Page 120 of Requiem
Alexei suddenly reaches forward to yank my head back, his fingers digging painfully into my scalp. “Jude’s mind is fucked. He’s weak. Strungout on drugs,” he sneers, his grip tightening in my hair. “Little rockstar can’t save you.”
And then he lets me go and takes a step back.
“Fuck you.”
He just smiles.
I can’t stop staring at Adriana. At the bruises and the blood, and the horrifying silence. I already know what Erik did to her. The thought makes me so angry.
Alexei slips his gloves back on slowly, gaze drifting toward the ceiling above us. “Jude almost escaped me tonight,” he says conversationally.“Almost.”
My chest tightens painfully at the sound of his name.
A faint smile touches Alexei’s mouth. “But men like Jude always forget something very important when they try to become heroes.” His eyes lower back to me. “Sometimes, heroes die.”
Chapter thirty-two
JUDE GRAVES
Blood is everywhere by the time we make it back to the cabin. The moment the front door slams open, the entire house feels like whatever fragile sense of safety we built here is fucking gone now.
Rafe moves quickly, clearing the dining table with one sweep of his arm. Plates crash to the floor and shatter across the wood while Nico drags medical supplies out from beneath the kitchen sink.
“Get him up here,” Rafe snaps.
Micah grits his teeth as I help haul him onto the table. Blood has soaked through the side of his shirt near his shoulder. Kieran lowers himself into one of the nearby chairs with a strained curse, his hand clamped tightly over the wound in his side, while Nico immediately begins throwing gauze, alcohol, and bandages across the table.
The cabin reeks of iron and smoke and melted snow. For a split second, it reminds me of when my dad took me hunting as a kid up in Washington State.
“They took them,” Micah says hoarsely. “JesusChrist…”
I turn away sharply, dragging both hands through my hair as rage tears through me so hard I can barely fuckingbreathe. Every instinct in my body is screaming to go back now. Not tomorrow. Not after resting.Now.
Rafe shoves a needle through Micah’s skin without warning.
Micah hisses. “Fuck you.”
“You’ll survive,” Rafe replies flatly, finishing up his wound and tying off the bandage before glancing toward Kieran. “Yours next.”
Kieran lifts his middle finger weakly. “Touched by the tender touch ofThe Dark Monster.”
Under any other circumstance, it might have been funny. Now it just feels like everyone’s trying not to drown.
Nico stalks across the room with a phone pressed to his ear, speaking rapidly in Russian before hanging up. “If that motherfucker Vlad is involved, we need to hurry,” he says. “I should be watching roads, ports, airports, probably every major route out.”
“They won’t leave the city,” Rafe says calmly while cutting through Kieran’s bloodied shirt with surgical scissors. “Not yet.”
My jaw tightens. “How the fuck do you know?”
“Because Alexei doesn’t want them gone.” His icy gaze lifts to mine briefly. “He wantsleverage. He may introduce them to Vlad, but he needs them if he wants you.”
My stomach twists.
I pace toward the kitchen window, staring out at the snowstorm swallowing the trees beyond the glass. My hands won’t stop flexing at my sides, like my body is preparing itself to break something apart. I want to break something apart.
“We strike fast,” Rafe says behind me. “There won’t be time for proper recovery. Alexei knows where this cabin is. We rest for a few hours because, unfortunately, our bodies require it. Then we move before he decides to come to us instead.”
Micah wipes blood from his hands on his discarded shirt. “Good.”
