My fingers slipped, but I wedged those of my other hand into a crevice and hung on. Blinked, and there was Wyatt. Cursing, wedging his bare toes into a divot in the stone. But as I glanced up to where Mari neared the top of the ridge, it happened again.
A large structure, still smoking. An alley littered with fallen bricks, and then a figure hove into view.
One I recognized.
Haki. Crouching, as if examining prints in the ground.
“Fucking hell. How are we supposed to do this without claws?” Wyatt shot me a look, and his eyes were glowing gold.
But when I looked over at him, I didn’t see a big Dire clinging to stone.
A body lying on the ground. Limbs sprawled, with that curious limp rigidity associated with death.
Was I losing my bleedin’ mind? As I clung desperately to the rock, the vision continued to pummel me.
Haki bent over the body and rolled it over. The eyes stared blankly, and the torso was a horror of gore. Like it’d been almost sliced in two.
“Bellati horn,” Haki said.
Bellati horn? I’d seen the results of one in that alley, when Sebastian had used his on Darius’s Dires. But why was it slicing up people in alleys?
Haki straightened. “They’ve become monsters.”
“They are following one, for sure.”It was as though I’d spoken, but it wasn’t me.
A voice so deep that it rumbled.
A voice I knew.
My fingers slipped again, and I had to scramble to hold on.
“Focus,” Cody called from above. “Keep yourself flat to the stone.”
Right. With all this crap leapin’ around in my brain? What the hell was going on?
And then the images vanished. There was only Wyatt cursing a blue streak and Mari catching up to Cody. From this angle, I could tell that she did sport underwear beneath that tunic.
Thankfully. On top of all this, I didn’t need an ogress in the nuddy.
But my heart thundered because there was only one explanation for what had just happened.
Talakai.
I had to be seeing through his eyes. Where was he, and what was he doing? And how could I be connecting to the guy?
My fingers slipped again, and I barely resisted extending my claws to hold on.
Not a good idea. Especially as they were no longer claws.
I gritted my teeth and continued my climb.
32
Anna
In Ketamit, Cara stood before the gate with her brows drawn low in concentration.
“There isn’t a permanent gate close to where we are going,” she explained. “So I have built one.”
