Page 62 of Eclipse Sector

He picked up after the second ring, his face cast in shadows as he said, “Someone had better be dying, Cillian…”

“Is Ivana in Blood Sector?” I asked, ignoring the warning note in his tone.

He sat up, instantly more alert. “Last I checked, she was with you.”

“Can you sense her in Blood Sector?” I reiterated, not in the mood to banter with my best friend.

Kieran fell silent for a beat. “No.”

“Fuck.” I hung up the phone and wiped my hand over my face. “Fuck.”

Where the hell did she go?My mind instantly pictured that hole I’d once found her in.Starving, naked, bruised, and going into heat…

I’d never forget that night for as long as I existed.

The images of a broken Omega on the verge of her first estrus assaulted my mind as my wrist buzzed with an incoming alert. I didn’t even have to look at the screen to know it was Kieran phoning me back.

Growling, I shadowed back to the igloo before accepting his call. “I…” I trailed off, my nose twitching as Ivana’s scent washed over me instantly. “I found her.”

I hung up again before Kieran could reply, my focus entirely on the Omega I couldsmellbut notfeelin the igloo. I’d shadowed back here with the intention of finding my pants, but now all I could focus on was Ivana and the mental wall she’d somehow created between us.

That’s new,I thought. Alphas had been able to block my ability to read their minds before, but never theirauras. I could always sense their nearness, as well as their power.

But Ivana…

I sensed nothing other than her scent.

Sweet Omega perfume. Like an orange garden warmed by the sun.

Only there was an undercurrent of something sour in her fragrance. More like a grapefruit than an orange.

It inspired the memory of our first meeting to deepen in my mind, my nose twitching with the remembrance of her tainted scent.

So much sadness.

Devastation.

Fear.

The hairs along the back of my neck rose as I checked our perimeter, searching for any sign of a threat. Anyone or anything that could have made her feel this way.

But the only presence I sensed—other than hers—was my own.

And I’d been with her just moments ago,I thought.When she’d vanished from the?—

My wrist buzzed again, Kieran’s name scrawling through the air like a bad omen.

Taking a deep breath—one filled with that grapefruit-like perfume—I answered his call. “I’m sorry I disturbed your sleep,” I told him before he could speak. “But I need to focus on Ivana right now.”

His face hovered before me in a translucent shadow, his gaze searching. “I’ll call Lorcan. He’ll shadow in to cover for you while you fix whatever you fucked up.”

This time, Kieran ended the call before I could reply.

Who says I fucked something up?I would have thought at him had he been close enough to hear me.

Except, I was pretty sure I had fucked up.

And the evidence of that fuckup was souring Ivana’s scent.