Page 64 of Chaos Carnival

Lilith looked up, arching one perfect eyebrow. “I haven't seen her all morning. Thought she was with you.” A pause, heavy with implication. “Wasn't she?”

My heart stuttered, then raced, the rage shifting something harder, deadlier. “What do you mean you haven't seen her?”

“I did not notice her leave the bedroom,” Lilith said carefully, but I caught the flicker of genuine concern beneath her carefullycrafted mask. “The strands are still unstable in her. She shouldn't be alone.”

I knew that. I fucking knew that. I'd left her alone anyway, trusting her to rest. Fuck. That was the kind of mistake that got mates killed.

The bond pulled at me, a dull throb behind my ribs that told me she was far. Too far. I tried to focus on our connection, to track her like I had before, but the webs had changed something fundamental. Made her harder to pin down, like trying to catch sight of illusions from the corner of your eye.

Fear clawed at my throat, cold and certain as a knife between the ribs. That psychopath launched his horror show, and my mate—my beautiful, reckless, maddening mate—had gone to face him alone. The thought sent despair writhing along my skin, desperate to tear something apart.

My perfect, broken mate was walking straight into Ivan's trap, and I'd fucking let her. My shadows writhed, responding to the storm of possessive rage and terror churning in my gut. The lights flickered, and Lilith's magazine crackled in the tension.

“If anything happens to her...” The threat hung unfinished. What could I possibly say? If Ivan touched her, I'd tear him apart. If she came to harm, I'd never forgive myself.

The truth was simpler, darker: Without her, I'd become exactly the monster she’d feared I was. And I wouldn't even try to stop it.

I gathered my strength, preparing to phase. I'd destroy that circus, board by board if I had to. I'd wade through an army of hunters. I'd challenge Hell itself. The darkness around me coalesced, feeding off my fury, ready to rip the world apart at my command.

Because Tess was mine. My mate. My anchor. My salvation and damnation wrapped in one maddening package. And I wasn't playing nice. Not anymore. That psychotic clown-facedbastard had pushed me too far, thinking he could just take what was mine. The corruption inside me, the part I usually kept carefully leashed, was breaking free. And for once, I welcomed it.

I sent a text to Lux. “Tess is gone.” Even thinking the words tasted like rusty knives. “Ivan's site. Now.”

I materialized behind a cluster of trees at the fairground’s perimeter. I shouldn't have phased. Of course not. But there wasn't any time. The hunters would sense the ripple, track it straight to me like bloodhounds on a scent. Let them come. Right now, finding Tess was all that mattered, everything else was just collateral damage waiting to happen.

The sunlight painted everything in shades of blood and ink, turning Ivan's carnival into a nightmare. Metal groaned and canvas snapped in the breeze, a discordant symphony gnawing at my senses, each sound a reminder that my mate was out there alone.

The bond pulled like a fishhook, a cold emptiness where her warmth should be. Where she belonged. The void ached with each heartbeat, a constant reminder that part of my soul had been ripped away. Fuck, I'd only just found her, only just learned what it felt like to be whole, and now this twisted bastard was trying to take it all away again.

Stone and Lux would follow, they always did when it mattered. But I couldn't wait, couldn't breathe, couldn't think past finding her. The thought of him near her made my shadows writhe with murderous intent. My brothers could catch up. They knew how to track me, and right now every second I delayed was another moment that sick fuck could have had his hands on my mate. The rage building inside me was a living thing, feeding the darkness that coiled around my body like a dragon’s tail.

The circus sprawled out like an open wound, a maze of towering structures that seemed to pulse with malevolent energy. Construction equipment sat abandoned, metal teethgleaming dully in the fading light. The big top loomed under the darkening sky, its striped surface rippling with unnatural shadows.

Somewhere in this labyrinth of metal and canvas, Tess was living out one of her thread-visions. Her presence flared like a beacon calling to my soul, but the circus's layout made it impossible to pinpoint exactly where she was.

My hands clenched into fists hard enough to draw blood from my palms, rage burning arctic-cold in my veins. The fury threatened to consume me, overheating my skin.

I melted into the night, moving like death between the half-constructed attractions. The mate bond hummed in my chest, warmer now, she was close. My body responded to her proximity like an addict sensing their next fix. A set of footprints caught my eye, the familiar pattern of her favorite boots pressed into the mud. They led toward the funhouse before vanishing, like she'd been plucked from the air. A chill slithered down my spine.

“Spread out,” I growled as Stone and Lux materialized beside me, my voice rough with bound rage. Every cell in my body screamed to tear this place apart until I found her. A tide of black from the carnival rides loomed over us like bizarre monuments to my failure to protect her. “She's here somewhere.”

“Watch it,” Stone muttered, his usual stoic demeanor cracking with concern. His dark eyes scanned the carnival grounds, muscles tensed like he expected an ambush. “This feels wrong.”

Movement flickered at the edge of my vision, figures lurching between the tents like broken marionettes. Ivan's carnival workers, distorted into something inhuman. One turned toward us, and my stomach roiled at his face.

The sight only fueled my rage. He wouldn't turn my Tess into one of his puppets. He wouldn't corrupt her fierce, radiant spirit. Not again.

Over my dead body. Over everyone's dead bodies.

I reached for my magic, letting shadows curl around my fingers. The workers might be victims, but they were between me and my mate. And nothing—nothing—would keep me from her. Not Ivan's puppets, not his arcana, not even the threads that were slowly claiming her sanity.

She was mine to protect. Mine to have. Mine to possess with all the devotion that coursed through my immortal soul. And no one could take her from me. Not Ivan, not his wraithshade, not even the fucking universe itself. Every cell in my body screamed it. The bond between us surged like a living thing, and I'd rip apart anyone who tried to sever it.

“What has he done to them?” Lux's voice trembled with horror.

“He's been busy,” I growled, fingers of ink writhing beneath my skin in response to the corrupted carnival.

“Maverick?” Her voice drifted through the air like a specter, seeming to come from everywhere at once. “The strands are so dark. They taste like ash and broken glass.” The words were dreamy, disconnected, the way she sounded when the lines had her in their grip. My chest constricted with primal fear.

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