Page 139 of Blood So Brutal

My throat tightened. “What are you saying?”

“I am sending you back to your wife, Wolf Jasper. Only this time, you will have everything he took from you.”

“Everything he–”

“And once you’re there, I need you to give the girl a message.”

Chapter 54

Huntyr

Ibecame vaguely aware of Rummy yelling my name, then Jessiah.

I hadn’t moved. I wasn’t sure I would trust my body to hold me up if I did. Time disappeared entirely, and my vision tunneled around Wolf’s unmoving body, around the blood that now poured from his wounds.

The cut on his hand wasn’t healing.

Nothing was.

He gave me all his damn magic.

Tears streamed down my face, but all I could think of was the fact that I wanted to undo everything. Asmodeus. The magic. The bond.

Undo all of it and give Wolf back.

“Huntyr!” Rummy yelled. She gripped me by the shoulders and hauled me backward. Jessiah scooped me up from under my arms and forced me to my feet.

His mouth was moving, but I couldn’t hear the words. It wasn’t until Rummy stepped in front of me and started shaking me that I finally understood.

“They need you to fight!” Rummy yelled. “They won’t stop until Scarlata has no survivors. Even with Asmodeus dead,they’ll keep trying. You need to stop them. Go, Huntyr! Before everything is gone!”

Before everything is gone.

I knew, deep down, that killing Asmodeus wouldn’t end this all. They all wanted power as badly as he did. These fighters lived under his rule for decades, all of them learning to chase the same thing.

Greed and hunger.

Theyallhad to die.

For a split second, I debated giving up. Laying down. Taking a damn breath.

But Wolf’s voice flashed through my mind.It has to be you.

If Wolf was really gone—which was not a fate I could even fathom—at least I could do this. At least I could finish what he started.

As if in response, his magic tickled my veins.

I wasn’t sure if it was that last ounce of his magic or the anger that flared deep in my body at the sound of fighting still raging, but my eyes glazed over.

Jessiah crouched next to Wolf, putting pressure on his wound. It wouldn’t work.

It was already too late.

Too late to save anything at all.

I couldn’t fucking feel it. The bond, that small tickle in the center of my heart that reminded me I would never be alone again. It was gone.

I started walking at first—slow, torturous steps toward the war—but it quickly turned into a slow jog, then an all-out sprint.

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