Page 92 of Darkness and Deceit
Somethingsentthem.
And ifthiswas just the beginning…
My breath hitches. “We have to warn the academy. The Keepers. All of them.”
He nods grimly. “Agreed. But first…”
He rises, helping me gently to my feet. His touch lingers.
“…we need to find our way out.”
Thirty
SIMON
Something is wrong.Reallywrong.
The feeling starts as a twinge in my chest, barely there.
Until it sharpens, slicing deep and sudden like wire pulled taut around my ribs. I stagger for half a step before catching myself. My breath goes shallow. My vision narrows. And the only thought I can form is her name.
Lilith.
No logic. No strategy. Just pure instinct.
I bolt.
The forest claws at me—branches, thorns, roots. Every breath burns. The terrain is hell, but I push harder. The ache in my legs is a distant echo compared to the pressure inside my chest.
It’s like I’m being pulled forward by a hook buried behind my sternum.
Behind me, two more sets of footsteps pound the ground. I don’t have to look to know it’s Kai and Vaughn. Kai runs silently, his breath steady but strained. Vaughn crashes through the underbrush like a storm, all brute force and zero finesse. I don’t care. Let the whole island hear us coming.
Let the world burn, as long as we find her.
I don’t slow. Ican’t.
Images flash in my mind uninvited—Lilith hurt, Lilith bleeding, Lilith gone—and my body responds with a desperation I didn’t know I had. I’ve trained for war. Fought through nightmares. But I’ve never felt this before.
Abond.
I’ve heard stories about the way a mate bond is formed. Sometimes, it hits you at once, and you know instantly that’s it—like for Kai. Other times, it builds so slowly that you don’t even realize it at first. And I think that may be the case for me. I knowsomethingis there, undeniable and growing stronger, pulling me forward as I tear through the forest.
“Simon!” Vaughn snarls behind me. “Would you slow the hell down and?—”
He cuts off as a burst of violet light ignites the sky. The blast tears upward from the direction we were already heading, straight through the trees and into the sky like a beacon.
We all stop short.
It rises like a flare, arcing through the canopy in a jagged spray of magic that paints the air in violet and gold. The ground beneath us trembles with aftershocks. Energy crackles across my skin.
Kai exhales a single word. “Lilith.”
We run harder.
The forest thins, the trees giving way to a clearing. The ground here is fractured and scorched, still dusted with ash and the faint shimmer of fading magic. Jagged rock walls jut upward in crooked angles, and nestled at their base is a narrow cave mouth—half hidden by ivy and shadow, like the earth itself tried to swallow it.
And then?—
