back to Hunter’s side.

“No, no, I told you I wanted to go with you.”

“Yes, but I remember the director of the orphanage explained to you we couldn’t go to the same home because there’s no relation between us.”

“You should have fought for me?”

Neri noticed the more Zahava spoke, the more she edged toward the door to the living room. Neri knew this wouldn’t end well for her old roommate and she would kill her before she made it through the doorway.

“How, I was eleven? The administrator scared the shit out of me and every time I spoke, she told me to shut up.”

Neri glanced at Thalia and noticed her eyes focused on her. As Zahava glanced at Hunter again, Neri jerked her head to the left, indicating to her mother she should leave. With silent steps, Thalia pushed open the back screen door and stepped out, closing it behind her. Once she was outside, Neri managed not to sigh aloud.

The hardness in Zahava’s eyes returned as she pinned Neri with a withering look. “Do you have any idea what happened in those homes. Theyusedme and threw me away and yet you were nowhere. You weren’t there to protect me from those older boys who raped me while the foster parents ignored everything going on in their house.”

Her words stunned Neri. Her body stood still in shock as tears pricked her eyes for the woman in front of her, for the innocent child who hurt in the worst ways possible.

A large part of her knew something must have happened to Zahava to make her hate them. But no matter what she said to placate Zahava, her anger overruled rational thought. And knowing what happened to her in the foster homes they sent her to, her heart ached for the child she had been. But she had chosen this life; where she killed and wanted power and revenge for some perceived slight.