Page 141 of Centaur Bolt

“But I thought Isobel was a Watcher?” Riley asked.

Cara shook her head. “She’s figured out a way around the problem. But I think it’s scorched her free of anything that made her a Watcher. Power always comes at a cost.”

Well, there was a brutal piece of truth. I sat down on the floor, and growled, “Can we just do this?”

Riley moved to stand before me. “If they’ve got Rafael captive, do you know where they would have him?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Why do you care about him?”

She bit her lip. “I dreamed about him, too.”

She dreamed about the wizardling? I stifled a surge of rage. Dammit. I didn’t care.

Right.

“I don’t know where they have him now,” I replied with surprising honesty.

“When I saw him, he was in a room with, what looked like, torture devices.”

Before I could stop myself, I said, “Like a cave?”

She shook her head. “No. It was a regular room.”

“I have never been in the house part. Only the cave.”

“But you could show them where to look.”

So that was what she was on about. “I could,” I conceded. “But I won’t.” I had zero desire to go back there.

She crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “You won’t be free until Isobel is dead.”

Well, Brock too, but she wasn’t wrong. I grimaced, taking care to show as many teeth as possible.

She was unimpressed. Merely raised a brow. Fang sat on her shoulder, staring at me with her beady little eyes. Both Watchers hung back, but their vivid-blue gazes bored into me.

Fucking hell.

“Get this bleeding collar off,” I snarled. “And then we’ll talk.”

49

Marcus

The demon inside me raged as I staggered away from the academy building—the sky mirrored me. Thunder rolled, and the first heavy drops of rain smacked against my upturned face.

Hellfire, Marcus. You are being a fool. You cannot fight Fate—

Shut. The. Frek. Up.

A Dire out for a late run stared at me with wide eyes as I made my way toward the forest and its concealing shelter. Because my hands had sprouted talons that glowed like the lightning that forked across the sky, and dark scales chased along my arms.

Okay. I need you to breathe, or we are going off the deep end. This time, I don’t know if I’ll get you back.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to be back. My life had become one unending series of difficulty and pain.

Don’t be maudlin.

What?

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