Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 121008 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 605(@200wpm)___ 484(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121008 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 605(@200wpm)___ 484(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
Meg’s eyes widen, and she drags me forward by the neck of my T-shirt. Her teeth are clenched, and she shakes me lightly. “You have to get me out of here. This isn’t my home. I don’t like it. Everything is wrong here.”
“Jeez,” I say, holding my hands up in submission. “I’m working on it, babe. Why don’t you go upstairs? I have an apartment up there. You can take the bed. I’m going to stay up and play with this a little more. I don’t sleep much at night, anyway. Never have.”
Meg nods. She looks exhausted. Crazy or not, she obviously had an emotional day. “Thank you, Dante. I really appreciate this. I know it will work. It has to.”
She starts up the stairs. I’m not so sure it will work, but I am starting to believe her story. I know one thing, though, as I stare at the magnificent machine in front of me—my life has just changed forever.
Chapter Forty-Two
Cian
I can’t get over the nausea that threatens to overtake me. It’s been hours since Meg was taken from us. I don’t know what’s happening to her, what she’s going through. I feel her loss like someone carved my heart out of my chest and tossed it away.
“Where is she?” I think we’re wasting time, but Beck is so certain, and I spent my life following my brother when things get dangerous.
“She said it would take her half an hour to gather the ingredients for the spell.” Beck looks up from where he’s inspecting the circle Liadan explained she will need to attempt the locator spell.
Liadan seemed deeply concerned when we spoke to her. She was surprised to see us and then shocked at what was happening in our quiet village.
I can’t stop thinking about the word seemed. It plays through my head because something deep inside tells me Liadan is acting.
“Why would she help us find Meg?” I’m starting to ask the questions I should have been asking all along. Of all the people in the village, Liadan is the one who stands the most to gain if Meggie stays missing. Or at least she’s the only one who might think she has something to gain. If Meg is gone, Beck won’t go back to her, but this might not be about getting him back. It might be about revenge. The more I shove my fear back and think rationally, the more I’m convinced this is a bad idea.
Beck seems to think for a moment. “She’s a part of our village. She wants to help.”
Something about Liadan…
I didn’t like her from the first. While Beck saw a pleasant, lovely female, I was put off. I never figured out why, but I don’t like being in the same room with Liadan. “Who would want Meggie gone? Lia. That’s the only person in the village I can think of who would want to get rid of our wife.”
Beck’s hands go to his hips, and he glares my way. “Torin. Our uncle certainly would do anything he needed to in order to keep us weak.”
“But we’re not weak.” The fact that Meggie isn’t dead and our powers aren’t gone bugs me. It makes no sense. Oh, I’m fairly certain after a time we’ll weaken due to the distance between the three of us, but it could take months for that to happen, and the bond between myself and Beck will remain in place, weakened though it might be. “Torin would have killed Meg. If he’d sent someone to deal with her, it would have been to murder her, not to haul her off the plane.”
“Or he kidnapped her and he’s going to use her to force us to turn ourselves in,” Beck points out.
A valid point, but there’s still a problem with it. “I think I saw a Planeswalker before she passed out.”
Right before I felt her terror, she managed to send a single image out to me. It was foggy, but I’m almost certain now that it was the face of a demon—a Planeswalker. I never saw one in person but there are books with descriptions.
“Why would a Planeswalker come after Meggie?” Beck asks. “Do you think he’s trying to sell her again? We would feel it if she was in the marketplace. Reeve would protect her.”
I shake my head. “She’s not on this plane and she’s not on the Vampire plane. We would feel that. The doors are open too frequently. No, she’s somewhere far away. Torin wouldn’t have used a Planeswalker. Not even he’s crazy enough to pay with his soul. And he wouldn’t have to. He could send one of his men to do it. None of this makes sense.”
Unless the plan was initiated by someone desperate.
“It doesn’t matter who took her,” Beck insists. “We’re going to find her. Lia doesn’t have a reason to hurt her. She understands. She told me so herself.”