Page 4 of Savage Blood
“Maybe if I rest for a minute and try to contact Fane again?—”
My words sheared off as the cell suddenly tilted, and then shadows crept along the edges.
Son of a bitch.
I wasn’t passing out.
Instead, a vision was dragging me under…
A forest sprungup around me, darkness coating the starry sky beyond the branches and pine needles. Cold air rolled over my hot skin peeking out from rips in my beige sweater and jeans.
“Not again,” I gritted out.
Well, not me but the female shifter featured in this vision.
I ran past towering trees and dodged fallen logs, my sneakers slipping on piles of dead leaves and needles. Short blonde strands whipped in my face as I turned around, searching the shadows for the creatures following me.
I couldn’t let this happen again.
My heart pounded, and adrenaline pumped through my veins. I wiped a layer of sweat off my forehead. If I could just make it a little farther, I’d have time to shift and alert the patrols.
But these monsters were closing in. I couldn’t shake them.
My foot caught on a root, and I stumbled forward, my hands shooting out as I fell to the hard, cold ground.
They were delicate hands—and familiar.
Did I know this shifter?
Laughter echoed through the night, like a harbinger of doom. I wouldn’t have long before their claws ripped into me.
Or something worse happened.
As my pulse thundered, I scrambled up and darted toward the rushing waters. I knew these woods like the back of my hand, and if I traveled through the water, they might lose my scent.
When an enormous cliff came into view, a waterfall feeding the river below, something tickled the back ofmymind.
Something about the place was familiar, like I’d been there.
Icy water converged over me as I jumped into the river, choking back a gasp. As more sinister laughter sounded on the wind, I dove under the surface and let the current take me south…
My eyelids poppedopen to a view of the rough-hewn ceiling, the dim light catching a few gossamer strands of spiderwebs in the corner. My skull pounded, and my mouth was drier than a desert.
Passing out from a vision seriously sucked. I must have smacked my head on the ground, too.
The vision replayed through my mind, and a sinking feeling that I knew the shifter twisted in my gut.
“Ruin,” I croaked out. “Do they have any other shifter prisoners?”
With any luck, the woman was still alive and these sadistic assholes hadn’t ripped her heart out yet.
When I tried to sit up, my body wouldn’t budge.
What the hell?
I yanked my arms, which had ended up over my head while I was unconscious. They wouldn’t move, and as I jerked them again, the rattle of chains echoed.
Cold panic rushed through my veins, and my head whipped toward Ruin’s cell to see him leaning against the bars with a worried expression.
