Page 48 of Shattered Jewel

“Not untouched,” I breathe out when something catches my eye—a glint of metal at the altar’s base.

I crouch down. There, nestled in a crevice, is a small silver flash drive.

“Guys,” I say, my voice cracking as I push to my feet.

I hold up the flash drive. Kaspian snatches it from my hand, examining it closely. “Your brother sure does love his scavenger hunts.”

“He was trying to be safe,” I reason. “Would you rather he leave everything in one place for the Sovereigns to find?”

Kaspian’s eyes flare at my tone, but I refuse to be cut down by him again. Not when, for the first time in years, I feel closer to my dead brother just by finding another clue he left behind.

Kaspian’s grip tightens around the flash drive, the whites of his knuckles bursting through.

“Your brother’s games are going to get my brothers killed.” His voice is a low snarl. “You realize that, don’t you?”

I match his glare. “Maverick knew what he was doing. He wouldn’t have hidden evidence here if he didn’t think it was important.”

Kaspian’s attention lowers to my lips, his expression stirring with a mixture of lust and fury. The oxygen seems to evaporate from my throat, leaving me light-headed and struggling for air. Under his unrepentant study, the frustration between us undeniable.

It comes with so much heat, my core is melting with it.

For a long moment, Kaspian says nothing, just stares at me with those toxic, burning eyes.

Until Axe comes between us, dampening our fervid scrutiny of each other.

Kaspian straightens, his expression smoothing and his stare becoming bland and bored, like I never interested him in the first place.

I hold back the insult on my tongue by clenching my molars together and listening to Axe.

“We need to find out what’s on that drive,” he says.

Wilder produces a small tablet from his pack, holding it out to Kaspian. “No time like the present.”

I hesitate in agreeing, my focus returning to the altar. The stains seem to shine in the sickly light, and a wave of nausea rolls through me. Yet I don’t tell them to stop.

Answers about my brother overrides literally anything else.

Kaspian inserts the drive into the tablet’s port. The screen flickers to life, lines of code scrolling across the display. He leans in, his brow furrowing as he deciphers the encrypted message.

“It’s coordinates,” he says after a moment. “And a warning.”

Axe inclines his head, his attention locked on the tablet’s screen. Wilder leans closer, a pensive frown on his face. After a few taps, his expression almost serene, Kaspian opens up a video.

The sound that comes out of me isn’t human. It’s an inhale of pain so ancient, every being on earth has felt it.

Grief.

Kaspian’s hand clenches around the tablet at the sound, the veins in his forearm pushing against his skin. Axe closes his eyes like he feels my pain.

“You don’t have to watch, sweetwitch.”

Wilder’s sudden proximity is a live grenade, his voice the pin that, once pulled, sets off a chain reaction of explosive sensations that tear through me.

I never saw him move, never felt the breeze of him closing in.

But I can’t take my eyes off the close-up of Maverick’s face, his face thinner, almost gaunt, as his amber eyes blaze. His hair, a twin to mine, is tousled and matted with sweat, like he’s been clutching the sides of his head and pacing, a habit he had when he was stressed out and needed a moment to think.

“Play it,” I say in a voice I don’t recognize.

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