I wanted to grip his shoulders and shake some life back into him. To once again tell him that I was going to find his daughter and bring her home, but I knew he wouldn’t believe me. Just like he hadn’t the dozens of times I’d tried to tell him that in the past. After Cara had been taken, my father hardly spoke to me at all. He never said it, but I was sure he blamed me for her being chosen, which made sense because it was my damn fault.
“Raine?” said Darian, and the soothing tone of his voice was enough that I managed to pull my gaze away from my father and turn my attention back to the three doors. In the real cottage back on my island, there were actually four doors. The front door, then three doors at the back—one to my father’s room, one to the washroom, and one to the room Cara and I had shared. But now there was only the one at the front, one at the back, and the last one to the side near where my father sat.This isn’t real,I reminded myself.Just get to the door.
Clenching and unclenching my fists, I moved away from my father, taking another step toward the front door, but as I shifted, the world turned to darkness through the windows, as if night had fallen over the island. The silence of the cottage was broken as the door began rattling violently, the metal hinges shaking as if something from the outside was trying to get in.
I changed direction, instead taking a step toward the door that was close to my father’s image, but when I moved, this door changed, seeming to grow smaller and then larger again as though it was a mirage.All righty, not that one either, I thought grimly.
Pivoting, I turned toward the door at the back of the room, changing course to make my way toward that one instead. Nothing happened as my steps creaked over the floorboards, but as I reached for the wooden knob, black tendrils of smoke began seeping through the cracks around the door as though they were snakes trying to wiggle their way through. I recoiled, pulling my fingers away.What the hell?It was then that I heard her. Cara’s voice came from the other side of the door, only just distinguishable against the rattling and banging still coming from the front of the cottage.
“Cara?” I croaked, my throat suddenly as dry as sandpaper.
Seconds passed with no reply, but then, “I-I’m here, Rainie. I’m here.”
My heart crashed against my rib cage, and I shot forward as a mixture of horror and hope rushed through me. She was there behind the door. I grasped the doorknob in both hands, not caring when black tendrils slid over my fingers, ice-cold against my skin. The black smoke climbed up my skin and slid up my arms, but I didn’t pull back. When the door still wouldn’t open, I cursed and released the doorknob, only to begin bashing my shoulder against the door.
Pain ricocheted down my arm at the impact. “Cara!” my voice rasped as a sob worked its way up my throat.
Thud.More pain jarred my arm as my shoulder dug into the wood again. Tears watered from my eyes, blurring my vision, but I gritted my teeth.
Moving further into the room, I ran at the door, but as I braced myself for the impact of my body hitting wood, a thousand voices exploded in my mind, the endless screams like needles plunging into my head. With a cry, I slammed to my knees, my hands clapping over my ears in a desperate attempt to keep the voices out.
Not a single voice was speaking coherent words, but I knew they weren’t human. I could make out the hisses, growls, bellows, and snarls. These were the screams of monsters, and they were clawing at my mind.
“Stop,” I rasped, rocking my head from side to side. They had to get out. All of them had to get thefuckout of my head.
Somehow through the din of voices, Cara’s whimper sounded from the other side of the door, and I pulled my hands from my head and forced myself onto shaky legs. Staggering forward, I launched myself back at the door with a desperate cry.
My side impacted painfully with the wood, but the door still wouldn’t move. Leaning my head on the door, I slid to a crumpled heap on the floor. The front door rattled harder, and I peered at the other side of the room to see my father staring at me with fury in his wide brown eyes. The door behind him had morphed into a black vortex that swirled angrily, and more voices and screams spewed from its depths as though I was looking at a portal to hell.
The front door rattled harder, and one of the hinges tore from the doorframe. The voices in my mind became louder, and the screaming and wailing had me gripping at my head again. I struggled again to my feet, my back sliding up Cara’s door, and the black smoke leaking around the door’s edges wrapped around my torso like thick bands of rope.
“Raine!” There was the faintest sound of someone calling my name, but I couldn’t tell who it was. Energy sparked in my chest as the pain in my head intensified to the point that nausea made me gag.
There was the sensation of fire shooting through my veins, and then my eyes flew open. Energy poured out of me, magic crackling in the air and leaving a metallic taste on my tongue. Spears of icy wind shot through the windows at the front of the cottage, making the entire building shudder and creak. The shutters on the windows flapped furiously, and the furniture was tossed around the room, the image of my father nowhere to be seen. The pots from the kitchen clanged as they flew from their hooks and banged against one another as they joined the swirling tornado inside the cottage.
Monsters kept screaming in my head as the wind raged around me, and energy continued to stream out of me. My feet remained rooted to the floor, my back still pressed against the door holding Cara captive. Reaching out, I lifted my arm until my hand rested on the doorknob.
I twisted my wrist, but the knob still wouldn’t move.Why won’t it fucking budge!I wanted to rage at it, but a deep, soothing song slid past all the other voices in my mind, and as the song became louder, it drowned out the cries and screams, taking the edge off my pain and anger.
A longing filled me, so intense that I almost stepped away from Cara’s door, but I frowned and pressed harder against the wood, not releasing the doorknob. I couldn’t go.
The song became louder, the music gripping my heart and squeezing, but I wouldn’t let it stop me from doing what I needed to. “No,” I croaked, my voice barely audible over the howling wind, music, and voices in my head.
But then goosebumps washed over my skin as four warm hands grabbed me, sliding up my arms and bracing on my legs, and the cottage disappeared.
CHAPTER 6
~ Raine ~
Twofacescameintoview, and it took me a moment to recognize Asher and Darian. They were gripping onto me tightly, their faces pinched with concern. Around us, an unnatural wind circled the common room. Wickedly sharp weapons flew through the air along with the furniture and dinnerware. The tapestries on the walls flapped, threatening to tear from the walls, and the only piece of furniture that remained on the ground was the settee I was sitting on. Blue flames in the torches on the walls crackled and fizzed, the fire licking at the air. But I hardly registered what I was looking at.
The soothing song still sounded in my ears, and I peered at where Darian crouched, his lips parted, and his brow furrowed in concentration. Weariness shone in his eyes, and I stared at his hands on my body. Asher was in a similar position, and his lips were also moving, but I couldn’t hear any of the words he was saying.
A wooden jug that swirled through the air smashed against a table and veered toward us, colliding with the back of Darian’s head. The siren swayed, the glow in his crystal-blue eyes dulling before his eyes shuttered, and he collapsed to the floor, his hands falling from me.
Panic went through me, startling me back to reality as I watched the siren fall, and the room came into sharp focus. I blinked and sucked in a huge, gasping breath, my lungs expanding painfully as I stared around me as if I was finally seeing clearly.What?I blinked again and shook my head as I tried to remember what had happened before I found myself in the cottage.The Silver Sand.The memory of me tipping the powder into my mouth came to the forefront of my mind.It’s not real. Fuck, none of it was real.Cara’s whimpers still haunted my mind, but I realized what it was now. A hallucination and a side-effect of the drug. As I had the realization, the wind died, the voices in my head disappearing, and the energy no longer pulsing in my chest.
“Fuck! Watch out!” Asher shouted before he stretched out, his body flattening over Darian and me and sheltering us as furniture, weapons, and the contents of the room clattered and smashed to the floor. When the room was silent again, Asher peeled himself from us, his violet eyes flicking over my face with concern.
