Crave (Tainted Angels Book 1) (29 page)

Sadie ran to his aid, severing the throat of the beast who was after the pure blood of her human friend.

“What the fuck is going on?” Bobby panted as he turned to take a stab at another.

There were too many. And where the fuck had they all come from she didn’t know. It was like the clock had struck a certain time and then hell had descended upon the bar – where coincidently she and ALL her friends were. Sadie suspected this was planned by someone, everyone in one place at once. But that was implausible because it had been Willa who had arranged the gathering to celebrate her coupling with Rax.

Sadie scanned the room; Willa and Rax were both missing. Willa had been there earlier, that Sadie was sure of, although Rax hadn’t turned up.

A shriek grabbed her attention and her head turned just in time to see Delilah wrap her whip around the throat of a dredgen who was just about to take a stab at Bobby.

Sadie frowned. Oh no. Oh no, no, no!

“Delilah!” she shouted across the room. Delilah’s eyes shot up to meet Sadie. “Where’s Willa?”

Delilah looked around the room, her face paling with every square inch that Willa could not be seen. “Oh no.” Delilah gasped.

They’d all been played so well. So fucking well.

Lincoln caught Sadie’s eye as four dredgen started to circle him. She ran to help him as Jaron and Dex battled with several of their own enemies. Zak was fighting three as he tried to protect Frannie who was just a cleanser and wasn’t skilled in fighting, but she was holding her own, a small blade stabbing at a dredgen that was trying to jump her.

One by one she and her friends managed to lessen the numbers until only a few dredgen remained. But Sadie couldn’t concentrate. She attempted to link with Willa time and time again but was met with nothing but silence. And if Delilah was in Fred’s then she wasn’t with Willa, protecting her.

Sadie suspected this battle was a diversion, a distraction that kept all Willa’s friends busy whilst something greater was at force.

“We need to find Willa!” she shouted across the room when all the lights cut out.

“Damn!” Delilah cursed when a faint groan told them one of the dredgen had gotten to Bobby. “Bobby?”

Sadie turned on her heels to the noise. Her heart ceased and she knew she had taken her last breath when out of the corner of her eye she caught the glint of silver, the moonlight streaming through the window lighting the blade’s path as the dredgen brought it down towards her.

A gunshot rang out, and as if in slow motion, the dredgen thudded to the floor in front of her, its wide dead eyes fixed on her as her own sight adjusted to the dim light.

Silence rang out as the lights came back on. At least twenty dredgen covered the floor, each dead body turning to dust and dispersing through the slats in the floorboards. Frannie was aiding Bobby who had taken a blade to his shoulder but appeared to be okay as Frannie started the healing process, and the rest of her friends were either seeing to their own wounds or trying to gather their breaths.

Sadie slowly turned. Sgt Miller stood by the rear door, his gun trained on the dredgen that his bullet had taken down; the dredgen that had had Sadie in its sights.

Everyone turned to study the policeman and his next move. But Sgt Miller only had eyes for her. Lowering his gun, his eyes scanned the room before they came back to an apprehensive Sadie. For a moment he seemed unable to speak, his disbelieving gaze once again roaming over the beasts that were disintegrating before his eyes. Then his narrowed, angry eyes landed on Sadie. “Who the fuck are you?”

Before she could answer, Willa’s mother ran into the bar. Her frantic eyes scanned the room before they found Sadie. “Willa’s missing.”

Lincoln pushed through everyone to get to Elizabeth. “What?”

Elizabeth panted, pushing her glasses up her nose as she tried to catch her breath. “I called round to take her a casserole I’d cooked. Herb was hurt. It looked like someone had thrown him at the table. There … there was blood – Willa’s blood. It was on the carpet, lots of it. I’ve searched Empyrea, and David summoned Diablo. She’s not anywhere in Gehenna either.”

“Fuck!”

Jaron looked around the room, clicking his teeth together. “I can’t get a sense on her if she’s in the human realm.”

Elizabeth nodded. “I think someone has taken her and they’re keeping her away from the spiritual realm so we can’t locate her.”

“Shit,” Sadie hissed, her heart pounding. Turning to Delilah she asked, “Can you trace her heartbeat?”

Delilah shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that. The only one who would be able to do that is Rax. Lincoln’s blood is too weak to sense her due to the virus.”

Sadie turned to look at Miller as he stepped forward. “I need a description. Was she here earlier?”

Sadie nodded quickly and filled him in on Willa. Five policemen barged into the building and almost immediately Sgt Miller barked out orders. “I need the CCTV from across the road. Stat. I need an alert out for the following person ….”

Sadie watched in both awe, dread and respect as Miller got to work. As his colleagues flooded out to follow their orders, the room stilled when the air rippled.

Everyone dropped to their knees when the most stunning woman breezed in. She shook her head and made an up gesture with her hand. “There’s no time for reverence. Willa is in danger.” The Almighty turned to Sgt Miller. “You.” His eyes widened but Miller wasn’t stupid – that was one of the reasons Sadie was so taken by him. Although when she’d asked him if he believed in God and he’d said no, Sadie had sensed an open mind in the man who made her heart beat quicker and her belly warm.

Miller’s eyes widened but he nodded. “Your men are of no aid to my granddaughter. Call them back or they will be killed.”

He blinked at her. “That may be but she is Sadie’s best friend so that makes her my concern.”

Sadie struggled to contain the gasp that wanted so much to pop out of her mouth.

The Almighty nodded, a small smile lifting her lips. “Your devotion to one of my children will not go unnoticed, however, you are still needed.”

