Page 6 of Savage Blood (Den of Shadows #6)

Chapter

Five

Fireworks exploded through my body, sending me soaring through the air and crashing into the hard black and white tiles. Blood spilled over my tongue as the room spun, and I tumbled across the floor.

My cheek landed on a soft plush carpet that smelled like vanilla and sugar.

What the hell?

There was no carpet in Karn’s grand room.

As I blinked the haze from my vision, a room with navy walls, a decorative tray ceiling, and brown leather couches came into view. Electricity ricocheted across the tattoos on my neck and down my arm.

“Tate?”

A pair of familiar scuffed black boots approached, and when I looked up, my heart nearly combusted.

“Fane.”

Before I could pick myself up off the floor, Fane grabbed my arms, hauled me up, and crushed me into his chest. I melted into him, savoring his scent of leather and warm fire. Trembling against him, I inhaled his presence like a drug.

“Where the fuck are you?” he growled, the pain in his voice so thick it cut me like a knife. “I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.”

I drew back as far as he would allow, which was barely more than an inch. “I’m at Karn’s old manor.”

His head yanked back, ebony hair falling across his forehead. “Karn’s? That place is destroyed?”

“What’s she saying?” Logan asked. “Why is she talking about Karn?”

I peered over Fane’s shoulder as Logan, Wrath, Saint, and Hawk loomed over a pool table, maps and old leather-bound books scattering across the surface. Apparently, trying to interrupt the ritual had knocked my consciousness out of my body and right to Fane at Wrath’s house.

Sickness twisted my gut as Ruin’s shrieks replayed through my mind. Had I stopped the ritual, or was Ruin still writhing in pain?

“I don’t know how much time I have, but I need to tell you, well, a lot.” A grimace pulled at my lips. “And you won’t like it.”

Voices reverberated through the room as everyone spoke at once, asking a million questions. Fane bared his teeth, his pupils thinning into long slits.

“Guys, just give me a damn minute.” As his consciousness separated from his body, he eased me back a few steps. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” For the most part, anyway.

Once Wrath noticed Fane’s immobile form, he tossed his hands in the air. “He’s not currently home.”

Logan smiled, his electric blue eyes softening. “Go easy on him. He needs a minute alone with his mate. ”

Fane gripped my face and crushed his lips to mine, his hoop piercing searing my flesh. As his tongue caressed mine, tasting of cinnamon and wicked fantasies, all other thoughts vanished from my mind.

I should have blurted as much information as possible before my body yanked back, but I could finally breathe again. Being separated from Fane was hell, and not just because we were mates. My heart ached for him, and I had no idea when I’d see him again.

Did Saint even know his mother was missing? Doubtful, since he was here trying to help Fane find me.

“Why do you insist on scaring me to death?” he murmured against my mouth, his tongue licking my bottom lip, spilling shivers down my spine. “When Barric dragged you into that fucking portal, I went insane. A couple of tombstones are now pulverized into sand.”

My fingers ran up his neck and across his jaw, the growing stubble rough against my skin. “I should have known better than to fall for Roxie’s lies.”

His throat vibrated with a snarl. “I’d like to feed her to a pit of venomous vipro demons and laugh at her screams while they tear her apart, limb from limb. Or maybe I’ll just do the tearing apart myself.”

“That’s pretty graphic, Maverick.” I rubbed my nose against his, my every inhale filled with him. “Why don’t you paint a picture?”

“Maybe I will.” He rested his forehead on mine as his hands dragged down my sides, landing on my hips. “I love you.”

My sharp intake of air echoed between us, and bittersweet pangs whipped through my chest. “So I didn’t imagine that.”

“Sorry it took me so long to say it, fiera mika. I just…” He swallowed hard as agony twisted through him. “I’ve loved yo u for a long time, a lot longer than I can even remember, but I couldn’t fucking say it.”

My hand pressed into his cheek as I took his emotional pain. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Fane. You didn’t have to say it. I felt it.”

Every touch, every kiss, and every time he moved inside of me, I felt his love.

“I would like nothing more than to lay you out on the damn pool table and bury myself deep inside of you, but figuring out a way to get to you is more important.” Fane brushed his lips against mine again.

