Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 109033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
The only others here were Tobe, Jolene, Ciaran, Tia, Alfie, and Beck—people already aware of Naomi’s secrets. They hadn’t called on Khloë, because her mate would have insisted on going into battle with her. No, that wasn’t happening.
Urgency still pounding at Luka—an urgency to find, protect, avenge—he cricked his neck. His demons continued to writhe beneath his flesh, all edgy, hypervigilant, restless, and sending him psychic snapshots of the many revenge scenarios flickering through their minds.
Luka turned, the hard-packed sandy ground crunching beneath his feet, and stalked over to Tobe. He glanced down at the imp’s cell phone. On the screen was an overhead map of the area, a thick red dot pulsing in its center. It only gave them a general sense of where Naomi might be. She could be up to half a mile away in either direction. “The signal can’t get any more specific than that?”
“No,” Tobe muttered, visibly frustrated by it.
Jolene set her hands on her hips. “The monkhood has to be using glamor magick to hide their monastery.”
Luka had considered that. Since the clerics were able to channel divine power, the glamor would be strong. Still . . . “There should be some evidence of people coming and going, though, shouldn’t there? It isn’t as if they can teleport.” Almost itchy with exasperation, he called out to his mate again. Naomi, we’re close. Need a little help finding you. Can you call on your flames?
Her psyche brushed against his. Don’t . . . Luka . . . dandy . . . trust me on . . . home . . .
He sighed. “If I understood her telepathic comment correctly, I should trust that she’s ‘dandy’ right now.” As if he’d be so easily reassured. “I had hoped that the mind-to-mind frequency would be clearer with close proximity, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.”
“Which means we can’t rely on her to guide us,” said Mikhail. “We’ll have to set off on foot and search for her.”
Nikandr nodded. “It would be best to split into groups and head in varying directions.”
“Not necessary,” Tia told them with a flap of her hand. “All we need to do is wait.”
Luka looked at the imps, all of whom were far too calm for his liking. “Wait for what?”
“For her demon to make its move,” replied Tia. “Trust me, it’ll make enough of a fuss for us to know exactly where we need to head.”
Mikhail squinted. “You really think her demon can take on a dark practitioner and a bunch of clerics? If that were the case, it would have done so before now.”
It was Tobe who responded. “Naomi didn’t give it the chance, because she knows that it can’t be trusted to hold back.” Pausing, he pocketed his cell. “Think of it as a rabid dog on a leash. You’re not going to unclip that leash unless you have no other choice, because you know that the dog will attack without sense or control.”
“As I said earlier,” Jolene began, “the inner entities of demons with angelic blood can sometimes be unstable.”
Which was one of the reasons why Luka hadn’t particularly wanted Ella to mate Viper. A child carrying both angelic and demonic blood . . . you never quite knew exactly what you were going to get. And then Luka had gone off and mated such a hybrid himself. Fate had to be laughing its ass off at him.
A light breeze brushed over him, carrying the scents of dry air and baked earth. “It might be better if we just . . .” He stopped talking as a rumble built, snagging his attention. It vibrated along the ground, drumming at the soles of his feet through his shoes, making sand and pebbles dance and shift.
Alfie stumbled backwards, cursing as a thorny brush caught at his pants. “Well, I’d say that’s courtesy of our girl. We just need—”
A boom reverberated through the air as rocks, earth, and sand seemed to explode upward a short distance away. Echoes of alarm and fear quickly followed, and then . . . well, it looked like people were climbing out of a fracture in the desert.
“They were underground,” Luka realized.
As one, he and the other demons raced toward the scene. Despite the distance, he could hear panicked cries, fire sizzling, and magick crackling. More ground near the fissure gave way, widening the gap, causing all those who’d clambered out of it to fall back down.
There were two more booms as the land on all sides of the fissure collapsed. Trapping the clerics and Kushiel, maybe? Ensuring that they had only one exit?
It occurred to Luka that maybe they’d been using a tunnel system to travel to and from the area, and that Naomi’s demon had purposely blocked the passageways, but he didn’t bother ruminating on it. His priority was getting to her.