Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
But had she inadvertently brought the Blackwood Coven to him?
Elijah had an entire gig to figure out how to get away from them. Adam hit the drums, leading them into their first track. On autopilot, Elijah began to sing, but before he’d even hit the second chorus, a strange fatigue settled over him.
The dread he’d been filled with became this overwhelming weight on his chest.
That’s when the first screams cut through the music, and he saw bodies start to drop in the crowd. Body after body.
What the fuck?
Horror filled him as his knees buckled and his lids grew heavy.
“Warlocks and witches can only draw power from the things around them. Earth, trees, flowers, animals, people. In order to cast spells, they have to sacrifice something in nature—draw the energy out of it to use it elsewhere.”
Oh my God … were they killing their fans to disable him?
He dropped to his knees, his limbs like concrete.
“Eli!” Jamal was suddenly kneeling before him, face tight with anxiety. “We need to get out of here, mate. Must be a gas leak or something!”
Hands grabbed at him and he turned to see Phil and Adam.
His band carried him offstage, but even as they followed the venue staff out of an exit door, he couldn’t find his strength.
There was an explosion of panicked conversations in a mix of Dutch and English as Elijah tried to gain some control of himself. They were in an alley at the back of the building. People were on their phones. Sirens wailed in the distance.
Jamal knelt beside him as their bandmates talked with the staff, trying to figure out what was going on.
Gradually, Elijah started to feel somewhat better. Stronger.
“Jesus, fuck.” Phil strode over to him and Jamal, face pale, eyes haunted. “They’re saying people are dead in there.”
“Oh my God.” Jamal slumped beside him. “What the hell happened?”
Elijah reeled. It was true, then. Those witches and warlocks had killed people to draw their energy to use against him.
Oh fuck. The band. His boys. He had to get away from them. He couldn’t have them in the coven’s line of fire.
“Can you find me some water?” he asked Jamal.
Dazed, his friend nodded. Phil clamped Jamal on the shoulder, and the two of them wandered off. Elijah slowly stood, knees still shaking from the earlier assault.
Glancing around to make sure no one was watching him in the chaos, he drew up all his energy and fled at hyper speed from the alley.
He ran, a blur, mindlessly heading east. An old, red-brick bridge appeared before him, and Elijah flew through its tunnel. A highway, busy even at this time of night, was ahead, but he kept running, feeling the brush of a car against his leg, barely missing him. Then suddenly, he was shrouded in darkness.
Elijah stopped.
Sweat dripped down his back.
From fear?
Horror?
Shock?
All the above?
Trees surrounded him, their leafy smell filling his nose. The sounds of speeding traffic hovered on the edges of the woodland on either side. He was hidden in a section of greenbelt in the middle of the large motorway that cut through the city.
Taking a breath, Elijah slumped against the nearest tree.
He still wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened.
All he knew was that innocent people had died.
She was right, wasn’t she?
Echo.
She’d told him the truth.
Seething with rage, Echo followed Elijah’s energy on foot. Unfortunately, she couldn’t rid herself of Jack and Sajid. They hurried at her back as they moved quickly toward Elijah’s scent.
The wolves were skeptical that she could find Elijah like this, but Echo knew with a certainty she still didn’t understand that she was on the right track.
Those bastard Blackwoods had killed around a hundred Strix fans tonight.
All to try to weaken Elijah.
She’d been skirting the crowds when she’d sensed their combined power rising. Jack and Sajid had felt it too. Elijah had fallen to his knees, and Echo was moving toward him when his band suddenly pulled him from the stage.
They’d lost visual, but Echo felt him.
“This way.” She ran under the tunnel of a red-brick bridge and then stopped as a car sped past. A double carriageway, and beyond, a small patch of woodland in the middle of the motorway.
There.
“Don’t get killed, boys.” Though it would make my life easier.
Echo hit vamp speed. In less than ten seconds, she found herself inside the woodlands, staring at Elijah Webb. He was slumped against a tree trunk but jumped at her sudden appearance in the darkness.
He opened his mouth to say something but was stopped when Jack and Sajid burst through the trees to stand at her back.
“I’ll be damned. She was right,” Jack murmured.
And then before she could speak, they flew at Elijah. In the blink of an eye, he was bound in iron cuffs, knees buckling, face contorted in agony as he bit back his pain. He glared at her in betrayal.