She hurried about her business while Isabelle chattered away, though it was interesting she didn’t use the restroom as she’d said she had to. Only primped at the mirror.
Silly girl
.
Sadie made her way to the sinks. “So, what are you going to do this summer?” she asked as she waved her hands near the faucets to get them going.
“Doesn’t matter,” she whispered.
Sadie glanced over and was met with ruby-red eyes.
“Wait a minute. You—”
Isabelle clamped her hand around Sadie’s throat and slammed her against the stall. What the hell?
On instinct, Sadie smashed her fists down on Isabelle’s elbows to break her hold. Her
supernaturally
strong hold.
Shit.
The girl didn’t budge. A deep, wicked laughter spewed from her mouth.
“Isabelle?”
“I couldn’t quite get the eyes to work. They say eyes are the window to the soul.” She laughed. “Maybe that’s why I couldn’t cover the red.”
“Aggie?”
Isabelle flinched.
Holy hell! “Theo will—”
“Do nothing. He’s quite busy out there.” She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Not quite sure Justin will make it, though, but that’s fine by me. One less holier-than-thou, angelic Shomrei makes my job a little easier.”
“What the hell do you want with me?”
Isabelle’s grin widened, and her tongue flicked out. “Need to test a theory. So you’ll be coming with me.”
“Test…a theory?” Sadie coughed through the tight hold on her neck. Like hell she’d go with him.
“Seems I don’t have to wait for you two to mate after all.” Isabelle grinned. “Seems you’re…
different.
”
Sadie squirmed to reach the Mavet, positioning herself against the metal stall she’d been slammed against. How could she kill Isabelle when it wasn’t really her doing this? If she stabbed her, would it even kill Aggie?
“How are you doing this?” Sadie asked, stalling, working to get her leg up for one last grab at the dagger.
“I’ve picked up a few new talents during my time in Hades.”
“Must have met Houdini down there, since you’re getting out over and over again.”
Isabelle laughed. It ripped through Sadie’s chest, her friend being used like this. Was she hurting? Did she know what she was doing?
“Isabelle. Can you hear me?” Sadie whispered. “Please.”
The grip around her trachea tightened. She’d hear cracking soon if she couldn’t get out from Isabelle’s grasp. Damn it. How was she going to get out of this? Was Theo okay?
“I feel the human within me clawing to get out. It’s a strong one.” Aggie laughed. “But human. So, in essence, very weak. Unlike you.”
Sadie cranked her knee up, aiming for the groin. Isabelle pivoted away, but not entirely. Sadie grazed her hip, but it gave enough of a distraction for her to grab the dagger.
In a flash, she held the tip of the weapon against Isabelle’s throat.
“You’d kill your friend?” she asked in a tight voice.
“I’d kill you, Aggie.” Not only to free Isabelle, but to free Theo as well.
Wait, she could say the words. What were they again? The knife, she had to get it into the demon and then say the words.
“Tell me your plans,” Sadie whispered. “Or I’ll end you.”
Isabelle leaned forward, breaking the skin some, and pressed a kiss to Sadie’s lips. “You can try.”
Suddenly, a slicing pain ripped through Sadie’s gut. Warmth spread down her lower half.
“Your angelic roots only protected you for so long,
half-breed
.” Isabelle stepped back, holding a knife. “I would have liked to take you with me instead of kill you.”
Shit.
“
Reverto ut Abyssus
.” She gasped for breath. “Isabelle, I’m sorry.” She jammed the dagger into Isabelle’s chest cavity and repeated the words again for good measure.
Isabelle sagged to the side as Sadie slid down the metallic wall. Warmth oozed down her lower half, and she finally looked. Dark, thick blood freely flowed, soaking her shirt.
Theo.
Sadie lay there stunned as the burning pain spread along her stomach and down her abdomen. It wasn’t the same as the poison, though. While painful, not
as
painful.
She crawled along the tiled floor until she reached her friend. She forced open her eye and saw they were the brilliant brown she’d always known. Thank God the bastard released her.
But the blood pooling at Isabelle’s chest wasn’t very reassuring.
Sadie had to get Theo; he could heal Isabelle.
