Page 24 of Stealing Embers
“Where did he go? Is he all right?”
What the heck is going on right now?
“Steel knows how to take care of himself.”
Their somewhat blasé attitude to the obviously tense situation does nothing to calm me. In fact, my heartbeat ramps up and I can feel my adrenaline spike.
Multicolored lights explode around the outside rim of my vision.
There’ll be no stopping my slipped reality now.
Just hold on a little longer, Emberly. Maybe you can find somewhere safe to hide.
I make the mistake of glancing behind me before we leave. Color bursts, and from one blink to the next, I slip into the spectrum world.
The hands that had been propelling me forward fall away. The ringing of the alarm fades, but snippets of broken conversation reach my ears. It sounds as if people are talking very far away from me.
“Where is—?”
“—she partial phased, because that—”
“—see her, but I can’t hold on—”
“What should we—”
Confusion circles me until my gaze lands on a very large, very golden, very familiar lion posturing in the middle of the room.
His fur stands on end and a low growl emanates from his chest. I spot the same shock of black hair slicing through his mane.
Steel. As sure as I am of my own name, I know it has to be him.
The gold beast starts to prowl back and forth and my heart jumps into my throat. A pale, emaciated man crouches on the ground just beyond the lion.
Shrouded in a mist of darkness, he scurries like an insect, his movements jerky but swift. The man’s dark hair reaches his shoulders and if I had to guess, I’d say it hasn’t been washed in months. Chunks of it hang in limp, greasy dreads that obscure most of his face.
Through the strands, his eyes glow ice blue. His blood-leeched lips are pulled back from his mouth and reveal elongated eyeteeth that come to a point.
The man—or rather creature—hisses at Steel, who returns the warning with a low, bone-shaking growl.
Is that a vampire? First shape shifters and now vampires? What else exists that I don’t know about?
I’d moved forward, only realizing it when Steel’s growl causes me to jerk back and knock over a chair. The sharp sound echoes in the nearly empty room.
The vampire-man’s head swivels in my direction. His pink tongue darts out, licking along his top lip before caressing both canine teeth.
I’m going to be sick.
The creature jolts toward me with inhuman speed. My eyes only see a blur of motion.
Steel’s jaws clamp down on his leg and he drops to the ground with a shriek a mere five feet in front of me.
Backpedaling, I ram into something hard. Hands lock on my shoulders and I strike out at whatever is restraining me.
“Yo, calm down. We got you,” Ash whispers. “We need to get out of here now.”
“Yeah, preferably before Steel notices we phased.” Sterling pipes up from my other side. Greyson was there as well.
I stop fighting when I realize it’s Ash and the twins behind me, all ringed in a soft white aura, just like mine. Further confirmation of our shared otherness.