Page 88 of These Eternal Bones

He shifts uneasily, leaning in. It's odd behavior for the older man. “We received word from the old woman that the boat docked…sir.”

Rage and fear slam into me like a gale-force wind. I can hear my Molly extract herself from behind me. It takes everything I have not to shove her back down to it, cover her delicate flesh with my own, and snarl like a wild animal. I adjust my neck instead. “Leave us. I’ll go into town immediately.”

He nods, blipping from the room after offering my mate a reassuring smile.

“Elric, what’s going on?”

I’m in front of her before she finishes, cupping her flushed cheek in my clean hand, brushing my thumb over her lips. “Nothing, my love, an issue at the marina. I’ll handle it and be back quickly, yes? I was nowhere near done with you.”

She frowns. “C-can I go?”

My jaw clenches, the disappointment in her pretty green eyes worming under my skin.

Her smile is weak, but it’s real as she lifts, kissing me deeply before offering me a little wink. “I’m keeping you to your word that you’ll hurry. I wasn’t done either.”

She’s in danger,

He came for her.

He’s going to kill her!

This is it.

Whatever hits the bond makes her eyes widen, her hand pressing to her chest as her smile falters. “I-I love you.”

“I love you more.” I press my forehead to hers, trying to ward away the needling fear, the worry and rage as the voice pesters from the backof my mind. Nearly stumbling, I rush into our old chambers to dress. Haunting memories of her lifeless bodies displaying in my mind.

No…

No.

“I won’t let her go.” It’s a vow, one spoken to only myself as I blur toward town, feeling like more beast than man.

The forest passes like a whirl, a nasty snarl leaving me as the fox joins my race. “The woods are uneasy today. Keep her close.”

My attention snaps toward him, anger bubbling in my gut, but he pivots, slapping a tree and disappearing with a haze of pine green light.

By the time the town comes into view, my tendrils are unbound from where they were wrapped around my chest and stomach, unable to keep them hidden for the sake of the humans. A woman screams as my footsteps pound the cobblestone, my eyes scanning the dock.

When I jerk into Thalia’s shop, the door rips from its hinges, falling to the ground outside. I grimace at it before scanning the empty front room, inhaling deeply. Every scent here is old, faded. By days, maybe.

She’s not here…nobody is. It’s fresh traces of the Nephilim that deepen my glare.

They’re going after her!

Go to her!

I blur onto the dock, my chest heaving with unnecessary breath as my thoughts muddle into one malevolent breathing entity. One born from fear and malice. My tendrils snag a remotely familiar man. His scream cut off as one tendril whips like razor wire around his throat. So different from the incorrigible soft things they are for our mate. “The vessel that hailed from Mertigas. Where is it?” I growl.

The man’s eyes are nearly all white, his fear as pungent as the urine leaking down his legs. “I-I…”

He screams as I jerk him inches from my face. “Where?!”

I barely hear the sobbing and pounding footfalls of the humans running from the town epicenter.

“There isn’t one!” he cries.

The world around me goes still and, for once, the voice is quiet. Deathly so, its omen going unspoken.