Wolf's Hunger (Mafia Monsters #5) - Atlas Rose Page 0,72

slipping through the back door only to find myself not in the shopping center anymore, but outside…in a parking lot at the back. I glanced down at the bright red patch seeping through the bandage. A car horn blared as I walked. I didn’t look back, just kept on walking past cars and people, past everything, as the sun slowly sank…until I stood beside a taxi stand.

“You going?” an old woman muttered and motioned to the cab. “Well?”

I kept on walking, leaving them all behind. People, cars, buildings, they all blurred, and still I walked. Costello…did this. Costello. I wanted to hurt something, wanted to hit something. The Wolves, the Costellos, this whole fucking city.

Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…Chaos whispered.

It was all I could feel now. All I could see…and all I could taste.

My boots smacked the ground. I don’t know how long I walked, or where. Time had no meaning wrapped up in the rage inside my head. Still I walked, long enough for the sun to set and the stars to come out. Long enough for me to realize I was lost. Long enough to know that I trembled with rage when I thought of her. Red hair, perfect lips. Fucking betrayer.

Costello did this.

Costello did this.

Costello…did…this.

The sound of a nightclub echoed in the distance. I glanced around in the darkness, feeling the bite of the cold. That same menacing green glow pulsed in front of me, drawing me closer. I moved like I was in a dream, step after step. That’s right, just a little further, Chaos whispered. Almost there.

I stumbled forward, finally letting that savage anguish in. “I want to fight!” I roared. “I want to fucking kill something!”

I blinked into the green haze, seeing the abandon buildings. I knew this place…knew this feeling of malignant terror. I rubbed my chest and swiveled. Gone was the throb of the nightclub. Gone was everything I knew. In the distance, lights sparkled on the bridge. The bridge that divided the city…and I was now on the other side.

I turned, staring at this empty, menacing world. “How the fuck did I get here?”

I carried you, Chaos whispered and that Unseelie ache in my chest burned brighter. Brought you to where you needed to be.

I let out a moan and stumbled around some more, my gaze moving to the darkened club in the distance. My Phantom’s club. That ache only plunged deeper, carving right through my heart. I looked over my shoulder to the dark wasteland that was the Unseelie’s domain. Chaos had called me here…and Chaos wanted me to stay.

But it was my heart I followed. I followed that throb of pain, stumbling forward and started to rise back out of the dangerous Unseelie world. I didn’t feel the cold anymore now, didn’t feel anything other than desperation.

I climbed, gripping the ground, and drove myself higher until I crawled out of the Dark City and headed for the darkened night club. I didn’t remember crossing the bridge to this side of the city, didn’t remember anything at all, nothing but the sting in my arm and the throbbing in my chest.

I wanted them…

Anything that reminded me of them.

Tears slipped from my eyes and raced down my cheeks as I drove myself higher, until the ground evened out and I slipped between the buildings to the pavement. Sirens blared in the distance. I jerked my gaze toward the sound and scanned the lights across the other side of the city.

They wouldn’t come here…not with the Unseelie power thrumming in the air.

Police tape closed off the entrance to the Hunting Ground. I watched, staying in the shadows, and made my way along the front to the empty lot beside the building. The same lot I’d parked my car in just days ago…before my entire life went to hell.

A brush of power danced across me, standing the hairs on my arms as I stopped at the side door. The cracked open side door. My pulse thundered as I gripped the handle, glanced over my shoulder, and slipped in.

This could be a set-up.

Could be Finis waiting inside.

It could be Harlan…

I swallowed hard, unable to turn around even if I’d wanted to. I needed them, ached for them, and this is where they were. The memories of that first night flooded back to me as I stepped along the hallway. Phantom had carried me over his shoulder. My shirt had been torn open, fingers delving under my bra, rubbing and pinching my nipples, desperate to ease that hunger inside