Miller gave a firm nod.

“War is coming,” she said bluntly making Sadie’s stomach twist. “You need your world to be prepared.”

“War with who?” Miller questioned. Sadie was amazed how well he was taking everything. His liberality was allowing him to be accepting of the facts being laid before him.

“My granddaughter will do her best to take the first battle but whatever happens, the beginning is coming to an end. Your world will feel the force of the spiritual realm in the upcoming years. Your relationship with Sadie will grant you knowledge yet you are the only one who will be capable of leading your men.”

Miller frowned, as did Sadie. Nothing was making sense. The Almighty was talking of the upcoming years and right then Sadie couldn’t think past finding Willa.

The Almighty then turned to Delilah. “You need to hurry. He has taken her.”

Delilah held her hands out in irritation. “Who,” she grated through frustrated teeth. “Who has taken her?”

Sadie was growing frustrated herself when The Almighty ignored Delilah’s question and turned to Dexter. “You are Rax’s bond brother. You need to sense your brother then you will find Willa.”

Sadie stilled, dread heating her chest. “Why would finding Rax find Willa?” Her voice was low, apprehension and an unwanted instinct restricting her throat.

The Almighty turned to Sadie. “Because Rax is the one who has taken my granddaughter.”

The atmosphere in the room thickened with rage and shock. “Rax did what?” Lincoln hissed.

The Almighty simply blinked. “Rax Torres stabbed my granddaughter in the chest. And he has taken her somewhere I cannot gain access to. The only person capable of finding Rax is Dexter.”

Dexter swallowed deeply, his Adam’s apple grinding along his throat. Closing his eyes, Sadie and her friends waited with bated breath until he reopened his eyes. Blinking he looked at The Almighty. “I’m not sure. It’s too unfocused. It’s like his mind is … I don’t know, I can’t figure it out.”

“Try again!” Sadie demanded desperately.

“Wait!” Delilah cut in. “I know where they are! There’s one place that I used to meet Strauss. It is undetectable to the spirit world, that’s why we would always meet there.”

“Where?” Lincoln asked quickly.

“Black Heath. There’s a clearing through the forest.”

Lincoln and Elizabeth gasped. “We would always go there when Willa was a child, she used to love it. She always said she felt like she was coming home every time we went.”

Delilah smiled, a small sob echoing from her. “It was mine and her father’s special place. She would have sensed our souls there.”

Sadie took a fortifying breath when Jaron grabbed her hand and pulled her through the ripple of air. Dexter and Zak took her friends through their own hatches and it wasn’t until Sadie and her friends burst into the dense thickness of the forest that she realised Sgt Grant Miller was holding her hand as tightly as she was holding his.

O
n opening my eyes moments before, I tried desperately to take in my surroundings. At first I’d been stumped as to where I was, the large stretch of grass surrounded by a strip of calm water baffling me, but then on recalling Delilah’s dream I knew I was in the very place my parents met in secret.

I was already weak, the silver dagger Rax had used had been enchanted and the poison it had infused into my bloodstream had eradicated all my mystical powers. I was hanging from a chain suspended by nothing but magic, and without my own abilities there was no way of getting free or healing the wound in my chest.

Rax was suspended from his own chains, his face to the floor in slumber, but his chest moved up and down so for the moment I wasn’t too worried about him.

“Nice of you to join us, Willa.”

Gritting my teeth at the anger that stormed me with the sound of her voice, I dragged my eyes to her, my lip curling in disgust. “Don’t speak to me, bitch.”

She cackled, the sound angering me further. If I didn’t calm myself down I knew my heart would start to struggle with the amount of adrenaline racing through me but I was too full of fury to compose myself.

“Listen to the high and mighty. You’re not The Almighty yet. You don’t get the right to bark orders at me, halfbreed.”

Swinging my gaze to Rax, I shook my head sadly. “All this because he chose me. Really, Tabitha? I thought you were more original.”

Tilting her head to the side to look at Rax, she sighed. “When this is over, he is promised to me.”

I nodded. “And does Rax know that?”

“Once I deliver his child you will be a distant memory.”

“Let me guess. Damon will enchant him to love you like he did to hurt me?”

Tabitha shrugged, appearing bored as she pulled out a nail file and started to grate it across her talons. “Damon won’t need to charm him. Rax loves me and when you’re gone he’ll realise that. You were just an interim fuck. It was just a matter of waiting for him to screw you out of his system.”

“An interim fuck,” I mused out loud. “That’s why he coupled with me, huh?”

Her face darkened, a furious glare spitting at me with venom. “I know you just bewitched him, Willa. There was no way he saw anything in you apart from an easy slut.”

I chuckled, shaking my head. “I almost feel sorry for you, Tabitha. That you have to bow to someone and do their bidding just to cop yourself a man is really quite sad. We usually use our best attributes to make a guy fall for us but I can see why you had a bit of trouble there, not having any to use.”

“You fucking bitch.”

Blood splattered across her face with the upsurge of air from my lungs when a shadowed silhouette hit out at my stomach. I hissed, knowing I was bleeding internally.

“Oh, Tabitha.” Damon spoke in a sing-song voice as he stepped out from some trees. “Please try to contain yourself. I need every drop of her blood. It’s not good to waste it.”

Tabitha turned to Damon as he slowly approached her. She dipped her head in both reverence and apology. “I’m sorry, Master.”

He stopped in front of her and lifted a hand to her face, softly cupping her cheek. “You have been a perfect disciple, Tabitha.”