“Stop!” he shouted.
Macy slammed on the brakes, and they all bumped forward.
“We don’t have time—” Devon started, but Dillon was already crawling over Barbara to get out of the van.
“She got a note. She must’ve dropped it.” He fumbled with the lock before ripping open the door. A horn blared from behind them.
“What’s he talking about?” Devon asked, rocking Charity, terror dripping down his spine. She was burning up and shivering. Something wasn’t right. She’d never reacted this badly before.
“He’s…” Barbara twisted to try to see.
Macy looked in the rearview mirror. “He grabbed something off the pavement.”
“A note, did he say?” Cole tried to turn around in a seat that barely contained him.
Dillon appeared at the van door as the horn blared again. The van in front had stopped down the road.
“She got this.” Dillon motioned for Barbara to scoot over. He handed the note back to Devon. “She must’ve dropped it when she freaked out.”
“She did not freak out; she had a magical—”
“Yes, yes, we know,” Dillon interrupted Cole.
Devon’s gaze snagged on the first line of the note. Then the last. Cold washed through him. “How did Vlad know she calls him her BFF? She only spoke of that around the pack. Didn’t she?”
Dillon shrugged.
“The vampires have their spies,” Barbara said, looking back. “As do we. What is the nature of that note?”
“Do you also have to be weirdly stilted in your communication to be an elite?” Macy asked her. “Because I’m sensing a pattern.”
Barbara showed no signs of having heard.
Devon passed the note forward. “Hang on to that. She’ll want it.” He hesitated before pressing his hand to her forehead. Still hot. “Did she believe it?”
“She was blindsided,” Dillon said. “It threw her for a loop. But yeah, I think she must believe it.”
Barbara studied the note before passing it forward to Cole. “It’s a trick of some kind,” she said authoritatively. “He might know where her mother is, but there is more to it. He hopes to gain something from it.”
“Yes. We’re not dense. We know that.” Dillon shot her a flat look. “Charity must know it too. The problem is, she’s still big-time screwed up about her mother leaving. She won’t be rational.”
“It could be his way of getting Charity back out of the Flush,” Devon said, staring out the window. “It’s a good lure.”
Everyone in the van nodded. There was no arguing with that.
Cole’s phone chimed. “Emery has been contacted. He hadn’t entered the Realm yet, thankfully. He’s heading in now. Roger says to hang tight while he scouts the portal. There’s been a lot of activity in the Realm. Elves are patrolling in record numbers.”
Devon gritted his teeth. “She doesn’t have a lot of time.”
“You’ll need to think on what is more important,” Barbara said, her eyes softening to something almost human, “her life, or her freedom. The elves would be able to help her.”
Words that had been plaguing Devon for months forced themselves into the forefront of his mind.
The time will come when you need to make a choice. A choice that concerns the rest of your life, and more importantly, her life. To save Charity’s life—to give her a life—you must take the hard road, sacrifice your heart, and let her go.
Pain knifed through Devon’s middle. Karen was an incredible Seer who was almost never wrong.
“The longest she’s been out is three and a half hours.” Devon sucked in a deep breath. “We’ll give her that long. If she doesn’t wake up…” He swallowed down the words, unable to get them out, and looked down at Charity’s beautiful, cherubic face. The alpha in him flared and his arms tightened around her possessively. Protectively. He couldn’t imagine leaving her for any reason. He couldn’t imagine handing her over to anyone.
But he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t and she died because of it.Chapter SixDevon stood just outside the open door of the van, staring through the trees at the collection of disgusting creatures in the distance. Like the demon Charity had decimated earlier, these creatures had charred limbs ending in thick claws, glowing eyes, and misshapen heads.
And they were gathered in front of the nearest portal into the Realm.
Devon’s pack was a hundred miles from Charity’s house on the outskirts of a small town, the entrance point Emery had chosen for their journey. The mage was supposed to be waiting for them on the other side of that portal, which they could only reach through a wall of demons.
Vlad had worked with demons in their last run-in with him. Devon didn’t like the implications.
“You’re sure this Emery character is on the right side of things?” asked Dale, who had, regrettably, decided to continue on with the journey. Devon suspected his persistence had more to do with not disappointing Roger than any dedication to the cause.