“OutofMyHead”—TheoryOfADeadman
Iwanted to stay with Soleil. I wanted to curl around her, pull her into the curve of my body, and simply feel her breathe.
But I needed to know what Chains saw. Whatever it was, it had induced a seizure that Angel had to step in to stop. And when the second the seizure started, Soleil began to scream.
I pressed a kiss to her head that sent a charge through me and whispered, “Sleep well.”
Then I quietly left her room and rushed back to the chapel. I could still feel the warmth of her skin on my lips the entire way.
The murmur of voices stopped when I barged in, and everyone looked my way.
“What?” I demanded.
“You better sit down,” Venom instructed, and dread settled in the pit of my stomach. That was never good.
“Chains, are you okay?” I ignored Venom’s instruction as I studied my friend and brother to judge the truth. He nodded but remained silent.
“Sabre, I said sit,” Venom warned.
I dropped into my seat, and everyone took theirs as well. Chair legs scraped on the smooth concrete floor as they settled.
“Well?” I prompted, about at the end of my rope.
Chains inhaled deeply and slowly let it out through pursed lips. Impatiently, I waited. When he met my gaze, his brow furrowed. “I wasn’t able to see much,” he began.
I slumped. “Shit,” I muttered.
“Let me clarify. Something didn’twantme to see much,” he announced, and you could’ve heard a pin drop. He had my undivided attention.
“Yeah?” I warily asked.
“What I can tell you is that you were right—you definitely know her.”
Relief hit me, but it was short-lived.
“This thing—I don’t even know what the fuck it was because it was almost like it wouldn’t let me actually see it—it had her standing there, paralyzed.” He cleared his throat and I waited. “Nude.”
My anger exploded within me.
“Sit. Down,” Venom demanded, and I realized I’d shot to my feet. Chastised, I sat, and he motioned for Chains to continue, but my adrenaline pumped through me. If it was the last thing I did, I would hunt down every single one of the people involved in her abduction and rip them limb from limb.
Chains stared at the table as if he was seeing everything anew.
“It trailed the most god-awful nails along her skin—more like cracked and darkened claws—so slowly that at first, I thought it was random. Then it stepped back, and all I could see was sharp teeth in a hideous grin, and I swear to Christ I could smell its fetid breath.” His lip curled at the thought.
My blood had run cold. Chills skated along my skin as ice ran through my veins.
He lifted his tortured gaze, and my heart stopped as I waited. Dread weighted me down so much, it was difficult to breathe—because deep in my heart, I now knew what I was dealing with.
“He had written ‘mine’ all over her skin with his claws, but across her chest, he had scratched out ‘I’m coming for you, Aros’ before he stabbed one of his blackened nails through her heart. I can still hear that laughter. It didn’t sound like anything I’d ever heard before, yet I knew he was laughing,” Chains murmured, then gave a shudder.
Knowing that the experience had taken a lot out of my brother, I croaked out my thanks for what he’d done. I was reeling. Denial, rage, and shock battered me from the inside, leaving me bruised and bleeding.
“Do you know who this Aros is?” Venom quietly asked.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “It’s me,” I admitted in a broken gasp.
Venom took a deep breath that he blew out with a huff. “Okay. And what about who Chains saw? Do you know him?”