“You said you’re at Karn’s. How’s that possible when I destroyed the place the last time I had to rescue you? ”

“You helped me escape,” I corrected.

The demon shifter smirked. “Whatever you want to call it, Teague.”

“There’s a little problem with getting to me.

” I inched back to put a little more space between us, so we wouldn’t start kissing again.

“The Collective Nosterium—that’s what Barric’s inner circle is calling themselves—resurrected Karn’s manor, but to anyone not in the group, it looks like a pile of rubble. There’s no access to it.”

Fane rolled his neck. “Our connection might allow me to see it if you’re inside.”

“Not according to Roxie.” My stomach clenched when I looked over his shoulder at Saint as he leaned against the pool table, studying a map. “They have Enid.”

“Enid?”

Saint’s head snapped toward Fane—because the name had come out of his incorporeal form right in front of me and his physical one .

“What about my mom?” Saint asked, worry lines developing across his forehead.

The demon shifter cursed and shook his head. “That’s my sign to return to my body.”

As Fane floated backward, he pulled me with him until his consciousness slipped back into his physical form, but before he could answer Saint, the alpha’s phone rang.

He pulled his cell out of his pocket, checked the screen, and answered it. “Dad, what’s wrong?” His silver gaze shot toward Fane. “What do you mean, missing?”

“The Collective has your mother,” Fane admitted.

“She’s okay,” I said. “Barric knows if he hurts her, I won’t cooperate.”

Fane’s brows slammed together. “Cooperate how?”

“What the fuck is she saying?” Saint snatched a pool ball, and if he gripped it any tighter, he’d shatter it into a million pieces.

“Your mom is fine.” Fane relayed my words, and then Saint spoke to his father, all the while a storm of rage flashing through the alpha’s silver irises.

Knots formed in my chest as Saint hung up and paced the room. The Collective Nosterium had captured his mother because of me.

Why did so many have to suffer because of me?

“Well, things are a little more complicated than we thought.” Hawk dragged his hand through his tousled dark blond strands. “They have Tate, and they have your mom, but all we’ve got to do is go into the Underworld and get them. Easy peasy.”

“Not exactly.” Fane told them about the Infernal Sol masking the location and cutting off access.

A feral growl tore out of Saint, and he launched the pool ball through the air so hard it crashed through a wall and vanished somewhere in the hall.

Logan sighed. “Why does everyone have to demolish my things? I’m never letting you guys have a meeting in my room again.”

I inhaled a shaky breath, steadying my nerves. “That’s not all.”

Fane turned toward me, blinking. “There’s something worse than The Collective having you and Enid?”

Curses rippled through the room as the group realized the situation was about to get much worse.

“Ruin is alive,” I blurted.

“Ruin?” A blood-red glow flashed over Fane’s eyes, and the atmosphere around him churned like the sea before a storm. “Is alive?”

Wrath bolted from his position against the wall as Fane’s words spilled through the room and the temperature seemed to drop a few degrees. “I fucking knew it. And he’s helping The Collective with all these demon rituals.”

“Not quite.” I ambled toward the pool table, realizing they’d been analyzing maps of the Underworld. “Ruin didn’t purposely fake his death. After disintegrating in the lab, he lost time and somehow ended up in the Underworld. Not long after, The Collective started hunting him.”

“Hunting him?” Fane drew closer, as if our bond wouldn’t let us be more than a few feet apart.

“He’s a prisoner just like me, maybe worse.” I choked back the acid seeping up my throat. “They chained him up and are forcing him to help with these rituals. The one happening right now is siphoning his power to strengthen them.”

A shudder rolled down my back at the memories of Ruin screaming and bucking in pain while those psychopath shifters danced around him. I explained the horrific details and how my consciousness ended up in Logan’s suit at Wrath’s house.

“And you’re sure Ruin’s being forced to assist?” Wrath asked after Fane communicated my words to everyone. “It couldn’t be a trick?”

“It’s not.” I examined an open book written in a demon language. “They’re torturing him and using me to coerce his cooperation.”

The tattoos on Fane’s arms and neck twitched as he tried to keep his demon wolf from bursting out, his aura darkening with every ragged breath. “I don’t care what Ruin is going through. He’s going to pay for what he did to my brother.”

“And to all the shifters he abducted and tormented,” Saint added, tugging on the roots of his black hair.

