A Shield of Glass (A Shade of Vampire #49)(73)

“What happened?” I managed to ask as soon as he reached us.

He ignored me completely, dropping his gear and ramming his fist into the wall with a thunderous growl. He punched the stone over and over again, cracking its surface.

“They found us,” Field mumbled, his voice barely a whisper. He was too weak to move and, judging by his pale complexion, he’d lost a considerable amount of blood.

“They took them,” Anjani’s voice trembled as she looked away, unable to face me.

“What… What do you mean?” I whispered, breaking into a cold sweat. Somehow, I already knew what they were going to tell me. “Where are Phoenix and Aida?”

“They took them!” Jovi shouted and threw another punch into the wall, leaving blood smears behind.

“Azazel must’ve tracked the Oracles here before you put them under the concealment spell,” Hansa said, a vein jumping in her temple as she looked down at the burning bodies. “They sent Sluaghs through the front, waiting beneath the stairs for some of the Bajangs to go out hunting. They attacked in large numbers, forcing the rest of us to come out and fight. It was a ruse, meant to throw us off and had Destroyers swoop in and snatch Phoenix and Aida…”

“I tried to mind-bend them, so did my wards, but they moved fast. They knew what they were dealing with,” Jax muttered, fists balled at his sides.

“I’m sorry, we tried… We tried to get them back,” Anjani said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “We tried…”

She fell to her knees and shuddered, no longer able to hold it in.

I lost my footing altogether and nearly fell backwards, but Draven caught me and held me up. I couldn’t feel my legs anymore. I should have screamed. I should have cried. But I couldn’t.

A catatonic state swallowed me whole and put me in a deep state of shock. My blood chilled as I struggled to stay conscious.

My brother had been taken. Aida had been taken.

Azazel had captured all three Oracles now.

Grief didn’t even begin to describe what I was feeling. It was something much worse, cutting deeper than anything else. I felt torn on the inside, a throbbing pain stabbing through my temples as Draven put me down.

I simply couldn’t stand anymore.

“This can’t be,” I mumbled, mostly to myself. “I… No, this… This can’t be…”

Azazel had done it.

“Bijarki,” I gasped and pulled my satchel forward.

Draven dropped to his knees to look at me. He could feel everything I was going through and I was too numb to feel him. He watched me carefully and quietly as I took out the last of the telepathy spell ingredients and quickly drew the symbol I needed to reach out to the incubus.

“Bijarki,” I called out, but there was no answer. “Bijarki! Bijarki! Answer me, man! Bijarki!”

Rage took over so quickly, I didn’t even see it coming, I only felt my cheeks and throat heat up with every second that passed and I didn’t get a response from Bijarki. I couldn’t reach him anymore.

I looked up at Draven. Tears rushed up and rolled down my cheeks as I stared into his grey eyes, flickering black.

“I can’t reach him… Phoenix is gone… Aida is gone… I don’t know anything about Vita and Bijarki…”

“Serena,” he said cautiously.

“I… My brother… My friends…”

I looked at Jovi. He leaned his back against the wall he’d been punching, swallowing back tears that kept coming up and eventually streamed down his face as he shuddered. Anjani went up to him, her hands inches away from his arms, not sure whether she should touch him or not.

Field was drowsy but I could see the pain flickering in his eyes, while Rebel cleaned his wound and patched it up with a needle and thread. One of the Bajang cubs brought over another pitcher of water and several satchels with healing herbs.

If I’d taken Vita’s abduction hard, this time around it was much, much worse. My body caved in and went into a continual shudder.

Draven’s hands grasped my shoulders, squeezing firmly, enough to draw my focus to his face.

Jax stopped and crouched by my side.

“Azazel found a way to come in and take what he wanted,” he muttered. “We obviously don’t know what happened to Vita and Bijarki yet either. But I’ll tell you one thing I know, Serena. We’re not backing down. We’re getting them back, one way or another. We have to keep fighting.”

I listened, sobbing, while Hansa came closer.

“Our allies are out there getting ready,” she said. “We can’t slow down or pull back; we’ve come too far.”

“He has the Oracles,” Draven hissed over his shoulder. He was frustrated and in pain. On top of that, he could feel the horror rumbling through me in that precise moment.

“But we have a plan,” Jax interjected, standing. “And dammit, we can’t stop now! My people are out there, waiting for a signal. The Dearghs are ready to sacrifice their own to turn the volcanoes down and cut off some of Azazel’s power supply. We still need to get the little Daughter out of there. We have to keep going. Yes, he has the Oracles, but we all know he won’t get anything out of them over the next few days! Let’s be realistic here… At least we know where they are. We know where to find them. And we’re going there anyway.”