Page 40

39

The bond goes quiet. Not frayed. Not distant. Just… quiet. I feel the wrongness sliding beneath my skin like poison the instant it happens.

The thread between us—between Parker and me—has always pulsed with something. Even when she’s trying to ignore me. Even when she’s scared, or angry, or tangled up in the human.

She’s always there. A familiar thrum in my blood, a fire licking at the edges of my senses, as constant as the pull of gravity…

Until she’s not.

At first, I think it’s her. A panic. A push. Some instinctive recoil from the intensity of last night. I wouldn’t blame her. She’s teetering on the edge of surrender, and it terrifies her.

But then I reach for her… and slam into something cold. Something solid. It’s not distance. Not fear. But a block.

Something’s severed the bond.

And not just hidden her from my senses.

They cut me off. Completely. She’s gone. Like a light snuffed out. Like she never existed.

A violent, unnatural absence rips through me, hollow and sharp, like my insides have been ripped open and left to bleed.

My vision narrows. My chest heaves. My claws unsheathe, aching for blood.

I reach again, harder this time. Stretching, pulling, demanding?—

And I feel it.

A presence. Writhing at the edge of the severed thread. Shadowy. Oily. Reeking of rot and old, starving hunger.

Steorfan.

A snarl rips from my throat, deep and feral. The sound makes the air crack.

That pathetic little worm.

He took her.

He dared.

The rage that erupts in my chest is an inferno not of this realm. It is not measured. It is not controlled. It is a beast breaking free of its fucking chains.

Power detonates through my veins, hot and lethal, demanding an outlet, demanding blood. My spine cracks. My muscles coil. My claws flex like they’re already tearing through flesh.

I move before I think—before the instinct to kill overrides everything else?—

A snarl of black mist, a shift through space, and I slam into existence inside her home.

Empty.

The scent of her lingers—faint orange blossoms and fire—but it’s old. Stale.

No fresh heartbeat. No warmth. No Parker.

I stalk through the space, not bothering to watch my size. A vase topples onto the floor and shatters in my haste to get to her bedroom.

Not here.

The bed is still messy from our coupling. Her blankets shredded, feathers still littering the floor.

No struggle. No blood. Just gone.

My claws bite into my palms. My fangs grind together. My vision shakes with fury so sharp it borders on madness.

He planned this.

He waited until I was distracted. Until I was content.

And then he took her.

Something in my chest snaps—a control I’ve barely held onto, a restraint that’s been hanging by a thread since the moment Parker gave herself to me.

The Evergloom won’t protect him. The darkness he hides in won’t save him. Because no one takes what’s mine.

But where?

I need to track her. Need to hunt. Need to?—

The bakery. The thought slams into me like instinct, a gut-punch of realization. She had a shift tonight. Someone must have seen something.

I move before I can finish the thought. Another shift, another snap of black mist?—

And I land in carnage. The scent of blood chokes the air and there’s bodies. Two of them. One near the counter, another by the door.

I roll my shoulders, the monster in me thrumming at the violence in the air, at the fresh scent of death. But I don’t care about them.

I care about her.

And she’s not fucking here.

A low growl builds in my throat, my pulse hammering as I scan the space—searching, processing, calculating. And then… Movement.

A figure near the counter clutching a phone to his ear.

Hobson.

I grin, sharp and vicious.

I let my power leak into the room, let my presence fill the space?—

And the moment he feels me, his head snaps up, eyes going wide with fear and surprise.

But then they narrow in rage.

That makes two of us, little mortal.