Page 117 of Of Nine So Bold

“You came back to the dark. Don’t you know I own it all?”

Panic gripped me. My stepmother sounded wrong. Like herself but twisted, as if her voice was accompanied by someone else’s, like a sibilant echo. And she was gaining on me. I couldn’t even tell where I was or what direction I was moving in, but I swore she was?—

“You keep dancing so close to the edge of this realm. Mere inches from the abyss. And if I reachjust right…”

On the back of my neck, icy fingers slid against my skin like they were about to wrap around my throat.

And then a strange pressure gripped my hand and yanked me forward, hurtling me through the darkness like a meteor shooting across the sky.

“Flee, little doomed one,”came the low and growling voice of the larger gateway demon.A bright thread of light appeared in the distance, growing larger and larger as I rushed toward it. “And when the time comes, call.”

The gateway demon’s grip on my hand vanished as the light rushed around me. Gravity suddenly took hold, sending me tumbling across uneven terrain.

“Whoa!” New hands grabbed me.

I shrieked and started to shift, but then reality caught up to my panic. Shaking hard, I stared up at Dex, stunned. Beyond him, my other men were watching.

All of them. Even Byron, Casimir, and Ozias.

The latter strode right at me, taking me from Dex’s hands and engulfing me in his arms. Waves of his relief and fear poured through our connection.

Shivers coursed through me. Gods only knew what he’d felt when I was in there. “I’m okay. I’m sorry. I?—”

“No apologies.” His grip tightened. “I just need you here.”

I nodded against his chest. “I am.”

He held me for another moment, and then he grunted like he was regaining control of himself. He released me except for one hand that stayed planted on my back like he needed to keep touching me.

Or keep me from being stolen away.

“What happened?” Dex asked. “You were gone longer than any of us.”

I shuddered, looking around but finding no sign of the gateway. The terrain was a rough mix of small hills and exposed boulders between patches of snow beneath a blue sky devoid of threats.

I hoped.

“My stepmother. She—” I cast a tense look at the larger giants. They were staring too, but none of them were close enough to have heard. “She was there.”

Ozias snarled, pulling me closer again.

“Are you okay?” Dex demanded.

I nodded. “Fine. I—” My fangs suddenly ached, Ozias’s scent somehow reaching me even if my breath was gone.

Hunger returned to hit me like a boulder to the head. All thought of finishing the sentence vanished.

Gods, Ozias smelled amazing. Even through my sweater and coat, I could feel his warmth. My ears pricked at the steady thud of his pulse and the quiet rush of blood in his veins.

My lips clamped shut on a whimper. The vampire side of me wasn’t happy going back into a cage inside my mind, not after the chaos of the gateway.

It was hungry.Iwas hungry. The monster inside me wanted out.

It wanted my mate.

I couldn’t stop shaking. I’d struggled with the urge to feed before, but after the gateway it felt as if every stopgap between me and absolute starvation had fallen apart. My fangsachedto bite him, and my muscles were tensed like a spring ready to release.

My eyes flashed to Casimir. His gaze was locked on me, intense. Ravenous.

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