Page 93 of Tethered to the World
He would never stop searching for her.
It was the scrape of wood on the floor that made everyone whirl just in time to see her dammed ferrets jump up on the chair, then the counter, before pawing the air.
Everything inside him froze, and he remembered that, while they looked like animals, they were from Annora’s afterworld. For the first time, hope lodged itself in his chest. “Do you know how to find her?”
The ferrets nodded in unison, and excitement shot through him as he leapt the distance between them.
She was alive.
And they were his only clue to getting her back.
“She had to have been hit hard. She wouldn’t have let herself be taken without a fight.” Logan and the other guys came over to surround the ferrets. “They must have knocked her out so she wouldn’t ghost them.”
Mason nodded, the first signs of life coming back to his eyes. “The blow could’ve knocked her out cold, kicking the connection offline.”
“Then why hasn’t she contacted us since?” Xander asked with a growl.
“Either she hasn’t regained consciousness or…” Camden swallowed hard, forcing himself to finish his sentence. “Or she’s injured, a blow hard enough to prevent her from reaching out.”
A muscle jumped in Xander’s jaw, barely managing to maintain control over his beast.
Camden very much dreaded what would happen if they didn’t get Annora back. He wasn’t sure any of them would ever recover.
Camden turned toward the ferrets, his heart thundering in his chest, the shaft of hope nearly painful as he hunched down. “What do we need to do?”
The ferrets ran forward, each standing in front of one of the guys. Then the furry little animals charged forward and bit each one of them.
“Son of a bitch.” Camden jerked back, the rest of the guys clutching their injuries, but none of them protested. When he was about to ask what the hell that was supposed to accomplish, he felt the familiar trickle of darkness he associated with Annora sweep through his mind, but instead of Annora, this was darker, more menacing, and his eyes widened in understanding.
“You’re her stalker, aren’t you?” he narrowed his gaze at the little vermin. “The one hunting her in the afterworld.” The ferrets all turned and seemed to glare at him. He wasn’t sure how it was possible, or what they wanted with her, but that was a problem for another day. While he sure as fuck didn’t trust them, he knew one thing…they would do anything to keep Annora safe.
For now, it was enough.
He closed his eyes, concentrating on the tiny thread of darkness. A gentle tug in his chest pulled him north, and his eyes popped open. With a vicious grin, he headed toward the door at a run. “I know how to find her.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Tyson entered the room with his posse following a pace behind, hatred oozing from him as he locked eyes on her. Annora reached behind her, grabbed the hand of the first guy she rescued and brought it up to her throat, holding him to her neck. “If you take another step, he will rip my throat out.”
To her surprise, the threat worked.
Everyone in the room stopped.
The guy behind her stiffened, and she gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. “While you could possibly get away with killing everyone else in the room, you were given strict orders to keep me alive.”
Tyson narrowed his eyes on her, one side of his mouth kicking up in a nasty smile. “We might not be able to kill you, but that doesn’t mean we can’t mess you up.”
The hands around her throat tightened, the guy behind her dragging her snug against him. “Take another step and she dies.”
The wolves stopped, indecision clear on their faces, and she jumped on the hesitation. “If I die, the symptoms of the drug will only worsen. Taking too much of the drug leads to madness. The drug is a craving, an addiction you won’t be able to beat. You’ll already do anything for your next hit. Part of the drug contains a poison that has been slowly infecting more than your body. It’s infecting your beasts, too.
“Bullshit.” Tyson snorted at the absurdity. He took a threatening step toward her when one of his lieutenants blocked his way.
“Wait!” The lieutenant angled his body so he could keep an eye on both sides of the room. “I want to hear what she has to say.”
A couple of the other men nodded and edged forward. They didn’t look so hot—eyes feverish, clammy skin, skeleton-thin, their hair greasy and limp. They were weak, their beasts unable to filter out the poisons as fast as the others’.
They were dying.
