“I think Hunter’s in trouble.”
“So, Hunter just vanished?” Petra asked.
We were gathered in the kitchen as dawn broke. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee was heavy in the air, and someone had pulled out a box of breakfast muffins. Normally I’d have devoured at least two by now, but my stomach felt all squiffy, and my appetite was gone.
Dean, Grayson, Petra, and I sat around the island, speaking in hushed voices so as not to wake Uriel, who was still asleep on the sofa. He’d be fully healed in a few hours, and I wanted to have answers for him by then, but now I had Hunter to worry about too. My mind was engaged in a tug of war, part of me wanting to focus on finding my mate, the other adamant I needed to stick to finding a power source for the Beyond.
Yes, okay, so the Beyond was logically more important, but fuck, it didn’t feel that way right now.
“Hunter was trying to tell me something urgent. He said there was no time. He was going to tell me I needed to do something, but he never got to finish his sentence.”
Petra sucked in her cheeks. “A Tribus Vista is accessible only to the Loup who are a part of it. You have control of when you enter and when you leave. If he vanished abruptly, it means that his connection to you is being both interfered with and disrupted.”
That’s what I was afraid of. “We have to find him.”
“We will,” Grayson said. “I’ll speak to Eldrick and borrow some Loup to track him. We’ll start back at the cabin and take it from there again.”
Impotence writhed in my belly. I wanted to be out there looking for my mate too, but with Mal and Azazel gone, I was the only one who could get into the Beyond to speak to Cassius about Uriel and the potential power source hidden in the Underealm.
“You need to focus on the Beyond’s problem,” Grayson confirmed. “Leave Hunter and the super vamp issue to me.”
Cora and Keon exited the lift together and joined us in the kitchen.
Dean poured my best friend a mug of coffee, and she took it with a smile. “You off to the Beyond?” she asked me.
“Yes.”
Keon didn’t look pleased. “You keep going to places I can’t follow.”
I knew what he was thinking. That he could be in the Underealm helping with the search for Lilith, but instead, he was stuck here with me, making sure I stayed alive.
Something scratched at the back of my mind, a thought I tried to latch on to, but it was gone too quickly.
I wanted to tell him I’d be safe there, but heck if I knew that to be true. “I’ll be fine. I’ll get the information we need and head straight back, then you can come to the Underealm with me.”
He nodded. “I’ll go to the Academy and continue training the cadets.”
“Good call.”
He made a sound of exasperation. “Dammit, I’ll need to wait till the sun sets.”
“No, you won’t.” Petra pulled a pouch of herbs from her pocket. “Not once I’ve made you some of my special tea.”
Keon’s eyes lit up, and he inclined his head. “Thank you.”
My comm beeped, and my heart shot up into my mouth because only Azazel or Mal ever contacted me on the comm.
Forwarded message from Azazel comm
Missing humans in sector 3 Necro City, contact me ASAP Ursula.
Crap, Azazel’s outlier role still needed to be filled while he was gone. I was supposed to contact his deputy, some guy named Dillon, but I hadn’t had the chance, and I didn’t have access to his reaper team via my comm.
“What is it?” Cora asked.
My head ached. “Missing humans flagged by Magiguard. Outlier liaison business. I need to go find Azazel’s deputy, Dillon, and let him know what’s going on.”
Cora shrugged. “I’ll deal with it. Forward me the message and go. I got this.”
“Really?” The weight in my chest eased a little.
“Yes, really. We’re all gonna have to chip in. I’ll contact Dayna and get her to help me track down this Dillon guy.”
“You’re a lifesaver.” Another thought occurred to me. Something I’d promised to do and forgotten. “Cora, there were ghosts at the underground station. Unregistered, lost. Can you please tell Dayna to organize pickup?”
Her expression was serious. “Yes, of course. Now go.”
“I’ll keep an eye on the celestial,” Petra said.
I drained my mug. It was time for a tête-à-tête with a Dominion.
Chapter Five
Celestia greeted me at the Beyond’s reception desk. Her face was empty of expression, as usual, mercury eyes fixed straight ahead. The forest around us flickered and wavered like a picture on an old television with bad reception.
“Welcome, S-Seraphina D-Dawn. How may I-I assist you today?”
Fuck, had she just stuttered? “I need to speak with Dominion Cassius.”
Silence.
“Celestia?”
“How m-may I-I help you, Sera—”
I stared at her frozen form. And then she flickered too. Oh, fuck. This was bad. This had to be a power issue.
“Celestia, can you hear me?”
“Seraphina Dawn.” She said my name in a drawn-out way, her voice warped and deep. The forest flickered and went dark for a moment before coming back online.
“I need to see Cassius. Celestia, send an urgent message. Can you do that? Do it now.”
For a moment, nothing happened, and then her mercury eyes began to flicker, rainbow ripples moving across the surface of the orbs. She was doing something.
And then the forest vanished, and I was standing in absolute darkness. My breath came out in shallow gasps as I waited for my eyes to adjust, to see something, but there was nothing but the blanket of oblivion pressing in on me.
“Celestia?” My voice sounded reedy and warped. “Celestia, let me out of here. Now.”
A blinding white light split the dark, widening a fraction. I rushed toward it, afraid it would close at any moment, and then I was squeezing through the gap and falling into light.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the brightness. I was in a corridor that ended in a set of double doors. A red light blinked above it in warning. This was some kind of access route to the reception and into the Beyond proper. I’d asked Celestia to let me out, but she’d let me in.
There was no going back now. I strode down the corridor and tried the door. It opened without resistance.
Fuck. This place was totally falling apart.
I made to step through, then stopped as Azazel’s voice filled my head. His words from a week ago. He’d said we couldn’t go into the Beyond properly as it would burn us up because we weren’t pure celestial, but…Uriel had lived in the Beyond, and he was definitely not pure celestial. Unless the celestials lied about whether they could be possessed or not.
Fuck.
Okay, think.
If I didn’t go forward, I’d have to go back into the darkness and be trapped there. There was no guarantee that I’d find my way out of the portal. If I went back, then I’d be leaving without answers. Time was ticking by too fast. What if Cassius had met the same fate as Uriel when he’d demanded answers?