Page 63 of Taste of Fate

Logically I knew that, but panic was settling in at the danger Tavi’s friend was in.

“Wait, where is Tavi?”

Thorne shrugged. “Your blood pet is your responsibility. Not anyone else’s.”

Oh fuck. She wouldn’t, would she?

I tore away from the group, sprinting toward the garage. Even freshly fed with the best possible blood, I was nowhere near fast enough. Once in the warehouse-sized, concrete and dry-walled room, I scanned the sea of motorcycles, looking for anything out of place.

Everything seemed to be accounted for, and I started to relax. She was avoiding me naturally, but she was still here. She had to be. Tavi was smart. Rational. She wouldn’t be foolish enough to?—

My eyes landed on the spare motorcycles in the far corner, and my relief immediately flipped to dread. One was missing.

“Fuck, Tavi,” I hissed through clenched teeth.

My worst fear was true. The brave human woman who sacrificed herself to protect her best friend was doing the same thing. Again.

Only this time, she might actually die.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. What the fuck had I done? She left while believing I didn’t care. I thought it was the outcome I wanted, the best possible outcome, but not when she was running straight toward death.

I went for my bike, not wasting another moment. Standard procedure was to ride with the whole group, but fuck that. Thorne and the others could catch up, but I needed to save my mate.

“I’m gonna be so pissed off if you die before I can save you.” And heartbroken beyond measure.

The bike started with a roar, my fingers drumming impatiently while I waited for the bay door to roll up. The moment I had clearance, I flew like a bat out of hell, pushing my bike to the limit.

Hopefully I would catch up to her on the road. She was an inexperienced rider, and it was a two-hour drive at a comfortable cruising speed.

But if she got there before me…

“Hold on, Tavi. Hold the fuck on.”

Chapter 24

Tavia

Ireached the settlement soon after dusk plunged into full darkness. Too frantic to find the kickstand with my foot, I killed the motorcycle’s engine and tried to lay it down as gently as I could. Every second messing with the bike felt like a second wasted, and I hurried into the village brandishing my silver dagger

It was too still, too quiet, although it was definitely clear there had been fighting and carnage. Outdoor furniture was broken and strewn all over the place. Windows were shattered, recycling and trash cans dented and overturned, spilling their debris all over the ground.

Blood smeared the ground in long messy trails, as if people had been gutted and dragged away. Bloody hand and footprints covered decks and walkways, all chaotic and with no discernible trail.

No one saw them coming. It must have been madness, people running to whatever shelter they could.

Could draetrium have caused this? Such violence seemed extreme for a side effect. The two addicts I’d seen had been rather mild-mannered and subdued, even if the guy in the restaurant was pushy about it. But this seemed like something else entirely. Like letting a pack of starving dogs loose into a chicken coop. Everything around me showed mindless violence and chaos.

Speaking of chickens, feathers floated on a gentle breeze over all the blood and debris littering the ground. In the animal pens up ahead, I could make out the unmoving bodies of the goats and pigs Amy had taken such good care of. Not even the animals had been safe in the attack.

There were no human bodies that I could see, and I didn’t know whether to be relieved or more alarmed at that.

A sound made me freeze, and I held my breath to listen harder. I couldn’t place what the sound was, and turned to face it when I heard it again.

That had been a mistake.

Something hit me from behind, crashing me to the ground with enough force to knock the wind from my lungs. Rough hands turned me over, bringing me face-to-face with a creature I’d never seen before.

It looked like a vampire, but also not. Its eyes held the sickly yellow tinge of a draitrium high, but the lower canines were more prominent, jutting up from its lower jaw like tusks. Its skin was gray and mottled with purple veins and bruising around its eyes.

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