Page 142 of Ballad of Nightmares

“Deianira Bronfell is the match,” he declared in a voice so dangerous that even the lightning outside did not feel like a threat. He looked between his awaiting friends, seeing smiles curl on their lips.

“Everything burns.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

AS MILLIE AND Rolfe made a few phone calls, Sam paced his office, Luna purring in his arms. He continued to replay everything that had happened that night. The deaths. The intruders. The Council. Ana in his arms. The declarations they’d made and the things he was ready to give her.

Every second that passed was a thorn in his heart. Anger rose with every crack of lightning outside. He couldn’t control the shadows around his feet or how the roses on his desk wilted and came back to life every time a whisper of that fog ascended over them. Everything in that room rose and fell; it teetered at the balance of life and death. He held that power like a surge of electricity in the room, and when he heard the sound of a deathhound’s paws clamoring up the stairs, Luna scattered out of his arms.

“Fuck it’s cold in here,” Millie said as she made it upstairs just after Rolfe.

Millie patted the top of Rolfe’s gigantic wolf-like head, which stood as tall as her own. “Such a good boy,” she said in a teasing voice, her fingers running through the shaggy black hair.

Rolfe snarled, baring his teeth, and Millie just laughed. “You want to play fetch?” she said, backing up and grabbing an apple from the bowl on the kitchen table. “Come on. Good boy. You want it? You want the apple?”

His tail flipped back and forth, anger seeping in those icy eyes as he warned Millie to stop. Sam chuckled under his breath. “Enough, Milliscent,” he said. “He’ll take out your throat again.”

Millie straightened and tossed the apple back on the table, then blew a kiss at the great, sneering deathhound, to which Rolfe let out a low growl. “I have missed that thrill,” she admitted as she looked at Sam.

Sam’s phone rang, and he frowned between the pair as he held it to his ear.

“What?” he snapped into the receiver.

“Fuck of a way to answer your phone, love,” Jay said on the other end.

Sam sighed heavily. “Jay,” he managed. “You caught me at a bad time. What is it?”

The way Jay laughed made Sam stop in his tracks. His entire body went rigid, and he stared at the desk.

“You remember I called you the other day about our girl,” Jay said. “About how I couldn’t find her. Well, I found her,” Jay said, and Sam could practically hear the smile in his voice.

Sam’s fingers tightened around the phone.

“Good thing, too,” Jay continued. “I can’t wait to take her home. People will throw parades in my name. The one to bring the Tower back for trial… if we ever make it to trial. Something tells me they’ll torture her for a few weeks before chopping off her head.”

Lightning hit the window, and Sam began to shake.

“You’re fucking dead,” Sam hissed.

Jay laughed. “No, love. She is.”

Sam nearly hurled his phone across the room. He pulled it away from his ear, entire body trembling, and stared at the now blank screen.

Fucking…

“Jay has her,” he said before his friends could ask. “Fucking—“

The phone flew from his hand and crashed into the opposite wall. Lightbulbs in the chandelier blew. The entire castle shook beneath a crack of violent thunder.

“What—Jay? From the gallery?” Millie balked. “That idiot?”

“We’ll find out more when we get to them.” Sam turned to Rolfe. “You found where they are?”

Rolfe nodded.

“And backup?”

A roar sounded outside. A great muffled echo of humming motorcycles speeding up the long drive through the middle of the cemetery. Thunder rumbled with the declaration of demons answering their calls, and Sam saw Millie and Rolfe exchange a smile.