Tristan laughed and then grabbed the spike that was lodged in Mitchell’s stomach, ripping it out and jamming it into his leg. Mitchell held in the scream and kept his face hard, and unreadable.

“Funny,” Tristan said. “Because that was my plan for you. To kill you slowly.” He twisted the spike in Mitchell’s leg until a cry of pain fell out. “You deserve to die. You’re weak.” Mitchell snarled, and Tristan chuckled. “It’s time you remember what you are.”

“I know what I am, you fool,” Mitchell said through the biting pain, forging his voice to sound cold and even. He looked past Tristan, trying to focus on something, anything other than the pain. That’s when he realized where they were, the old dilapidated railway station. Clearly, it was still Tristan’s favorite place to inflict pain. No one came down here anymore, and the area around it had been fenced off long ago. I should have torn it down years ago, he thought in frustration.

“The bond clouded your judgment,” Tristan countered with disgust, promptly drawing Mitchell’s attention back to him. “It made you weak. You were supposed to help me. You were supposed to teach me. But instead, you banished me for killing my soulmate.” He sneered and let the word hang in the air. “We were made to kill,” he yelled, eyes blazing and shimmering with tears at the same time. He looked lost, confused, evil, and perfectly sadistic all at once. “Now that that pesky spell is broken …” he paused, searching Mitchell’s face with contemplation, and his lips slowly twisted into a grin, “I think you’ll be more fun alive.”

Amelia’s smile flitted across Mitchell’s mind. Soulmate. The word seemed so foreign, so wrong, but yet, so real. He remembered loving her lips. They were soft, sweet, and warm. But the memory was like a movie. He saw it, watched it, but the pounding heart did not come, his skin did not tingle with the thought of her kiss. The only thing he felt was hunger. Searing hunger.

“I tasted her. Did you know that?” Tristan said with a grin.

Mitchell didn’t need to ask who; he knew. Amelia. He growled and snapped out with his teeth at Tristan’s neck. “She’s mine.” The words were snarled, and his building rage veiled the pain.

“She was delicious. I understand why you wanted to keep her as a pet.” He licked his lips and flashed his fangs. “And that aura. So full with pulsing magic. It’s intoxicating.”

She’s a pet? Mitchell thought about it. It sounded right. Like something he would do. He had always liked to have fresh, warm blood on hand. But it also felt wrong. Unreal. She’s your soulmate, his annoying conscious shouted. He had made love to her; the memory was etched in his mind, burned in his vision. He was sure that he had loved her. He had told her so over and over. And had she loved him? Yes. She did. He licked his lips. That love would make her easier to bend and break.

But the idea of him loving her seemed ridiculous. Completely and utterly ludicrous. Amelia was his. He had claimed her. But love… He loved her blood. His eyes washed crimson. He had tasted the blood, smelled it, and he needed it now.

He looked at his hand, noticing the spike protruding from it and another in his bicep pinning him to the wall. He looked back at Tristan, clenched his jaw, and counted backwards from three. He focused, masking his face in a void of emotion or thought, and with a swift yank, Mitchell pulled his arm free, and one of the railroad spikes ripped a hole in the palm of his hand.

Tristan hadn’t seen it coming. Mitchell ripped a spike from his leg, and with perfect aim, he launched it. It sank into Tristan’s neck, dead center, and he snarled. With his hand free, it only took Mitchell seconds to pull the other seven spikes from his body, and with each one he removed, Tristan found another one embedded in his skin.

Tristan collapsed, growling and shriveling in pain on the ground, and Mitchell laughed. His fangs sharpened, and he watched the hole in his hand close before looking down at his protégé. “You’ve ruined my favorite shirt,” Mitchell said. His voice was void of emotion, and to his ears, it sounded wonderful and strong and dangerous. He unbuttoned his shirt slowly, flexing his fingers over each button, and his lips curled upwards.

“Sorry,” Tristan grunted through the snarls. “It had to be done. You had to remember who you were and what you are.”

Mitchell let his shirt fall to the floor, cast a quick glance at Tristan, and smiled. “You’re lucky that you’re my blood,” he said before turning to the door. “If you weren’t, I’d kill you.”

“Where are you going?”

“To find my pet,” Mitchell called over his shoulder. “I’m famished.”

CHAPTER 13

Amelia slept, but not well. It was the kind of sleep she imagined people meant when they said they slept like the dead, the body stiff and unmoving, but the soul restless. She guessed it wasn’t far from the truth. Her soul, or at least half of it, was restless, unattached, and wandering.

