Page 10 of Shadow's End

The silence stretched on endlessly. She didn’t move, and I didn’t dare lest it break the tenuous hold she had on control. As time ticked past, my erratic heartbeat began to slow, and the dark threads echoed the descent. The black leached from her eyes, though it left the faintest stain around her irises, a reminder that the violence might be checked but it had not disappeared.

She flexed her fingers, and I briefly echoed the movement. Her gaze flicked to my hands, but thankfully, the sparks thatsometimes played around their tips in dangerous situations were absent. Perhaps my inner wild magic was as frightened by the woman in front of us as I was.

Justifiably so,Belle said.Though if I had to guess at a reason for the lack of a light show, I’d say it’s more to do with you gaining control over it now that you’ve done the well thing and come to an agreement with its tenants.

“Its tenants” being the souls of the Fenna—witch-werewolf crosses who’d been specifically bred in the fires of newly emerging wellsprings to become guardians of the wild magic. It was a practice that hadn’t survived into present day—hell, there’d only been one book in the main witch archives up in Canberra that even mentioned the Fenna—but that had all changed the day I’d gotten pregnant. The daughter I was carrying would be the first true Fenna born in who knew how many generations, and to save the O’Connor compound, I’d forever bound her to the older wellspring.

That I’d had no real choice didn’t ease the guilt of choosing a life and a path for her that she might never have wanted.

“If you came to warn me of an attack on my people, you came far too late.” Maelle’s French accent was almost lost to the fury that burned through her voice. “They are gone. They are all gone. All bar Lucille.”

My gaze flicked to Maelle’s lair—a dark glass and metal room built into the point where the building’s ceiling arches met, giving her a three-sixty-degree view of her venue while concealing her from casual sight. The vague outline visible through one of those dark panes suggested Lucille was watching us.

My gaze returned to Maelle. “Did their attackers escape?”

Her smile was short, sharp, and dangerous, even without her canines fully extended. “No, they did not. But then, I doubt Marie ever intended them to.”

My gaze flicked briefly to her splattered, stained clothes. If she’d done the whole “swimming in their remains” thing, then it was unlikely there’d even be enough left to identify them…

I gulped and brutally pushed down the images that rose. Maelle emoted so strongly that, despite all the barriers now ringing my psi senses, my psychometry and clairvoyance skills were working in tandem to pick up bits and pieces of her memories.

“Is that where your guards are? They’re cleaning up the attackers’ remains?”

She smiled her violent smile. “Oh, there is very little remaining, but yes.”

“Did this happen here? Or were each of your people tracked down and killed individually?”

“It happened in the club’s privacy rooms. I thought it safer if I kept my people close. I was wrong.”

“But how did they get in?” Belle asked. “I saw how secure those rooms were. Even if she’d magically smashed her way through, you would have had warning.”

“Indeed, and if they had done that, there’d be more than one feeder alive right now. But there was no need to break the barriers, because they have Roger, and he has access to all areas.”

I frowned. I’d already seen what was happening to Roger, so that didn’t really make much sense. He simply couldn’t have been here if he’d already been staked out in that forest. Unless, of course, what I’d seen was some sort of insight into what would be rather than what was. Given it wasn’t really a precognitive dream, but rather a meeting of minds or even spirits that had been orchestrated by Marie, anything was possible.

“Why didn’t you change his access when he disappeared?” I asked.

“It would have been pointless. He is my creature and would read as me to any barrier raised.”

“Surely you can refine the spells,” Belle said. “He has very different physical attributes than you.”

“Indeed, but he shares my energy, and that is what underpins all the spells. It cannot be altered.”

“But if Roger had been forced here to open the gateways and allow Marie’s people entry, wouldn’t you have sensed him?”

“Under normal circumstances, yes.”

“And underthesecircumstances?” I asked.

She smiled her scary smile. “He did not come through here.”

Instinct prickled. “Not here, but hewasin the private rooms, I take it?”

“Yes. It is what drew me away from my lair and Lucille.”

Lucky Lucille. Because if the two of them had been in the middle of a feeding sex session when the murders happened, she might have taken her fury out on the other woman—even if not intentionally. “I take it that means there’s a second entry?”

“More an escape route. By the time I arrived, he was gone, but the barriers had been breached and the slaughter almost complete.” She paused, and the black in her eyes briefly increased. “I finished what they started. Such bloodshed … it is irresistible.”

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