Page 19 of Blood Sacrifice

“My bag,” Luna muttered, trying to look around her. “I need to find it.”

No one needed to point it out to me as it had her scent on it. There was no way I was leaving her with the other tourists at the side of the road while she was injured. Paulo was on the phone with Tarrack to mobilise police to our location.

“Come with me,” I said in a low voice, my hand at Luna’s back as I made our way to my car. Every cell in my body fought against the instinct to lift and carry her, but I didn’t want to bring attention in case anyone was watching us from a distance.

I stopped for a moment to lift her case and kept walking.

Paulo had everyone sitting on the ground behind the protective barrier of their car, so I continued without stopping.

“I should be with the others,” Luna said. “We are supposed to stay together.”

She needed that head injury checked and somewhere safe to stay. I couldn’t trust myself to speak or I would start shouting right now. She leaned against my car with her eyes closed while I tossed her suitcase in the boot, her face pale and her lips trembling.

“I don’t feel well,” she muttered, her knees buckling.

I caught her before she collapsed onto the ground, pulling her against me, my arms holding her. There was no way I was leaving her on this crazy chessboard any longer for whoever was stalking her to target.

I opened the front door and carefully manoeuvred her onto the seat, pulling the seatbelt in place.

“Whoever is looking for her took some risk today,” Jethro said, appearing beside me.

“There’s a lot of fatalities here,” I replied. “It wouldn’t take too much effort for there to be another.”

He nodded once. “Tarrack has spoken to our police contacts and they’re on their way here. I’ll ask him to find a Jane Doe and make sure she’s at the mortuary with the others.”

It was an unfortunate fact of life that people died every day without anyone claiming them. There was someone hiding in the shadows who were several steps ahead of us. It was time we changed the rules and showed them that we were the harbingers of death.

Chapter Seven

Luna

My memories were shattered fragments that swirled inside my head. There was an ache in my head that made my ears throb, and my mouth was dry. I tried to catch hold of an image, but it moved too quickly and I was left in darkness again.

The next moment of consciousness found me lost in one of the erotic dreams that made me ache and burn. His flesh was firm under my fingers, his arms strong around me as they kept me safe. I could only ever find him in my dreams, my soul finding his to seek comfort.

“Sleep.” His deep voice had haunted my dreams since the night he saved me. Soft lips kissed my forehead, and those arms pulled me closer.

“I am asleep,” I muttered. “When I’m awake you’re gone.”

I didn’t hear what he said, but there was a low vibration in his chest that sounded like a growl.

Magic users were most susceptible when they slept, our minds open to psychic attack. It was why I had a nightly ritual, and spell bags that I carried with me when I wasn’t in my own room. There was a niggling thought at the back of my head that I was vulnerable, my normal level of protection missing.

I tossed and turned, but the one constant were the strong arms that held and soothed me until I finally managed to openmy eyes, squinting against the strength of the sun pouring through the windows.

I groaned, the pain reappearing when I tried to move my head. After a few moments, I managed to roll onto my side and pushed myself up. Nothing in the room was familiar, not even the curtains at the side of the windows. I tentatively tiptoed across the room, searching for a bathroom since my bladder was ready to burst.

The second door I opened revealed an ensuite, and I stepped inside. The woman who stared back at me from the mirror had bruising under both eyes, and a lump at the side of her head that still had dried blood around it that had matted the hair. I touched the lump with my fingertips, wincing at the pain. After I used the toilet, I tried to comb my fingers through my hair, and it was then that I noticed the T-shirt I was wearing didn’t belong to me. It was large and baggy, reaching halfway down my thighs. All I was wearing under it was my pink lace panties.

This time when I met my eyes in the mirror, it was in shock, my hands smoothing over my body. What had happened?

I slowly sat on the side of the bath, trying to piece everything together. My last memory was the tour bus, and listening to a couple behind me arguing about a present he bought for his secretary. Everything became very hazy after that, but there were screams and the bus skidding as it left my stomach somewhere back on the road.

I swear there were gunshots, but maybe there had been fireworks detonating in the distance? There had been a moment when I swore I saw Salvator in the middle of the road… I must have hit my head really hard because it had been an extremely vivid hallucination.

Eventually, I ventured back into the room I had woken in. The muscular back of a man wearing low-riding black tracksuitbottoms was the new view at the window. He slowly turned to face me, and my breath caught in my chest.

It couldn’t be.

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