Page 42 of Fallen Demon

I froze, my eyes huge as I stared at the crater.

If it hadn’t been Levi and Ylena, then what was it? Meteors in the underworld? I doubted that was a thing.

“This is certainly where the fireball landed,” Rage said.

Farrah turned to Lacey. “Can’t you sense your brother’s aura or something?”

“I can try,” Lacey said.

The pain in my chest increased and I realized it wasn’t pain. It was a forceful tug. “The bond,” I whispered. I pressed a hand to my chest and almost wept for joy. “I can feel the bond.”

Lacey stared at me with huge eyes. “That means he’s here. That he’s close.”

My chest squeezed and the tug almost made me breathless. I walked into the crater, approached the center, looked around, but saw no one, no clues of where he might have gone.

Lacey followed me. She crouched down in the center of the crater and touched the darkened, burned ground. “I can sense it … him. And someone else.” She looked up at me. “He was here.”

“Levi!” I called out.

Wyatt sniffed the air. “I think I got a hint of their scent, but it’s faint. If that’s them, then they aren’t here anymore.”

“Can you follow the scent?” I asked, full of hope.

“I can try.” Wyatt started taking off his clothes, and all of us turned around. Except for Farrah. “My senses are stronger when shifted.”

I heard a groan and a couple of seconds later, a little whine. We turned and saw Wyatt in his wolf form—a big, deadly creature with brown fur and sharp teeth.

He started prowling, smelling the crater. He looked like an ant lost in a maze. I was about to deem this a failure, when he walked to the edge of the crater, sniffed the air, and let out a short yelp.

“That way,” Farrah said.

We rushed after Wyatt as he left the crater and weaved a path among the rocks. A couple of times, he circled around, doubled over, went back a few yards … and I did my best not to get frustrated.

The pain inside my chest now turned into a faint tug that was almost in sync with my fast-beating heart.

All this time, I had tried not to think about Levi much. I didn’t want to remember our moments together, especially what he had said right before disappearing through the portal.

But now that we were getting closer to him—I hoped—the emotions I had fought so hard wanted attention. The moment I saw him I didn’t know what I would do. Punch him hard for what he did or hug him tight and never let him go.

Because I truly didn’t want to let him go, and that scared me like hell.

It was crazy how everything could change in a matter of days.

I don’t know how long we zigzagged between the rocks, but I could feel the tug becoming stronger the farther into the territory we went.

Just when a deep tug took my breath away, Wyatt stopped between two big rocks and howled.

We rushed to his side.

Beyond the rocks was a large clearing, where lots of other rocks had been before, but now were broken into little pieces. Some were dust on the ground.

“What the—?” The question died on my lips as a black bolt zipped through the air and hit one of the rock formations across the clearing. The bolt caused the rock to shake and several broken pieces fell to the ground.

“That’s what happened,” Zad said.

But I was still shocked to see a black bolt.

Which meant …

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