“Ready?” he asked, that amused tilt to his lips present once more.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Think of Tessa. Think of Tessa. But even that mantra couldn’t consume me with the hunter pressed so closely to my side.
He tugged me forward, and we stepped through the thick wards surrounding his secret base. I couldn’t be sure, but it felt as if he drifted closer to me as the wards snagged and pulled at my senses.
I tried to tell myself that his close proximity didn’t affect me, but who was I kidding, it totally affected me. It was as if his body beckoned mine to his. Every time he touched me, I wanted to step closer to him, to run my hands up his chiseled stomach or across his broad shoulders, or to inhale his tantalizing fragrance that drifted over my senses.
I figured the lack of sleep was catching up with me because I had never reacted to anybody as I did to the Fire Wolf.
Once in the alleyway, the hints of dawn scoured the sky. Swaths of pumpkin and cherry hues lined the horizon in a muted glow.
The sounds of several car doors banging and machinery revving up drifted from the streets. It reminded me that we were in a human city with human equipment, and this industrial section of town was coming to life as a new day began.
“Do you think Declan’s okay?” I asked.
The Fire Wolf’s hand was still engulfing mine, but then he pulled away, and I instantly missed the feel of him. “I could contact Miranda to find out, but I’m sure he’s fine.”
My eyebrows rose. He would really do that? But then I realized that would take time, and we had a locate on Tessa right now. We should act while we had a lead.
“It’s okay, but if you don’t mind, when this is all said and done, I would appreciate an update.”
He stared down at me as he pulled his yellow crystal from his pocket. “You really want to know?”
I nodded. “Don’t you?”
He grunted and began swirling his crystal through the air. His glowing portal began to emerge, a wicked blend of sparks and magic.
“Does the yellow crystal channel your magic?”
He gave me a side-eye. “Maybe.”
In other words, yes. He gestured for me to go first. “Where are we going?”
“Have you ever heard of the Williamstown Institution?”
“No, am I supposed to?”
He shook his head. “I hadn’t either, so I looked it up while you were caressing my throwing stars.”
A new rush of blood flamed through my cheeks, and I wished it was nighttime again so the darkness could hide it.
But the Fire Wolf continued talking, as if having a random woman ransack his man cave was a normal, everyday occurrence. “It’s an abandoned institution that used to be an insane asylum. It’s been empty since the 1950s and fenced off from the main roadway. When I initially got a locate on your sister, I kept seeing what looked like an abandoned warehouse. That was why it took me so long, since I couldn’t identify what the institution was and the surroundings were too vague. I was finally able to locate a road sign about a mile away from where I’d picked up her signal. It had the institution’s name on it.”
My blood chilled. “And why would they have taken Tessa to an abandoned mental asylum?”
“I have no idea. Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Let’s go,” I said, my heart thrumming madly in my chest. “I just hope we’re not too late.”
He grasped my hand, and we jumped through his portal.
Chapter 11
The usual sensations of portal travel were there and then gone as my stomach became a whirling mess of nerves and unease. I imagined the horrible monstrosities potentially being done to my sister in a derelict mental asylum.
When the portal spat us out onto a cracked black asphalt drive, morning sunlight lit the sky. Weeds riddled the pavement, scrawny stalks of plant life stubbornly rising from the broken terrain.
The old abandoned asylum rose up in front of us, only twenty yards away. Even in daylight, it looked like something from a horror movie. Three stories tall, the building stretched a hundred feet in each direction, and I guessed that it had probably once held hundreds of patients.
“Creepy,” I said more to myself than anything, but the Fire Wolf grunted.
Vines and weeds grew around the asylum’s perimeter. Some of the vines snaked up its cracked stucco exterior and infiltrated the building through broken windows. Most of the windows were boarded up, but the ones that weren’t had obviously been smashed throughout the decades. Bird nests filled their corners, and streaks of caustic poop painted the stucco below the windowsills in streaks of white and black.
Around us, fields stretched for miles making the surrounding land seem like a sea of quaintness while the asylum was an island of death and horror.
“I’m sure it was once quite charming,” the Fire Wolf said dryly as we strode toward the main doors.
“Probably as cheery as a bouquet of daisies.”
He snorted.
Our feet tapped quietly on the asphalt, and I felt inside me for the bond with my twin sister. It tingled briefly, and then vibrating slightly as a tug of it came to life.
My heart soared. “Oh my gods, Tessa!” My pace picked up, my walk turning into a run.
The Fire Wolf tensed. “Do you feel her?”
I concentrated on the bond more, willing it to grow to life and lead me in her direction. But as soon as I reached the front door, the initial vibration stilled, and then melted away like ice on a warm spring morning.
The eagerness inside me died, and I whirled around to the hunter. “I sensed her. She’s been here recently.”
The Fire Wolf’s nostrils flared. He inhaled, closing his eyes. I watched as his jaw flexed and his fingers curled. “I can scent her slightly on the breeze. It’s not strong, but like you said, she was here.”
“And now the question is, how long ago?”
The Fire Wolf growled and opened his eyes again, his irises flashing fire. “They must be moving her. I only finished scrying fifteen minutes ago, and she was here when I picked up her signal. They may know that they’re being tracked. Whoever took Tessa obviously isn’t taking any chances. They know the longer she’s gone, the weaker her signal will become for trackers.”
“Is that how scrying works? If you don’t find her right away, it gets harder and harder to track her?”
He stiffened. “Something like that.”
“But why the hell do they want my sister? She’s never done anything to anybody.”
“I have a feeling that once you’re able to answer that question, we’ll know a lot more about who we’re dealing with.”
“So what do we do now? Do you scry again for her?”
He looked away, a tightness creeping along his shoulders. “I can’t, not yet. Scrying takes . . . a lot out of me. I’ll need to rest before I do it again.”
“Oh.” My shoulders slumped. “You need to recharge your magic.” The infallible Fire Wolf was actually fallible after all.
His only response was a curt nod. I had a feeling the Fire Wolf didn’t like admitting his weaknesses.
And even though my eyes were beginning to feel gritty and dry, and I knew we both needed to rest, I also knew that would be hard to do since my sister was still missing.