Page 44 of Savage Fate

“Only a few others besides Fane.” Why the hell had I told him? It couldn’t be this damn fated mate bullshit. “And we need to keep it that way. We can’t risk the wrong person finding out Barric has this amulet and deciding to go after him for it. Barric having the thing is bad enough, but a powerful demon taking possession of it would be much worse.”

“Of course. I won’t tell anyone, not even Avery. You have my word.”

Could I trust that he wouldn’t tell anyone? As an alpha, he had to put his pack first. Would he later decide it was in his best interest to let this information slip to the other alphas in Georgia?

“Can Barric use this amulet to mask their whereabouts?” Saint rubbed his fingers together to wipe off the crumbs and then snagged another cookie from the container.

I stood, grabbed two glasses from the cabinet, and pulled out the lemonade before it dawned on me that Saint wasn’t addictedto the sweet-and-sour drink like Fane and I were. Most people drank milk with cookies.

“What do you want to drink?”

After I listed off the options from the huge stainless-steel fridge, Saint picked sweet tea.

“I’m not sure how Barric can use the amulet, but it could very well be responsible for keeping their location hidden.” I placed the drinks on the island, sliding the tea toward him as I sat. “I don’t know how it would affect Barric, since it’s not inside him like it was with me.”

Saint sipped his drink, the ice clinking against the glass. “Could he use it to harm shifters? Could it kill them?”

“I don’t think the amulet could simply kill them on its own. It might make them go crazy, though.” That thing spread psychosis like a contagious disease.

Don’t act like you don’t miss my brand of crazy, Tate.

I ignored the voice and crammed another cookie in my mouth so I didn’t start talking to myself.

“Could it make Barric and The Collective suddenly start cutting out shifter hearts?”

“It could definitely influence Barric’s thinking, but I’m not sure it would make him go that far.” I shrugged. “What would be the purpose of cutting out hearts and leaving the bodies for us to find? It’s too planned. The amulet is more chaos and power.”

Saint toyed with a ring on his middle finger. “A body was discovered right outside my pack. That’s why I came here. I was hoping you guys might have more answers since you found the previous victims.”

“The same MO?” I asked.

Saint nodded. “We quickly identified the woman, a tiger shifter, because a visiting pack liaison recognized her from a large mixed pack in Ohio. Her name was Alison Marks.”

Alison.

The name sent chills down my spine, and the recent vision I had rushed to the surface. The cookie I held between my fingers dropped onto the counter with a thud. “Was she blond?”

“Yeah…” Saint’s brows dipped as he studied my reaction. “Did you know her?”

“Not exactly.” I swallowed hard, all moisture evaporating from my mouth. Unease twisted through my gut, and the cookies I’d inhaled threatened to shoot back up. “You wouldn’t happen to have a picture of her, would you?”

Saint reached into his pocket and withdrew his phone. “I have a picture of her corpse, but it’s not pretty.”

It didn’t need to be pretty. It just needed to show her face.

My hand trembled when I reached for the phone as Saint slid it toward me, turning the screen in my direction.

A giant hole tore in my stomach as the familiar woman appeared. The same scrape marred her cheek as it had in the vision.

The kitchen blurred, and my pulse thundered in my ears as panic coiled around my throat to choke me. Most of the visions I’d had were of shifters being hunted, captured, and tortured. And then killed.

How the hell could I not have connected the dots sooner?

“Tate? What’s wrong?” Saint’s voice sounded miles away as the visions flooded my mind at breakneck speeds.

So many tiny details that seemed insignificant at the time crashed forward, and I finally saw the whole picture. The other bodies that had been found, at least one, had definitely starred in one of my visions. I’d felt their fear, their complete terror, as those cloaked and masked figures chased them.

“Tatum, talk to me.” Saint reached across the island to shake my hand, but I was completely frozen as the realization hit me.

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