“Dominic?” I called, but I got no answer, only silence.
The memory of the sound of that door was fresh in my mind. Undeniable.
Someone had come inside this suite.
The realization hit me like a bucket of ice-cold water. I was not alone anymore. They were here.
Stepping back slowly, soundlessly, I closed the bedroom door again, and turned the lock. Then, I raised my hands at the wood and released my magic, heart beating calmly in my chest still. It was a simple shield, and it wouldn’t hold for long, but it would give me a bit of time against whoever had come for me. Fear and nervousness rushed through my veins as I pressed my ear against the door to hear better.
Footsteps.
They were barely there, but I was so focused on my ears, I heard them. And they were coming from the other side.
Dropping my backpack, I spun around to look for a weapon, anything I could use to protect myself. I found nothing. Why had I left the gun in the living room? Why hadn’t I kept it with me until I left, damn it?
Too late now.
The handle of the door turned slowly. I held my breath as I watched the gold-colored metal move down, then up again. It didn’t open.
A second ticked by.
Fists slammed on the other side of the door hard, making the wood groan. I fell against the wall and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to calm my now racing heart.
How many of them were there? How many had come for me?
I had no idea.
I could fight. I was fast, but I was small. If there was one man as big as Dominic on the other side of that door, I had no chance of walking away from this without a weapon.
And when Dominic came back, I’d be gone.
Shit.
“Think, think, think,” I urged myself, and the idea popped into my head together with the sound of the door groaning. Splinters in the air. The magic was holding, but not for long. Whoever was coming for me was strong, much more so than my magic.
And I had very little time.
Pulling the enchanted pen from my back pocket, I turned to the wall and started to write without seeing anything.
If I’m not here when you get back, they took me. My blood is in my pens. Use it to track me.
That’s what I wrote—orat least I thought I wrote because the ink was invisible to my eyes. Only Dominic would be able to see it.
I stepped back from the wall and held the pen like a weapon in my hand. I moved closer to the door, as the guy on the other side kept on slamming his fists against it, and I called up my magic once more, this time to build a shield all over me.
The door exploded, making me put my arms in front of my face and step back. Pieces of broken wood were all over the floor, and only the upper half of the door was broken, but that was more than enough space to let the man walk inside.
No, not man. Wraith.
I’d never seen one in the flesh before. Or rather, in the shadow. They were dangerous creatures—souls of the deceased who were too stubborn to leave Earth after death. They had bodies, but their magic was dark and nasty, silent as a shadow, and when they used it, it wrapped around them and moved with them, covering them almost completely. That’s why all I could see on this guy was the eyes—green, shining like two emeralds.
I raised up my pen at him, and I realized how pathetic I must have looked, but I didn’t care. I could still hurt him with it.
He stopped a few feet into the room and watched me, those shadows of his spinning in thick tendrils around his body. When he raised his hands and they began to retreat, moving lower, I could see his head and his torso completely.
I knew that face. It was the same guy who’d been at the club, standing by the stairs of the VIP section. I was right—he was a wraith. I’d seen his shadows that night, too, but never in a million years did I think that I’d be facing him right now.
He smiled, his green eyes sparkling. “The more you fight, the more I’ll enjoy it.”