Page 61 of Bite of Passage
Gemma shook her head.
Serina lowered her voice.“It’s real.You can die over there or you can live.You can become a vampire or you can stay human.Sure, they don’t have flush toilets or decent shampoo, but the food is a hundred times better.I highly recommend the wine and the bread.Anyway, you can’t stay here.The female returning will kill you.All they care about is the demon crystal, which we can’t allow Petra to get.”
Gemma glanced at the screen, seeing Cade.Her stomach squeezed to the point it hurt.Falling into a one-on-one with Skarde’s cranky brother scared her.What if he hadn’t given up his mission to take her to the Directorate?
“You’re going over there with me, right?”she asked the witch.
Sadness clouded Serina’s features.“The doorway is only for one.It has to be one-way so no one follows you and no one comes back.”She glanced up at the screen.“It’s going to be intense when you get there.”
Gemma stared at the screen, not getting any sort of “intensity” from Cade sitting cross-legged on a floor.
“You’ll have to trust your gut,” Serina said.“Stand on the chair and touch the screen.”
Gemma scooted the chair close to the TV high on the wall and went on tiptoe.
“Go.”Serina waved at her.“Mira can help you when you get over there…in that room.She’s a prisoner in?—”
The doorknob turned.
“Can I come back?”Gemma asked.
Serina shook her head.“Go.”
“Tell Val thank you.”Gemma pressed her fingers to the TV.
She landed hard on her side with her head on a cushion.No, not a cushion.A firm set of thighs.
Her gut twisted with dread.She rolled to the side and glanced up.Yep, Skarde’s super cranky brother was rapidly blinking at her as if he couldn’t process what had happened.His expression dropped into a squinty eye glare.
Gemma’s anxiety bled right into a giant, “Oh, shit.”
ChapterTwenty-Five
“GuessI should apologize for punching your balls?”She scrunched up her mouth and whispered, “I’m actually not sorry.You deserved it.”
Cade’s eyebrows rose, but he didn’t reply.
“I know, me turning up here like this is kind of weird.Why’re you sitting on the floor with your hands—” She trailed off.His hands were secured high above his head to a hefty metal chain dangling from the ceiling.Nothing on him moved except his eyes, which bounced between her and something behind her.
She sat up and swiveled to face a petite girl dressed in a worn dark dress that covered her from neck to wrists to mid-calves.
Every red flag warning inside her lit up.Out of instinct she scooted closer to Cade’s chest, perceiving him as the lesser of two evils.
The girl, barely into her teens, nibbled on a hangnail between shifty stares at Gemma.She wore no makeup, not that she needed any.Her skin was incredible, somewhere between tan and dark brown, with dark brown freckles across her nose and cheeks.Her frizzy orange hair, although pulled back and barely contained, needed a good brushing.Bottom line?The girl was a hot mess.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t dangerous.Case in point: she was alone with an incapacitated Cade.That made this girl someone not to underestimate.Perhaps, the teen’s job was to guard the vampire, and she hadn’t been the one to incapacitate him.
The girl took a few uneven steps toward a worn wooden table that had various pots and bottles of herbs and liquids on its surface.Gemma zeroed in on the girl’s right leg, which seemed to be the source of her shuffling limp.
She pushed off Cade’s thighs, but before standing, she whispered to him, “You don’t deserve it, but I’m going to get you out of here.”
Cade’s eyes widened with warning.
“Did you put a frozen spell on him?”Nervous energy drummed through Gemma.The fact that the girl hadn’t zapped her or attacked meant she wasn’t pure evil.Right?Yet, her lack of surprise that she’d fallen through a mirror triggered a bigger red alert in Gemma’s head.“Cade is extremely good at what he does, which means you must be better.”
“Yeah, she made me cast the spell on the vampire.I’m better at spells than her,” the girl said.“Now I have to sit here until she’s ready for him.”
“Who made you?Petra?”
