“You can have me.”
“Oh, I’ll have you, Aiden.” Jason’s voice had gone cold with anger and malice. “I’m going to make you suffer unbearable pain. And all the while, your father is going to be helplessly watching.”
Aiden couldn’t look at his father. He knew Jason meant every word, but Aiden couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.
“Two people are already dead, Aiden,” Jason said, his voice calmer. “Those deaths are on your head. How many more will stack up before you and Britt come to me?”
Galen’s phone vibrated. He glanced at it, then looked up at Aiden and sliced his hand back and forth across his throat for him to shut off the phone.
Aiden immediately ended the call. “What is it?” he asked.
“Isla, Larena, Sonya, and Reaghan are in Edinburgh, trying to combat the epidemic.” Galen swallowed, his blue eyes troubled. “If that bastard so much as touches a hair on Reaghan’s head, I’ll have his balls for dinner.”
Aiden pocketed his phone. “This could all be a trap. Wallace would know we wouldna stand by and do nothing. He knows Druids will go to Edinburgh.”
“Fuck,” Galen said as he hurried to dial his phone. “Fallon, get here now!”
In the next moment Fallon was standing beside Galen. “What is it?”
“Get the girls out of Edinburgh. It’s a trap.”
Fallon put his hand on Galen’s shoulder, and in a blink they were both gone.
“Well,” Britt said as she used a dropper to get a sample of blood. “I hate to point out the fact that Jason stayed on the phone with you for a bit, Aiden. The trap could extend to here, since he was so adamant about getting us.”
Quinn snorted. “You say it so calmly, lass.”
“Just pointing out a fact. That doesn’t mean I’m not scared,” she added before she bent to look in the microscope.
Aiden turned his head to his father, and he was sure the grim expression Quinn wore was the same one on his face. It seemed Jason was at least a step ahead of them at every turn.
“He doesna know where Laura is,” Aiden said suddenly. “He was hoping we’d admit to it.”
“That could mean she isna in league with him,” Quinn added.
Aiden wasn’t sure of anything anymore, but it was a gamble they had to take. Jason changed the game each time they played. It was time they took control.
He took out his phone and dialed Charon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Lacy Black walked down the street of the small village she had stopped for petrol and food. Magic hummed through her veins once more.
She hadn’t realized how much she had gotten used to it until Laura managed to snap the syphoning spell in two. Leaving Lacy with no magic.
It was fortunate for Lacy and her mother that they used their magic to discover where Laura had gone months before. Luckily for them, Laura was still in Ferness.
Lacy held up her hand as magic raced along her skin, making the ends of her fingers buzz with the strength of it. Even with Laura’s magic split between Lacy and her mother, the sheer amount of it was staggering.
What would it feel like to have all Laura’s magic? Lacy smiled as she thought of everything she could do with her sister’s potent magic.
“Oh, the fun I could have,” Lacy said to herself.
She was just a block away from her car when something invisible shoved her into a narrow alley. Lacy called up her magic, and though she could feel it inside her, she couldn’t use it.
With her mouth opened to scream, she found herself behind the building before she could blink. She dropped her purse and held up her hands in front of her as her magic answered her call.
Before she could launch the first blast into the unseen assailants, the air began to swirl around her. Particles the color of ash encircled her until she had to shut her eyes to protect herself.
She didn’t dare to open her eyes until the wind had died down. And when she did, she let loose the scream from before.
The tall ash-colored monsters with their long, stringy white hair closed in on her quickly. Her scream was cut short when the first one sank its fangs into her arm.
Soon, the rest were on her. The pain from their bites was unimaginable, but it was nothing to the feel of her blood and magic being drained from her.
The magic she had worked so hard to keep for herself—the magic she would have killed for—was no match against the monsters on her.
There were so many they blocked out the sky. It became impossible to keep her eyes open. She knew she was dying. A single tear fell from her eye as she realized no amount of magic could have prepared her for the vicious beasts that were killing her.
The buzz of magic faded from her fingertips just before the last drop of blood left her body.