Katie bit back a plea for him not to leave her in such a creepy place. She sat on a thick log. He disappeared into the shadows of the jungle, and she pulled her knees to her chest, listening. He was silent while the branches overhead hissed and rasped against one another and the cries of distant birds drifted to her. She inched away from a plant whose slender stalk was maneuvering through several other plants to position its leaves in direct sunlight.
She’d long suppressed fear, knowing there was one way to Rhyn, and it was with Gabriel. Unless Rhyn got himself killed first. Then she wasn’t sure what she’d do. One hand went to her stomach, where their child grew. Her emotions started to surge again, but she pushed them down with her fear and steadied her breathing.
She had no idea how to be a single mother in the real world, let alone in a world as unforgiving as the Immortal one. She’d proven she couldn’t raise Toby without a bottle of vodka permanently glued to her hand. Rhyn had been exiled for his mixed origins, and she’d never been especially welcomed by anyone but Gabe and Toby. If something happened to Rhyn or if she couldn’t leave here …
Panicking made her already surging hormones worse. She felt nauseous.
The snap of a branch pulled her from her misery. She twisted to face the direction from which it had come, expecting to see Gabriel. Nothing was there. The jungle around her fell suddenly still, and the possessed branches stopped in place, as if watching her.
“Gabe?” She rose.
Another snap of branches from a different direction. Katie whirled in time to see the shadow of someone – or something – disappearing behind a thick tree.
“Gabe, if that’s not you, you better be about to kill that thing,” she called. She pulled free the small knife the death-dealer gave her.
Snap. She turned, expecting to see another shadow disappear. Instead, someone stood before her, close enough to touch her. Katie yelped and leapt back at the familiar form.
“Andre?” she breathed, adrenaline surging fast enough for her to lose focus. She stared at the dark features and glowing turquoise eyes of the eldest of Rhyn’s brothers, who had died weeks before. Andre showed no emotion, didn’t even seem to see her. He was like a statue, only she feltthe warmth of his body and the tingle of magic in the air.