She woke to find Josh curled up beside her, thankfully in his own sleeping bag. He was snoring softly, and he looked … young, fragile, nothing like the monster she had thought him to be. Was that because he was sleeping and vulnerable, or was it because she now knew the truth about his existence? Amelia didn’t know, but what she did know was that she did not like the way her heart softened when she looked at him. Wasn’t it just a couple days ago that he had kidnapped her, tied her up, and used her magic to break the bond that she had never wanted broken?

Madame Crystal and Megan were huddled in a corner holding hands, their eyes closed. A glow of bright, white energy surrounded them, and their soft murmurs filled the room with a warming power.

Cole was slumped against the wall, sleeping on his feet, and Tyler still slept in front of the passageway to Luke and Eric. Amelia wiggled her way out of her sleeping bag, trying not to wake Josh, and padded over to him. As soon as she touched his bow, Cole’s eyes snapped open, and a manic look passed across his face but vanished as soon as he recognized her. “Go lay down,” she whispered.

To Amelia’s surprise, he let her take his bow, and he curled into a sleeping bag without a single protest. Once he was out, Amelia grabbed her phone from the bench, and groaned when she noticed that is was only 3:15 in the afternoon; she had only slept four hours. Before she could consider crawling back into the sleeping bag—because, well, that’s exactly what she wanted to do—she went to join the witches.

“You should have woken me,” Amelia whispered, breaking their concentration, and the current of electric magic receded.

Megan gave her a dirty look. “I tried,” she said, her voice cold as a stormy winter night. “You just kept tossing and turning and mumbling. You wouldn’t wake up.” She narrowed her eyes and sneered. “You didn’t stop until Josh lay down next to you.”

That hurt. Really hurt. It felt as if Megan had stabbed her through the heart with a jagged, dull knife and then twisted. And the look that Megan was giving her was just as bad. “Have you found him?” Amelia asked, rushing over the words hastily, which only made Megan’s stare grow colder.

“No, not yet,” Madame Crystal replied with a shake of her head, oblivious to the suffocating tension. “We’ve been trying to contact the spirits for guidance, but it seems as if they have put us on hold.”

Amelia plopped down on the ground beside them. She huffed. The way the psychic said it, it was as if she was trying to call the cable or phone company. How could they be put on hold? The idea was completely ridiculous. And she was about to say as much, but when she looked at Madame Crystal, Amelia could clearly see that she was dead serious.

“Amelia? Is that you, kiddo?” Luke’s voice boomed from down the hallway. Metal rattled and clanked. “Come on, kiddo. Let me out of here.”

“Have you guys fed them?” Amelia asked in an attempt to block out Luke’s voice. He may sound like Luke, but he wasn’t. Not anymore. Eric had made that clear last night.

“They’re not pets, Amelia,” Josh said sharply. Amelia couldn’t miss his twisted sneer as he got out of bed and paced towards her. “They’re monsters.”

“Of course they’re not pets,” Amelia said, forcing herself to stay calm and hide the spurt of anger that rushed through her veins at Josh’s use of the word monsters to describe her friends. “They’re my family.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Eric chimed, his voice filled with musical laughter. “Megan generously offered herself.”

All eyes turned to Megan, and she fidgeted uncomfortably under their stares. “What?” she asked sheepishly, and then she glared at Amelia. “He was hungry, and I’m not going to abandon my soulmate the way you have. He’s still in there, and it’s not as if he forgot who I am. He’s just confused.”

Tyler grabbed her, and yanked her off the floor. “Do you have a death wish? He could have killed you!”

Amelia gasped. She hadn’t noticed Tyler wake up. The stress was getting to him. It was as if a murky coating of anguish and anger had covered him from head to toe. His eyes shone with murder, and Amelia felt the blood rush from her cheeks.

“He won’t,” Megan said. She snatched her arm away from Tyler and dropped her eyes to the ground, shuffling back and forth.

“I never thought you were that stupid, Megs,” Cole said groggily. He propped himself up on his elbows.

“Meg, they’re right,” Amelia said, and she scooted closer to her cousin.

Megan scuttled back, sliding across the floor on her butt. “Oh what, now you’re siding with the enemy?” she spat, and her skin flushed red.

Amelia sighed, and angry, frustrated tears stung her eyes. “I’m not siding with anyone, but what would you have done if Eric hadn’t stopped? What if he killed you? I can’t lose you, too.”

Josh crouched in front of Amelia. He reached out, brushing a stray curl out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. “We’re your family,” he said with a soft passion. “And right now, we have to be worried about the ones that are on the loose. The ones that are most likely randomly killing innocent people in town right this minute.”

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