Page 106 of Beauty's Monstrous Demons

I can hear her pounding footsteps as she runs from me, and I imagine her heartbeat is racing as well. I’m getting stronger with each passing moment, but I’m ready to hold her in my arms.

This is why our chases never last very long, because I don’t have the discipline it takes for a longer feed. All of a sudden I feel a rush of energy so large that my ears start to ring and my head pounds.

What the fuck?That wasn’t me, so what caused it?

“Lorelei!” I scream, disappearing from my corporal state to find her. Even my bond to my mate is weak, and it takes me what feels like forever to find her.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

LORELEI

I’m falling in the darkness. One second I was running and laughing, and the next, someone was grabbing my hair and yanking me toward them. They wore black gloves, their voice dark and cruel as they hissed words into my ear.

It was hard to understand what they were saying initially while fear and adrenaline rode through my veins. They were shorter than me, but it felt as if I was being held by many hands.

I fought and screamed. What kind of being has so many appendages? A hand covered my mouth, holding me immobile while I struggled.

And then a sharp sting is all I could feel as a needle was shoved into my throat.

“Sorry, Lorelei. Your kind needs to stay dead,” President Christa says, letting me go.

The dark is so cold, and all of the clues were there, I just couldn’t see them.

I’m so sorry.

PHENEX

“What happened?” I ask, eyes wide as Samael appears next to me with Lorelei in his arms. “She’s still screaming in my mind.”

“And yet she’s quiet,” Bast whispers. “We need to get out of here. Can you find Alecto? If she has a pulse, it may not be too late to bond.”

Samael’s face is ashen but he nods.

“I didn’t think anyone else was in the structure,” he says. “She was there with me one moment, and gone the next.”

There’s blood dripping from her neck, and I move her hair to look closer. There’s a very obvious puncture wound.

“She was injected with something. I think this is what we were warned of,” I say. “Find Alecto. I don’t fucking care if he has to abandon his goddamned car at this point. We’ll meet you in my apartment.”

Samael’s pupils are blown wide, and all I can see is the violet within them. He disappears with Lorelei in his arms, while Bast and I begin running for the exit.

“Professor Gorsch!” President Christa calls out with alarm.

Fuck, I hate this damn woman. I just want to get the hell out of here.

“We’re on our way out, President Christa,” I reply, continuing on my way.

If she fires me, then she does.

I hear her huff of annoyance, but I don’t care. I know that she’s gotten to her position through care and calculated measures. I’ve always been on her good side.

Today, I choose Lorelei.

“We’re probably going to pay for that later, huh?” Bast mutters as he hurries beside me.

“I’m sure we will, but we gave that woman more than enough of our time,” I grumble. “Fuck, can you hear her?”

“I feel like I’m going crazy,” he says. “There’s screaming in my mind, and Lorelei sounds so fucking scared.”

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