Page 46 of Memories Like Fangs
Only a blank void where thoughts couldn’t follow.
And, no Byrd to be found.
The darkness simply stretched without reach just like my vacant bond with Byrd.
“Quinn, it’s time.”
My eyes snapped open, but my mind struggled to catch up to my body for a moment. Damn, Journee’s cot had worked maybe a bittoowell. I felt rested, but now, I had too much energy, adrenaline buzzing under my skin and making my limbs tingle. My heart pounded so hard as if I’d been yanked from a nightmare despite not having any dreams when I was sleeping before. My mouth was dry with the taste of hard sleep. Still trying to surface completely from the depths of slumber, instinct and habit took over before reason could. My hand went underneath my pillow, reaching for the familiar and comforting weight of my daggers, always the first thing I grabbed when I woke up.
My fingers curled around the hilt of only one blade in her holster.
Byrd.
In an instant, I sat up fast enough to make the cot nearly flip over. I swung my legs over the side of the cot, narrowlymissing Maisie crouching there. Geared up and jaw tight, there was an excitement to her, a readiness for action. The air of the Archive’s Vault thrummed with the kind of tension that lives in the breathbeforea fight. All around the room, the others stirred. Their voices were low and hurried, their movements fast but focused. Their expressions stern, Journee, Izzy, and Talli were already standing in their spots on the pentagram, creating more sigils in various colors using their magic. Teddy remained cross-legged in front of the circle with his neon green magic coming off in waves and his clawed hands resting on his knees. His magic felt similar to Izzy’s, like a shifter witch, making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Somehow, I hadn’t noticed it before. Standing behind Journee and Izzy, Rhois was having a hushed conversation with Everett about something I couldn’t hear. Simone was working to wake the cousins up near me.
I reached behind me to check my phone. I was out for over nine hours, so it had been over twenty-seven hours since we had gotten started. My head spun.
Shit.
I reached down to put my boots on. As I was tying them, I asked Maisie, my voice scratchy, “You found her?”
Maisie nodded. Her voice cut through the murmur of voices and the faint whisper of magic. “The Blood Bitch lifted the block enough for one of us to slip through and connect with her. Since she has felt my magic before, Teddy is holding onto the link he made and keeping it as lowkey as he can so she doesn’t notice. He’s ready to knock her out as soon as we are ready to do the next spell, but we need to hurry.”
I gave a quick nod as I attached Tina in her holster, and Amy’s empty holster to my ankle. Heat rushed through me, all my restless energy and barely contained fury locked into place. I rose to my feet.
We both moved, practically running toward the pentagram. I could feel the pull of it, the magic gripping my arms and shoulders to bring me forward faster. Behind me, I heard Simone, Cole, Cody, and Nat at my heels. For the first time in recent memory, none of us spoke. There were no quips, no jokes, no teasing, no banter. We were even more quiet than we had ever been as kids.
This was it. The opening we’d been waiting for.
Fucking finally.
Arriving at the circle, I stepped into the center without any direction. The etchings of lines and symbols burned beneath my boots as I stepped over them carefully. Ancient power and raw, sharpened will prickled down my arms, making my hair stand on end and summoning goosebumps all the way down. I rolled my shoulders, rotating my neck to stretch it. I took steady, slow breaths in my nose and out my mouth, just like I always did before a mission. Normally, my knives would be in my hand, holding tight to their hilt for comfort. But, none of my usual routine felt like it was going to help here. This wasn’t a situation that I could fight my way through.
No, this was going to require so much more of me than that.
Izzy met my eyes. “Are you ready, Quinn?”
“Ready to meet my girl.”
Isidora beamed as she nodded. “Let’s make that happen then. Teddy?”
Teddy’s green magic pulsed out from him one last time. Then, a beat passed.
On the second moment, his eyes snapped open. Just like Izzy’s eyes when she was using her power, green sparkles overflowed from his cat-like eyes.
On the third, he blinked, his power still remaining in use instead of going away. He opened his mouth?—
On the fourth, I was brought to my knees.
Something jolted behind my ribs, electrifying me throughout my body. I couldn’t catch my breath as it was jammed in my throat, but somehow, that was the least of my worries. The spot where my neck met my shoulder, where Byrd had marked me and formed our mating bond, was onfire. It was molten hot as it burned, stabbed, and gnawed at me incessantly and torturously. I grazed my hand over the two crescent-shaped scars there, sure I would feel the wetness of blood when I pulled my hand away or that my fingertips would come back severely burned. Instead, just the lightest touch sent more ripples of that agony through me but worse. I screamed. I had never felt pain like this before.
And yet, through all the pain I was feeling, I felt a tug. The thread connecting me to Byrd that had been slack for too long pulled tight, snapping my heart into hers. Each pull sent an emotion through me that wasn’t my own yet echoed exactly what I was feeling.
Hurt.
Fear.
Sadness.
