Chapter 18 · Open It With Blood

Gideon grabbed my wrist before I could get to Jonah.

His fingers were ice-cold. Not normal cold. Graveyard cold.

“Come home,” he said again.

The voice coming out of him wasn’t his.

It scraped across my skin and slid straight under my ribs. I heard the name underneath it, huge and old and wrong. Not Gideon Mercer. Not even close.

The locks bolted into the walls started screaming.

Not metal-on-metal screaming. Actual screaming. High, thin cries that bounced around the lock vault and made my teeth hurt.

“Let her go.” Carson’s voice came out low.

I looked at him over Gideon’s shoulder.

His eyes had gone almost black. The gold was still there, barely, like somebody had dropped a match into oil. Blood ran down one side of his face from the cut at his temple. His shirt was torn open at the shoulder, and I could see the dark lines under his skin pulsing with every breath.

His beast was right there.

Not out. Not yet.

But close enough that I could feel it through our pact ring.

Hungry. Furious. Ready to rip the room apart.

“Carson,” I said.

“Tell him to let you go.