She rolled to the side enough to dig her phone from her back pocket. The screen was cracked and black.
Shit
.
She’d have to go get Theo.
Hopefully, she could find him before she passed out from loss of blood.
Chapter Thirty
“Justin!” Theo skidded beside his motionless brother and withdrew the two daggers buried deep in his chest and stomach. “Shit.”
Theo ripped open Justin’s shirt and pressed his hand over the first wound, then glanced at the back door to the Sciences building. No more demons, but the horde had done its damage. Not only to Justin but to Theo, too.
Despite the energy being sapped by absorbing Justin’s injury, Theo felt the cuts and stab wounds on his own body begin to mend.
How a pack of demons this big got through a gate or splice undetected rested on Theo’s shoulders. This was his responsibility.
Fortunately, he’d been recharged by his night with Sadie. He would have been on the ground by now had he been relying on his energy alone.
Theo
. Sadie’s voice rammed into him like a truck.
Had a demon gotten through? He’d been certain none had breached his defenses and gotten into the building.
Yet now that he’d settled, he could feel her pain, her scrambled thoughts. There was anger and hatred mixed in, too, but the predominating ones were fear and weakness. Two things Sadie didn’t experience unless things were really bad.
“Sadie.” Theo grunted as a wave of Justin’s pain rammed into him. But his brother needed him, too. “Shit.”
“Go,” Justin said. “Get your Mate.”
Theo looked down at his brother. He was pale, and sweat dampened his face. He was nowhere near okay.
Justin pushed Theo back. “Save…your Mate. I’ll live.”
He would. Justin had preserved his neck, but if he lay unconscious out here and demons came back, they’d have an easy time beheading him.
“Damn it!” He glanced around and opened his mind to Sadie.
Muddled. Foggy. He couldn’t get a grasp of her location. But his neck pulsed erratically as if it struggled to stay beating.
Something had gotten her.
Theo grabbed Justin’s dagger and closed his brother’s fist around it. “I’ll hurry. Stay awake.”
“I’m good.” Justin coughed. “Go.”
Theo got up and a wave of dizziness broadsided him. Justin’s healing took a little more than anticipated. Once he gained his footing, Theo sped to the front of the building. He burst through the doors and knocked shoulders with the guy from the party. Craig, yes, that was his name.
“Where’s Sadie?”
He pushed off Theo. “Dude.” He shook his head. “She left. Like twenty minutes ago.”
Theo descended the stairs and sprinted down the hallway, following the quiet voices. None of which were Sadie’s.
His connection to her was fading, fast. Barely a blip. No thoughts of her location, either. Her mind was shutting down. Slowing. “Sadie?” he yelled as he ran the hallway toward the room he’d left her at to eat her cake and mingle with her friends. The door to the party room was propped open. Only a few people remained, eating cake and talking quantum physics.
He sprinted onward toward another exit sign and one last hallway.
Sadie’s blip fell off his radar.
An overpowering stench of iron slammed into his senses.
Blood
. His heart hammered and muscles tightened as he stopped by a short hallway. The sign hanging from the ceiling read
RESTROOMS.
Oh Great One, please.
Not Sadie’s blood. Please.
He pushed open the swinging door and found a woman lying on her side. Blood soaked her shirt near her heart. He heard only a whisper of a heartbeat. She was minutes away from death. He inhaled and a faint trace of demon stench stung his nostrils.
“Sadie?” He stepped farther in, then squatted and looked beneath the stalls.
Empty.
He knelt beside the female lying on the floor and realized she’d been at the party. He recognized her long brown hair. She’d been standing off to the side.
As he leaned closer to look at her wound, more demon stench stormed through his senses. But she was human.
Heal her.
The Great One’s prompt didn’t go unheard. He knelt down and reached for her. Injuries this grave would leave him depleted, and he had to save enough for Sadie.
If he could find her. But his connection with her had gone flat, so he feared the worst.
He rested his hand on the girl’s forehead, prying into her thoughts as he absorbed her injuries. The ache rocked through his body, and he fell back against the porcelain sinks.
A chill seeped through his shirt, but he knew it was from his energy draining as well as the sink behind him. He bit back a grimace, reaching deeper into this girl’s mind.
