Page 84 of Mortal Blood
“No, but she’s…” I felt the blood drain from my face, and I looked pleadingly at the fae. “Please, she’s safe with the Iron Shadows.”
“Very convincing,” the shifter said, rolling his eyes.
“Please, you’ve got to be mistaken.” I twisted round. “She’s with…”
My stomach turned over. The answer was clear to read in their eyes. She wasn’t. My mom was gone.
“Enough of this,” the fae said, grabbing my arm. “Time to go.”
“No! Let me go!” I twisted in his grip and the shifter started forward, grabbing my other arm as I thrashed and kicked out. “I have to find her! Let me go!”
“You’re just making this worse for yourself, mongrel,” the shifter snarled as he twisted his head aside, narrowly avoiding me breaking his face with the back of my head.
The fae held out a hand, shouting a word, and a portal sprang into existence.
“Cole!”
“I’ll find her,” he vowed.
The shifter dragged me toward the portal and Cole glared athim, tension bunching his shoulders. For a moment I thought he was going to attack him, then he reluctantly backed off a single pace to let us pass.
“Promise me, Cole.”
“I swear it, Cali. I’ll find her. And if you,” he snarled, rounding on the fae, “hurt a single hair on her head, I will kill you both.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I’d spent longnights before. Cold nights. Dark nights—and not just literally. Nights where I thought morning would never come. Nights when I didn’t want it to come. I’d spent nights sitting outside my mom’s door while she screamed and threw things if I came in, and tried to wander off if I wasn’t close by. I’d spent nights lying awake, listening to her tremble and cry—those were worse. And worst of all, that one night when she’d been sectioned, locked up somewhere alone. The night I’d met Cole. The night I thought they’d never let her out again.
This was worse than them all. Because while I was locked away in this tiny cell, listening to the shouts and cat calls of my fellow inmates, my mom was out there somewhere. And shewasn’talone. Because there was no way she’d left the pack by herself. Not willingly. She’d been settled at the Iron Shadow clinic. She’d beenhappy.Truly happy for the first time in such a long time. Sure, Kallan and his little band of assholes had freaked her out, but the pack doc was taking good care of her, making her feel safe again.
No. There was no way she’d gone willingly.
Which meant someone had taken her. And I couldn’t rule out Kallan and his pack being behind it. I didn’t even know if she was alive, dammit!
My only sliver of consolation was that Cole was out there, right now, looking for her, and he’d probably had no more sleep than I had. But not even Cole could bring back the dead.
No. She wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be. She just…couldn’t.
I slumped against the wall with a sigh. The cold concrete bled through my clothing—a prison issue plain white tank top,and black sweatpants. No shoes, presumably so I couldn’t kick anyone, which meant my pacing had left me with cold feet. I’d live.
Anti-magic, anti-feed, and anti-shift runes were embedded into the walls, I suspected immovably so, which might have mattered if I had the slightest control over any of my supernatural ‘gifts’. And if I was dumb enough to think that attacking anyone would bring me even one inch closer to getting out of this place. There were about twenty separate defenses between me and the way out—not to mention dozens of highly trained guards. Also, I had a shit sense of direction. The only way I was getting out was if they let me out. And the only way they were letting me out was if I played nice. And if I was lucky.
I shivered. The idea of spending months or even years in here, no contact with my family, with Cole, not knowing if my mom was dead or alive… It was more than I could bear.
I sank down in the corner of the cell, ignoring the cold that traveled up my spine from the bare concrete floor, and buried my head in my arms.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat like that—long enough that my ass had gone totally numb—when a small viewing window in my cell door opened. I lifted my head to regard it, and then the door swung open, revealing two figures standing in the doorway. The first wore a guard’s uniform, and it took me a second to place the other. And then he sneered at me.
“Well, well, dhampir. Fancy seeing you again.”
“Brennan,” I returned coldly, peeling myself from the floor and trying not to let my stiffness show. “Now my morning really is perfect.”
“You remember what I said would happen if I had to comelooking for you?”
“I remember some vague threats,” I said, shrugging as casually as I could—which wasn’t particularly casually, given that I couldn’t actually feel my shoulders. Or any other part of my anatomy.
“I’m going to make sure they leave you here to rot like the abomination you are. That specific enough for you?”