I rubbed the center of my forehead, knowing Ruin’s resurrection would be a sore subject. “We can figure out what to do with him later.”

Logan poured Skittles into his hand as he perched on the edge of the pool table, perusing the colorful candies. “So Barric’s zealots have adopted the Nosterium name, adding it to their little group. They’re certainly acting like the demonic cult Ruin used to lead.”

“They’ve completely lost?—”

An invisible string tugged at my center, and I stumbled back.

No!

“Tate, what’s wrong?” Fane’s long legs ate up the distance between us, and he grabbed my hand.

“My body is pulling me back.” I squeezed his fingers as panic erupted through our bond, ricocheting between us. “I can’t hold this form anymore.”

Fane stepped out of his body again. “Take me with you. ”

“I don’t know if I can.”

Tears burned in my eyes. It was too soon. This time with him wasn’t long enough, and I had no idea when or if I could get back. It took a blast of power from a dark ritual to free my mind.

“Don’t let go.” Fane jerked me into him, trembling as he tried to keep us together.

But it didn’t matter how much we fought it. An invisible force wedged between us, prying us apart, and it yanked me away from him once again. His anguished howl followed me through time and space.

I crashed to the ground, rolled across the hard floor, and slammed into a leather couch.

My skull throbbed as I turned on my back and stared up at a coffered ceiling much lower than the one in Karn’s great room. Nearby voices permeated the space.

“I think you should take it off. Just for an hour.”

I sat up as Jax folded into a plush leather chair while Barric stood in front of a lit fireplace, caressing the Infernal Sol around his neck.

Clearly, I hadn’t gone back to my body.

As I examined the black and crimson décor, slick hardwoods, and gothic fireplace mantel, I recognized the room from previous visions. This was Barric’s private quarters somewhere in Karn’s manor.

“It’s safest on me,” Barric said, evidently reluctant to remove the amulet.

I snorted. It had nothing to do with safety. He didn’t want to be separated from the intoxicating power.

Jax reached for the iron box on the coffee table in front of him. “Thirty minutes, Barric. You want to make sure you’re controlling the stone and not the other way around, right? ”

A laugh burst out of my mouth. “It’s already too late for that, Dad.”

“Fine.” Barric’s lips thinned as he marched toward Jax. “Just for half an hour.”

A breath of relief rushed out of Jax as he opened the box and held it out toward Barric. He knew the amulet was controlling his alpha, but he couldn’t do much to stop it. Taking it off for thirty minutes wouldn’t be enough.

The alpha’s hands trembled as he reluctantly lifted the necklace over his head and gingerly placed the amulet into the black velvet bed. He flinched when Jax closed the box and set it on the table.

Roman entered the room, his shoulders relaxing when he realized Barric had removed the Infernal Sol. “Everything is still going according to plan. Tate’s interference did little to hinder the power transfer.”

Barric nodded. “And how’s Ruin? He’s not too depleted, is he? His assistance significantly speeds up our time frame.”

“He’ll be fine with a little rest.” Roman grabbed a glass from the bar on the left and poured a tall drink. “His strength and power will regenerate. He’s just a little, well, insane, at the moment.”

Jax’s gaze darkened as he scrutinized the box on the burnished coffee table. “The Infernal Sol has that effect.”

A heavy silence penetrated the room, and no one wanted to point out the obvious, that The Collective Nosterium members were also no longer in their right minds.

Barric cleared his throat and ambled to the bar. “It won’t be much longer now. We have Ruin and Tate. Once we’ve amassed enough power, we can perform the Admordum Nexia Covenant.”

Admordum Nexia Covenant ?

Something deep inside me recognized the danger, the threat, in that name.

An ominous grin curled Barric’s mouth. “This ritual will do what no one in our history has been capable of. And we’ll become legends—gods, even.”

Jax matched Barric’s smile and lifted his glass. “They’ll never expect it. And there won’t be a damn thing anyone can do to stop it.”

My stomach dropped, and I scrambled to my feet, listening intently. This was their master plan, the reason behind all these demon rituals.

Barric raised his glass. “The Infernal Sol will be able to?—”

An invisible fist gripped my core again and thrust me out of the room, the rest of Barric’s words muffled in my ears.