She’d talked with Sadie at the party. Watched her from afar, too. Admiration for Sadie streamed through her.
Then they’d gone into this bathroom together. She applied lip balm as she looked into the mirror. A sharp flash and pain, then darkness. No memories. Only darkness, black as pitch and thick as tar.
Evil.
The mortality of her wound passed. Though not 100 percent healed, she would live, so he separated from her. Limbs heavy, he lumbered to the door, searching for Sadie with his mind.
His soul.
His heart.
Justin.
Everything was silent around him. At that moment, it felt as if he’d lost everyone. Heaviness weighted his limbs like concrete. Once out of the restroom, he went left toward the stairwell. He scented blood again. Faint. He reached for the handle and saw it.
She’d gone this way.
Hope fueled a wave of energy, and he thrust the door open. Unable to take the stairs two at a time again, he hurried to the first landing. Another crimson smudge. Against the brick this time, and it was dark and low, near the floor.
She’d fallen here.
The door had a number one on it, confirming Theo was right in thinking this was the first floor. If his bearings were correct, he should be near the back exit of the building.
A hint of vanilla enveloped him. Yes. She’d gone this way. He opened the door. He’d been right. The side exit door was across the hall. Two steps brought him to that, and he pushed it open.
Through the fading light, he saw her body prone on the gravel.
He sensed nothing from her.
Heavy and tired from healing Justin, then the girl in the bathroom, he could barely even run. He slid beside her and grabbed her hand.
Justin. Back door. Hurry.
Theo grabbed Sadie’s limp body, tears now freely flowing down his face, and fell onto his back.
He shoved his hands up the back of her shirt and made contact with her flesh.
So cold. So still. There was barely even an echo of a heartbeat. But there was no poison in her system. Nothing he could detect.
Of course not.
Mortal weapons. A knife. If it punctured precisely the right place, and she received no medical attention, she would die. Only when they mated would she receive his immortality.
But why try to kill her? He’d said he needed them mated. A hammer of agony pounded through him, and his fangs dropped.
“Oh, Great One.” Justin stumbled to a stop beside him. “Theo. Hold on.”
He hugged his Mate closer, absorbing her injuries. Yet touching her skin spurred him on. Strengthened him. “Must heal her.”
“Theo?” Sadie whispered into his neck. “Isabelle. Bathroom.”
Even near death, she worried for her friend. “She’s fine, love.” He kissed her hair. “I got to her.”
He ran his hand up Sadie’s spine and held his other arm tight around her waist until he couldn’t bring her any closer. If only he hadn’t had his shirt on, there’d be more contact. More absorption, faster healing.
As if his brother knew his thoughts, he reached for Theo’s shirt and tugged it up. Theo edged Sadie’s up enough to allow their stomachs to connect.
He combed the hair from her forehead to see her face. Bruises, cuts, and blood marred her porcelain skin.
Another wave of agony slammed into him, and he turned his face to let out a roar.
“Hold on, brother.” Justin stood. “I’ll get the car.”
“Witnesses…any wi—”
Justin leaned forward, hands on his knees and breathing hard. “Got the ones from earlier.” He looked around. “Clear…here for now.”
He limped away, constantly scanning the area, and moved out of sight around the corner of the building. Justin was in bad shape, as they all were, but he hadn’t groaned a bit. He was a true warrior.
Warmth oozed along Theo’s stomach, down his side, and onto the ground. Sadie’s wound must have been so painful. Such agony for her to experience. She’d made it up the stairs, then fallen here. On this rocky path. Searching for him, no doubt.
Alone. She must have felt so alone. He focused on her beautiful face to block out the agony filtering into him. The desperation she’d felt. The fear.
Darkness nipped at his vision.
No, he must stay awake. Had to stay strong for Sadie. He never should have left her side at the party. He should have been with her. None of this would have happened had he stayed by her side as she’d asked him to. She’d wanted to share her birthday celebration and graduation party with him, and he’d left her.
Left her to fend for herself.
His thoughts fell to what The Great One had said about Sadie dealing with a deep sense of abandonment. And Theo hadn’t been there for her.
“Shit,” he whispered. And this morning he’d been so distant. Cold.