Page 99 of A Touch of Crimson
“Part of him belongs to me now.” Lindsay whimpered, her shoulder separating from its socket as she was pulled in two directions. “You don’t strike me as the type of woman who’s willing to share.”
“And you are?”
Lindsay’s jaw tightened against the pain. “I’ll take whatever I can have of him,” she bit out. “If he thinks of you sometimes, I can live with that. Can you live with him making love to my body when he’s with you?”
Shadoe’s beautiful sloe eyes narrowed. Then her lush red lips curved in a smile. She released Lindsay’s arm, and Lindsay fell toward the radiant light below.
“Shadoe.”
Her rival dived into the vortex, racing past Lindsay with her arms outstretched and her hands clasped together in a narrow blade. She cut through the light and disappeared inside it. Instantly, the whirlpool’s direction changed, surging upward. As the moving pictures above Lindsay rushed down to meet her, she held her breath and closed her eyes.
She was spit out of the tempest with a gasping breath of cognizance.
Jackknifing up, Lindsay woke in a strange bed. She blinked at finding Kent Magus sitting in a chair beside her.
“Kent?” she queried, realizing she was drenched with sweat. So much sweat that the comforter and sheets beneath her were soaked with it, too. Something hard rattled around in her mouth. She spit it out, then another one. She winced at the sight of her two human canine teeth in her palm. “What are you doing in my dream?”
Kent stared at her, then frowned. “Lindsay…? Where’s Shadoe?”
“You have the hots for her, too?” Her gaze narrowed. Kent’s handsome features echoed those of the woman she had just said goodbye to in her mind…or soul—whatever. “She’s gone. Not coming back. Off to a better place and all that.”
“Shit,” he whispered, running his hand through hair that had become spiky from his restless fingers.
“What are you doing here?”
He scrubbed at teary, reddened eyes. “I’m your— I’m Shadoe’s brother, Torque.”
“Oh. I thought you were my night auditor.” She fell back into the wet bedclothes with a groan, certain she was both crazy and dying. No one could feel as bad as she did and live through it.
Violent shudders wracked her body as if she were freezing, but she was burning up. Her mouth felt stuffed with cotton that tasted like an ashtray. Her stomach was churning as if ready to heave, and her head was throbbing so viciously she felt like something was trying to slam its way out of her skull from the inside.
But the reality she’d woken up to was worse.
She was still Lindsay, still crazy about Adrian, and she was one of the things they both hated and hunted—a vampire.
23
Adrian saw the smoke rising from the remnants of the Navajo Lake pack miles before he reached it. When Damien pulled the Suburban through the gates, they entered a literal war zone. Very little remained intact. Fires burned untended. What had once been the cryogenic storage facility was a charred hole several meters deep. Not one window remained unbroken. Feathers dotted the ground along with dozens of naked corpses.
For the first time in two days, an emotion penetrated the thick haze of grief clouding Adrian’s mind and heart. Climbing out of the truck, he surveyed the devastation. He rubbed at the dull pain in his chest and asked,
“How many Sentinel casualties?”
“Five, including Jason.”
More losses in a matter of hours than they’d been dealt in centuries, plus two lieutenants lost in a single month. “How many lycans were killed?”
“Close to thirty.” Damien looked pale and drawn. “Although it’s likely some fled and died from their wounds elsewhere. A few stayed loyal to us, but I don’t know how useful they’ll be. The other lycans will kill them on sight.”
Adrian wandered through the ruined outpost. This blow was the worst yet, one very likely to cause the destruction of every Sentinel.
And he wasn’t at his best. Everything was murky, as if he were looking at the world through cracked, dirty glass.
Where was Lindsay? How was she? Had she gone through with the Change? Was Syre even now enjoying the return of his daughter after all these centuries apart? The thought of crossing paths with Shadoe in Lindsay’s body cut through Adrian like razors, yet he knew that day was coming if the Change had gone through as Syre predicted. He had no idea how he would survive such an encounter. He could only beg the Creator to spare him such agony.
He forced his scattered mind to focus on the immediate horror facing them. “Has news of this spread to the other packs?”
“Not all,” Damien replied grimly. “But we haven’t been able to reach the Andover or Forest River packs since early yesterday.”
