Unmade (Unborn #4) - Amber Lynn Natusch Page 0,3

though macabre, smile to my face.

Then it quickly fell away.

“When I arrived at the Victorian, I found nothing there to greet me but rubble and ash and Azriel’s remains. I do not know how long I spent digging through it to try to find you, but I eventually did.” My bleary eyes turned to them. “Three sets of male skeletal remains were buried in the debris.”

The four of them stared at me for a moment, a look of collective realization dawning on them all at once.

“Khara,” Kierson said slowly, taking my hand in his, “when you came rushing in here just now…did you think we were dead?”

“Yes.”

“But we aren’t. We never were—except for Drew that time,” he said, shooting an apologetic look to Drew. “Sorry, man.”

Drew silently nodded his acceptance.

“So you did not perish in the fire?” I asked, needing to hear them confirm their status once more.

“There was no fire—at least not before we left,” Pierson said. “Khara, why did you assume it was us in the house?”

“I found the obsidian box of treasures you kept in the living room,” I replied. “It was gripped tightly in your bony hands.” I looked past him to Kierson. “There was a body right beside his, and I knew that it must have been you—that you would never have left his side. Even at the end.”

I looked to Drew and Casey. “I assumed that Drew was the first skeleton because he would have put himself in the line of fire first. That is who he is and has always been—our leader.”

“What about me, though?” Casey asked.

“I hoped that you had remained in the Underworld to help my father—to take your mother’s place in his realm. I clung to that hope the entire flight here.”

“Khara, I did stay here to help your father—and the guys are definitely not dead. But you’re still not going to like why they’re here.”

“I can tolerate any other reason as long as it is not that one.” But the four of them shared a concerned look that caused my worry to return. “What is it that you do not want to tell me?”

Drew walked over to my side. “There’s a matter we need to deal with.”

“What matter?” I asked, the normal tenor of my voice returning. He hesitated, not wanting to tell me whatever had brought them together. But from the way my skin prickled at the thought, I suspected I already knew the answer. “What matter, Drew?”

“Oz,” Casey answered, dark eyes swallowing the torchlight in the room. "Kaine has him.”

I shot to my feet. “How? Since when?”

“We’re not sure. Everything kinda went to shit after you left.”

I slowly sat back down. “Tell me everything.”

So they did.

They told me of the Dark Ones’ attack on the Underworld, how they had held them off long enough for Kaine to realize that I had been taken away by my mother. As Casey told it, Kaine had merely turned around and left without further bloodshed, as though my mother coming for me was a variable he had already accounted for, though not in time to stop her.

Oz had slipped away shortly before and had not been seen since.

“Why are you just now doing something about this?” I asked, my sadness giving way to anger. The knowledge that my brothers were all right allowed my mind to fully focus on Oz’s fate—and how much it affected me.

“Can we take a second to discuss what you saw at the Victorian—”

“No!” I shouted, cutting Pierson off. “We can discuss finding Oz and nothing else.”

“There’s nothing more to discuss,” Casey said, eyes narrowed. “We think Kaine has him, and if he does, there is little to nothing we can do about it.”

“Perhaps you cannot,” I said, the sound of my chair dragging along the stony floor punctuating my move to leave, “but I can.”

“Whoa, Khara,” Kierson said, diving into my path. “You can’t go there without backup.”

“I can and I will because I must.”

“Do you even know the way?” Drew asked, voice soft and pained. “You can’t save him if you can’t get there.”

“I do not need to know the way, Drew. I just need to hunt down the one who does.”

Without further explanation, I stormed out of the room, rushing past where Aery stood in the hall.

“If you’re talking about Deimos, Khara, I have to tell you…I don’t think that’s a wise idea.”

“Wise or not, he is all I have.” She cringed at the thought, undoubtedly remembering what he had done to her—how he