Page 92 of The Reaper's Vow

Before I can respond, the power fails. Emergency lights kick on almost immediately, bathing everything in blood-red. I curse under my breath, instinctively reaching for the knife at my belt. This wasn't part of the plan.

“Elias—”

A gunshot cracks through the air, muffled but unmistakable.

Damien!Her plea rips through our connection—thin, desperate, fading.

I’m already moving, shoving bodies aside as I carve a path toward the VIP section. The emergency lights stutter, then die, plunging the club into chaos. Screams rise from the humans, but I don’t need light. My wolf’s sight cuts through the black as if it’sdusk, every sense sharpened by adrenaline and the need to reach her.

The tether between us falters, growing weaker with every heartbeat. Something’s wrong. Terribly wrong.

Karina!

Silence.

A roar tears from my chest, her name ripped free in a sound that shakes the air. Panicked bodies slam against me as the crowd surges for the exits, but I barely register the impacts. My world has shrunk to the void where her presence should be.

“Damien!” Elias shouts somewhere behind me, but I don’t slow. Can’t. My mate is slipping away, and every second drags her further from my reach.

I reach the VIP entrance, my hands finding the door handle. It's locked. I throw my shoulder against it with enough force to splinter the frame, the door exploding inward with a crash that echoes through the mayhem below.

The stench of blood hits me immediately. Gabriel's blood. I can smell it even before my eyes adjust enough to see his motionless form sprawled near the entrance, liquid pooling beneath him.

“Gabriel!” I drop to my knees beside him, pressing my fingers to his throat. There—weak, but there. A pulse. He's alive, barely.

But the couch where Karina sat is empty. The leather still holds her scent, but it's already fading, mixing with something else. Something medicinal and sharp that makes my wolf snarl in recognition.

Sedative.

“Fuck!” I slam my fist into the floor hard enough to crack the concrete beneath the carpet. They drugged her. That's why I can’t feel her.

Elias bursts through the doorway, his phone already at his ear. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! I need a medical team at the VIP section, now. Gabriel's down.”

I'm barely listening, my senses working overtime as I try to catch Karina's scent trail. Her perfume, her shampoo, the unique musk that marks her as mine—I search for anything that might tell me which way they took her. But the air is a confusion of smells: Gabriel's blood, spilled alcohol, and overwhelming pheromones.

“Can you tell which way they went?” Elias asks, crouching beside Gabriel and pressing his wadded-up jacket against the wound.

I drop to all fours, my face inches from the carpet as I inhale deeply. There—beneath all of the scents in this room, I catch it. Karina's scent, mixed with Lockhart's, heading toward the back exit. But there's something else. Something that makes my wolf rear back in confusion.

“Saloma,” I growl, the name tasting like poison on my tongue.

Elias's head snaps up with disbelief. “What? My stepmother?”

“Her scent is all over this room.” I rise to my feet, fury coursing through my veins like molten lead. “She was here with Lockhart. She helped him take Karina.”

“That's impossible. Why would my stepmother be here?”

The rage inside me crystallizes into something colder, deadlier. I stare at Elias, my oldest friend, my brother in everything but blood, and for the first time, I see him as a stranger.

“Is it?” I grab him by the throat, slamming him against the wall with enough force to crack the plaster. “Was this your plan all along? Was this what your father wanted in exchange for using his club? My fucking mate?”

Elias's hands claw at my grip. “Damien—I swear—I didn't?—”

I tighten my hold, lifting him until his feet barely touch the ground. “Your stepmother's scent is all over this room! She was here with Lockhart. She helped him take Karina!”

“I didn't know,” he chokes out, his face reddening from lack of oxygen. “Damien, you have to believe me.”

Part of me wants to crush his windpipe, to feel something break beneath my hands since I can't reach the people who truly deserve my wrath. But beneath my fury, I smell his terror that can't be faked.