Page 75 of Wings of Destiny

His hand grazed my nipple. I shuddered. My knees shaking as he…

I scanned the rest of the page, imagining Erin kicking her feet as she read it, her face flushed; the giggling and little sounds she would make when she got really into her reading material.

She might be embarrassed about it but it’s kinda cute.

I clicked a new tab open and typed in the name of the first woman on the list: Cassandra Eldren. I scrolled through her information; work history, social media, most recent residence. I wasn’t finding anything that stuck out. I pulled up the next woman, Aevalyne Eltroit’s, information. Then the next. Nothing.

Fuck. I’m not getting anything helpful on these people.

There’s no tie between them.

I raked a hand through my hair, frustration seeped into me.

I’m going to go nuts if I stare at this thing any longer.

I’m getting fucking nowhere.

And every fucking day we take to figure this shit out and where Erebus is hiding them…the less likely it is we’ll find them alive and in one piece.

I shut the laptop and went over to the training area. The need to move, throw, or smash something gripped me.

I can’t help anyone if I lose my shit.

They’re all depending on me.

Starting with dumbbells to get my blood pumping and muscles warmed, weight low at hundred and fifteen pounds in each hand, forcing my anger into the movements. I rotated through five drop sets of overhead press, bicep curls, and lateral raises. Once those were completed, I moved to my dead lift pad, lining up the fifty-five-pound Olympic bar. I slid on four forty-five-pound plates on each side for my warm-up. Every set brought me further from the edge. If only a mere inch at a time.

On my next set, I secured two additional plates to each side and continued with drop sets. Increasing the weight after each set and finishing on the final thrust upward with twelve plates on each side. Sweat glistened on my skin in the mirror across from me. My shirt was soaked and glued to my skin. I lifted it up over my head and tossed it to the side before moving to the squat rack.

I set the bar to my height and stepped under the bar. Erin was the last one to use it so it had been nearly a foot too low for my shoulder height—irritation still floated in my veins—I loaded plate after plate onto the bar until it equated to just over twelve hundred pounds. I got into position under the bar and unracked, dipping into my first squat. I kept going, ending at thirty-five repetitions,then added two more plates, beginning the next drop set. Three sets later, my quads, hamstrings, and glutes pulsed. Sweat slicked down my abdomen, my core highlighted. I grabbed a towel off the rack by my cardio equipment and wiped it across my face, drying the sweat that had accumulated.

Hopping on the treadmill, I set the incline to seven and cranked the speed up to an eight-minute mile, going for distance rather than speed. My head cleared around mile six, the frustration finally worked itself out of my system. I ran through the information in my mind, comparing it to what we’d discovered from Erin’s lead about The Key. I stopped, nearly slipping face first onto the treadmill belt. I regained my footing and hit the stop button on the center of the dashboard and ran for my phone, shooting texts off to Libby and Derik, then Josh. Telling them to get their asses back to my place as soon as possible.

Chapter twenty-four

Erin

There was a Demon. A fuckingDemonin the hollowed out room—if I could even call it that—of the office Josh had brought me to. The entire space was shrouded in darkness aside from a single special-agent-interrogation-room-spotlight that illuminated the hellish creature in the center of the claustrophobic quarters. I whirled on Josh.

“What the actual fuck is going on?”

“Right in this moment, you have your back to a Demon, albeit it is unconscious and chained to an obsidian and salt coated iron chair,in addition to wards and being under my illusion.However, that does not excuse the fact that you have yourself exposed to an enemy. I would suggest refraining from doing so in the future.”

You son of a bitch.

I threw my hands on my hips and dished out a flat glare in Josh’s direction before I faced the Demon, begrudgingly.

“You’re still not answering my question. What is going on and why the hell do you have a Demon in here? And the fuck does obsidian and salt have to do with anything?”

Josh stepped further into the room, shutting and latching the door behind us. His body pressed to mine. The hair on my neck stood at attention. I adjusted my stance and leaped to the side, giving myself a better defensive position. Josh and the Demon in my line of sight.

“Miss Snow, I can assure you, I did not bring you here to harm you. Simply to request your assistance,” I narrowed my eyes. “He is here for questioning. You wish to find those humans, yes?”

This reeks of bullshit.

“What assistance am I to you?” I kept my stance and bared my teeth.

He glanced at my hands then flicked his eyes to meet mine.

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