Page 54 of Darkness and Deceit
Cassian sends his scorpion underground. Rey’s hyena takes off at full speed, biting into anything that moves. Savina flanks left, clearing a path—and I run. Hard. Shadows whirl, my wolf snarls—and every step pounds like a war drum.
But the fire shifts.
Blue flames lash through the trees—twisting unnaturally, like they’re alive. One twists like a serpent through the smoke—too fast, too precise. I see it a second too late.
It slams into Kai’s side, a jagged strike of living fire.
And everything inside me seizes.
He doesn’t scream.
Doesn’t move.
Just goes still—horribly, completely still.
“No—NO!” I push harder, hurling another strike of magic. It lands, but not where it needs to. Another blast. Another second too late. They’re vanishing with him. Into the trees. Into the fucking dark.
I’m almost there. Ten steps. Five.
Then a wall of blue fire erupts in front of me—roaring and wild and wrong—and I stumble back, coughing, swearing, the heat searing my skin even from this distance. The Rogues disappear into the smoke with him.
Gone.
Kai is gone.
And I’m too late.
I drop to my knees, fists clenched so tight I feel the crack of skin splitting. My wolf paces inside me, snarling and panicking. The scorpion skitters up beside me, agitated. Even the hyena lets out a low, broken growl.
“Fuck,” I whisper. “Fuck, fuck, fuck?—”
Savina reaches me, breathless, her voice sharp. “They’re retreating. Pulling back toward the?—”
I barely hear her because the last thing I saw was Kai—bloodied, silent, vanishing into the dark.
And just before the shadows swallowed him…
He looked back. Not at the fight. Not at the fire.
At me.
And in his eyes, I saw it?—
He didn’t think he was coming back.
Whatever happens next—whatever it takes—I’m going after him.
Even if it kills me.
Eighteen
KAI
That whistle,that fucking whistle drowns out everything.
Sound, thought… all of it gone. It drills into my skull, sharp and high and wrong, until there’s nothing left but a hollow thrum of pain, the kind that scrapes your bones raw.
I’ve heard this sound before. Too many times. And every time it cuts through the air, something inside me cracks.
