Page 87 of Temptation (The Mate Games 4)

“You thought you could hide from me.”

“No.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve got what I want now.”

“Give her back to me.”

“She was never yours.” The smile on her face was chilling and so confident I was struck with terrible fear.

As I stepped toward her, figures climbed out of the ground between us, bodies in various states of decay, coated in dirt and gore. What I’d mistaken as deep crevices had really been graves. I gagged again, and my baby wailed.

Everywhere I looked, I was surrounded by the faces of the dead. Callista, with her decapitated head clutched to her chest, red lips twisted in a sneer. Chad, his jaw missing, steps slow and lurching, as if his bones were still broken and only supported by what remained of his fleshy suit. And then others whose deaths came as a surprise. The Blackthorne’s faithful butler, Martin, Professors Moriarty and Sinistra, and Phe and Ronin Farrell, who were nearly unrecognizable beneath the boils and sores covering them from head to toe.

“What have you done?” I whispered, my mouth tasting of ash.

“Me? Darling daughter, haven’t you figured it out yet? This isyourdoing.”

“No. I never hurt these people.”

“Oh, but you did. You need to face the facts, my sweet. You played the game and lost. Your chess pieces were sacrificed to keep you safe to the bitter end, but now it’s over. Only one can win. And I have always known I would be the last one standing.”

Fury ate through my fear, and I lurched forward, intent on ending this here and now. But I didn’t make it more than two steps before falling to my knees.

“No. God, no.”

Lying between us, slaughtered, brutalized, mere husks of their former selves, were my four mates. Mouths open on silent screams, milky eyes staring up at the sky, expressions frozen in abject terror.

Dead.

All of them.

My gaze found Caleb’s left hand, the ring I’d tied on his finger still there. Deep, aching grief swelled inside me, and I screamed his name on a ragged sob.

Hands pressed to the dry, dead earth, I hung my head and cried as my mother laughed from above me. My tears fell onto the ground, and from under my palms, blood welled to the surface, flooding the world around me, washing away the horde of zombies, the bodies of my loves, everything, and taking me under in a sea of red.

I gasped, choking on the metallic liquid that burned like fire as it slid down my throat. I shouldn’t have been able to feel the tears racing down my cheeks, but I knew they were there.

It was over.

We’d lost.

Just as I opened my mouth to swallow more of the boiling substance and force the end to claim me quicker, a hand reached out, grasping mine. The brush of yarn on my palm was familiar, and I knew without seeing who it was.

“Please save me, Caleb. I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to be with you.”

His voice was a whisper in my mind, and I gave myself over to eternity with him. “I’ve got you,a stor. I’ll never let you go.”

ChapterThirty

CALEB

Ilaid next to her in the bed, the bloodstained clothes she’d been wearing now in tatters on the floor. I couldn’t look at them without terror shooting through me all over again. Her blood, her precious life-giving blood, had been spilled by that fae bastard. And I knew this would not be the last time. It had only taken them minutes from the time the barrier went down to find us. More would be on their heels. Better prepared. Relentless.

My palm gently circled the swell of my wife’s belly as I watched the baby move within her. All this over an innocent child. Because I knew now, this wasn’t some evil creature. She was mine.

Sunday let out a soft whimper, her brow furrowing as she cried out.

“Shh,a stor. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

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