I wait, and wait, and wait. Standing in the center of two packs, protecting me from an invisible threat with their lives.
This is stupid. I’m not the one whose life is being threatened. Nyx’s is. We should be sending out a search party to find him, not standing around to protect me.
“I need to pee,” I say to Calix, one of Ambrose’s pack members, and who I assume is Ambrose’s new beta, even if he hasn’t made it official yet. I know it’s hard for Ambrose to make it official after how close he and Emeric were.
He looks at me with wide-eyed panic. Ambrose stepped out to go patrol over an hour ago and hasn’t returned. I don’t know whose in charge of protecting me at the moment.
“Can’t you hold it?”
“It’s been hours, and I drank three cups of coffee. You should be lucky I’ve held it as long as I have.”
“Emeric!” he shouts.
Emeric breaks away from the circle and is at my side in a second. “What’s wrong?”
“I have to pee,” I say.
He looks at me like he can see through my ploy, but I’m suffocating here. And every moment I spend here is a moment longer that is going to make it harder for me to love Ambrose.
There must be something in my eyes, because Emeric doesn’t try to argue with me.
“Everyone, stay as you are. If Nyx or the vampires return, we want them to think Lumi is well protected. We’ll be right back.”
I smile. I’m getting out of here.
Emeric takes my hand and leads me away and into the house. He doesn’t speak until he leads me to the bathroom just inside.
“Go easy on him. Almost watching you die over and over from a curse he triggered in order to save your exe’s life has done something to him. He’s protecting you in the only way he knows how. We all are.”
“Maybe I don’t need protection. Maybe I just need a partner.”
Emeric nods and then closes the door, giving me privacy.
I wasn’t lying. I really do have to pee. But after peeing, I don’t know what to do. I splash water on my face, knowing I can’t have everyone protecting me again.
Maybe I should just hide out in the bathroom for a while; at least I won’t have to go back out there. Nothing is going to happen in the bathroom.
The lights flicker before going pitch black. There is no window in here to provide light.
Someone is in the bathroom with me.
“Emeric?” I ask, but I already know it’s not him.
I consider shifting, but the bathroom is so small that I don’t think I have the space to stand in my wolf form.
I grab for the blade that Nyx gave me. One that I didn’t think I’d need now that I can shift.
“Whose there?”
No answer.
“What do you want?”
No answer.
I can sense someone else here, but I can’t make sense of the smell, the beat of their heart, or even how they are in the small half bathroom with me, without me being able to see them or touch them. How were they able to get in without opening the door or a window to enter through?
And then with a flash, I feel my body being sucked through a hole in the world. A rip that sucks me in like a dark void. I feellike I’m falling endlessly, tumbling through nothing. And then, as if a second passed and all the time in the world, I hit the hard ground beneath me.