Page 101 of Bent Out of Shade
My blood boiled, my desire to unleash my magic physically paining me. But the stupid fucking overcast weather kept me from animating Delilah to rip off his head or summoning my scythe to stab him a dozen times in his most vulnerable bits.
He shoved me inside a high-end sports car with tinted windows. “Where to?”
“Blood Alley,” I said in a croak.
The vehicle peeled out with enough force to slam me back against the seat.
I gripped my seat belt, praying he didn’t hit anyone because from the set of his jaw, telling him to slow down would be a death sentence. Same with feigning ignorance or asking what had happened to him.
How was Vincenzo even here? Laurent and Emmett—a scream wailed in my head, and I twisted my fingers together like that could physically shove it away—my team would have gotten there before the vampire or his minions had woken up.
The clock on the dashboard showed it was after noon now, but they’d driven to Vincenzo’s place a few hours ago. Zev would have known when it was safe to send them in, and it didn’t make sense for him to betray my… I swallowed. Them. He wasn’t working with Vincenzo to take those two out, was he?
I forced away the image of the gash along Laurent’s side courtesy of BatKian. The vamp knew damn well that…harming…those two would hurt both me and Tatiana. I almost laughed. “Hurt.” Four letters wouldn’t encompass our devastation.
But it would violate our mutual respect agreement.
This wasn’t Zev. I glanced at Vincenzo. So, who’d given him a heads-up? Or, rather, protected him, since I doubted he could be roused early?
My abductor had wicked good fortune going for him: no construction slowed our progress, no cop clocked us for going way over the speed limit, and we hit every green light.
Vincenzo swerved into a parking spot in front of the real Blood Alley and forced me out of the car. My stomach twisted, because I still couldn’t access my magic.
Zev was my best option to help.
Or the best shield to hide behind when Vincenzo saw Sabrina.
New plan: as soon as Zev showed up, I’d race home. There was still plenty of time before the library test.
BatXoha quickly walked us through the invisible demarcation line into the hidden space and tensed as we stood outside the spiky gates. The gargoyle statues that normally sat on either side of the metal sign were gone, and a dense fog cloaked the entire territory.
Vincenzo shoved me into the entrance and I screamed, caught in a ward whose electric magic flared sharp and strong, wrapping me in sticky tendrils. I manifested my scythe and cut myself loose, but my skin throbbed bright red.
Weapon aloft, I faced my captor. “There’s no way through.”
He glanced at the fog. “Has he done this to keep me from her?”
I didn’t even see him close the space between us. Suddenly, he gripped my shoulder, and my scythe grew too heavy to hold. It fell from my hand onto the concrete and shattered, the pieces vanishing.
“I don’t know,” I squeaked.
His fingers were bruising, forcing me into a hunched-over twist, while magic dripped down my left side, weighing me down into paralysis. “Best guess.”
“M-maybe that other vamp was really after you and Zev both?”
Vincenzo frowned and I sucked in a breath, my eyes briefly closing at the huge misstep I’d just made.
“What other vamp?” His compulsion pushed at my brain, and although it didn’t work on me, his magic had cemented both of my feet to the ground and locked my knees stiff.
I dropped my head, exhaustion and defeat sweeping away any ability to formulate a plausible lie. “The one who turned Sabrina.”
The vampire staggered back, his hand on his gut as if he’d been punched, his face crumpling. A feral cry burst out of him, his features contorted. “You lie!”
I shook my head, deafened by his roar. “It’s why we didn’t want you to see her.”
“When?” He touched his ring finger. His unfettered grief was as raw as a live wire, and it sparked goosebumps that skated over my skin.
“Friday night, when she went missing, but I only learned of it when we found her.”
