Page 90 of The Fate of Black Hearts

“What would you do?” She waved for him to sit next to her.

“I’d be the one to mate you, of course. Or we can say I already did.”

“I’d never ask that of you.” She kissed his cheek and rested her head on his shoulder. “I’ll handle the Council if it comes to that.”

“Of course.”

“Do you sense it?”

“The darkness is coming closer. Yes, I sense it.”

“When it comes, you must grab the new bag that I already packed in the hall closet near the front door.”

“Of course.” He smiled toward the group where Roman danced with his mate, Nova, and Ky danced with his mate, Vivi. “I promised Lyra a dance.”

“Go. I’m fine.” She stood and walked down the windy path to the lake.

She wandered down the dock overlooking the water at the back of her property, away from the party. Gentle waves broke up the moon’s reflection.

There, she removed the earrings from her pocket and stared at the black stones. Time to face Dom. Just as she put them on, she realized…

Something dark lurked nearby. Something not human. How did it get beyond the wards that protected the perimeter?

She held herself still and listened. Waves softly broke on the shore. Laughter from inside the house signaled the birthday winding down and moved inside. The hum of the air conditioner kicking on thrummed in the distance. Vibrations of movement, like aftershocks of someone arriving, echoed in the night. No, it was two arrivals.

Dom and who else?

From the end of the dock, a creature took solid form by drawing in shadows as if they were cloth until he was fully formed. Dressed in an amorphous black outfit, he stalked her way, slow and predatorial.

It looked somewhat like Ian Lanzo, but it didn’t smell lycan, nor did it emit the odor of anything else she recognized from years of seeing various nonhuman beings.

She raised her smartwatch to her mouth and whispered, “It’s time. Fight or die.”

The darkness of the approaching creature’s eyes seemed as if they reflected the moon’s light and glowed.

As he closed in, he grinned like a cat about topounce on a toy it’d been watching for far too long. He raised a gun and fired. She easily dodged the tranquilizer dart.

“Take the easy way, Evie. Don’t make me come get you.”

“I knew you weren’t Ian. The cheese slipped off Ian’s cracker about a decade ago when he got hit in the head by a horse. You seemed too lucid. What do you want from me?”

“You.”

Shadows moved to surround her as if they were living entities. She batted at them. Then slashed at them with her knife, but it did nothing since they were mere shadows. That familiar sense of bleakness took over. Demons? They shouldn’t have been able to get past the wards.

The world wobbled as the shadows wrapped her like a thick, suffocating blanket.

The predator moved without making a sound to sling her over his shoulder. “I didn’t need these theatrics, but I did need him to see before we leave.” He chuckled. “You’re stupidly predictable, like all mortals.” He clamped tight against her struggles. “Now we prepare for his arrival.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Dom sprintedfor the being that was most definitely not Ian Lanzo. It took form like…a demon. Not any demon, though. This one didn’t exude the putrid energy of the hundreds he’d eliminated over the years. This was something else. Something stronger.

The creature used its shadows to capture Evie. It shot a grin in his direction when he slung her over a shoulder and disappeared. It hadn’t disappeared into the middle realm like he traveled. This being disappeared into mist. Demons could vanish, but they usually couldn’t take organic objects with them when they did so. What was that thing?

The creature wouldn’t kill her. It wanted Dom to chase after them.

He dialed Marik. No answer. He left a voicemail message for Brik. “Did you find out anything from the one who was possessed?”