Page 117 of Third Offense

Ketos pressed his palm to his chest, wincing as he rasped out, “What’s happening?”

“We’ve all been under some sort of enchantment while the Nora have been trying to find a way around that invisible shield,” I summarized, swallowing. “And someone stabbed you. I don’t know who, but they tried to blame Auric.”

Which I knew wasn’t true.

He wouldn’t do that.

Regardless, I needed to figure this out.

“Something happened on the plane. We were drugged. Iston was bugged. I don’t know about Kyril or Netiri. I don’t know where Clyde is. But we were clearly meant to be distracted to give the Nora enough time to attack.” And this all happened while Vasilios was gone, too

I frowned.

Is that why they’re waiting now? They need him to return?

Maybe it wasn’t about me at all, but making sure they entered at the right time. He wasn’t due back for two more days. However, Auric saw through the glamour. He knew there was something wrong. “That’s why they framed him,” I breathed. “Because Auric wasn’t playing along. He saw through it.”

“And he told me, too,” Ketos said, his voice still raspy, but the redness on his chest had begun to fade back into his pale coloring. Now his skin was just covered in dried blood. “I… I came here this morning… to witness what he’d been telling me. Only Netiri—”

The kitchen rattled as a loudBoom!echoed through the estate.

I spun toward the beach, my heart stopping in my chest as a jolt of energy sizzled across my skin.

This hadn’t been like the other attacks. It’d been impactful. Thorough. And downright destructive.

Because they hadn’t just frayed the edges of my barrier.

They’ddemolishedit.

“They’re coming,” I whispered. We needed to run.Right. Now.

CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE

KETOS

Energy whirled around me,the familiarity of it calling upon my soul, demanding I absorb it,take it, let it heal me entirely.

Only the source of it gave me pause.

Layla.

I frowned, not understanding how she’d created this… thisentityof power.

Until I realized…

She’s coming into her gift.

My lips parted in awe even as my spirit begged me to draw in the foreign energy, to allow it to bolster my reserves, to give me strength.

But I would never take from her.

She was my betrothed. My compatible mate. And she stood in this room like a warrior, overlooking us all, with her jaw clenched in determination.

“They’re coming,” she repeated, the words one I’d only barely heard before. But now they were beginning to register, the meaning behind them, the trembling foundation around us,that delicious energy swirling in the air.

It was fragmented, broken,destroyedby something outside. And dancing all over the room as it trickled back into Layla’s aura. I doubted she could see it, but she undoubtedly felt it.

This was energy.