Wrath by Kristie Cook Page B

going north means more souls to help.” I thought it made perfect sense.
    “Not when there are three Daemoni clusters in our backyard. Fort Myers Beach, South Beach, and Key West are all minor now, but they can easily become one large Major Cluster. She’ll want to go there first.”
    Blossom’s shoulders sank. “He’s right.”
    “Well, then we need to think of something to make her want to go north,” I said. “And we need to leave soon.”
    “Alexis,” Tristan said, “that’s a lot of souls to abandon down there.”
    “We have to find our son,” I insisted.
    “I know, ma lykita , but—”
    “We can still look for him.” Blossom reached over and put her hand over mine. “If we’re converting close to home, we can come back here and keep trying. It might be better than hitting the road for a physical search when we’re not sure exactly how far north we need to go.”
    “It’ll take forever to get through those clusters, though.” I pressed my palm against my forehead and thought for a moment. “Maybe we don’t take Char. She can go south with a team, and we’ll take our own team north.”
    “We need her. She’s the only warlock we have,” Tristan reminded me.
    I pushed to my feet with a sudden need to punch something. My phone buzzed again, and I whipped it out of my pocket.
    “What?” I barked.
    “Alexis?” came a girl’s voice, sounding small and scared.
    My breath caught in my lungs.
    “ Heather? ” I practically shrieked into the phone. Both Tristan’s and Blossom’s heads snapped toward me. “Oh, my God, are you okay? Where are you? Is Dorian with you? Tell me where you are, and we’ll come get you. You’re okay, right?”
    “I’m . . . uh, yeah, I’m fine.” Her voice sounded a little better than I’d thought at first. I let out a breath of relief.
    “And Dorian? Please say he’s with you. Please say he’s fine, too. Please tell me you two got away.” The pitch of my voice raised a couple of octaves as I spoke.
    “I’m . . . I’m with friends. I’m fine. I had to check in with my mom, let her know I was okay, and she said you guys were probably worried about me because she’d called Blossom—”
    “Is Dorian with you?” I practically screamed, unable to listen to her nervous babbling a moment longer.
    “No,” she whispered. “He never was. Is he . . . he’s gone ?”
    I closed my eyes and swallowed, my throat tight.
    “Oh, my God. I should have known something was wrong,” she continued, though her words were distant in my mind as I tried to recover myself. How had I let my hopes soar so high so quickly? “Sonya warned me to get far away. She called me the other night and said to run as far and as fast as I could. To hide. So I . . . I came to some friends up at FSU in Tallahassee. I thought Dorian was at the safe house. I thought he’d be okay.”
    “He was,” I managed to say through clenched teeth. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her exactly what Sonya had done. Heather had tried so hard to make sure her sister never hurt anyone again, and how did Sonya repay her? Us? She turned on all of us and massacred my mages. Allowed my son to be taken. “Something happened, though. We’re still figuring it out, but I need you to stay away from Sonya, okay? Hopefully, she’ll stay away from you, too, but . . . I don’t know. I just need to know that you’re safe, and it’s not safe with her. You’re with your friends now?”
    “Um, yeah. I’m going to hang out here for a while, probably all of my spring break.” She paused for a long moment. “We’re watching movies. You know, the ones with the hot werewolf and the vampire that looks like a drug addict.”
    “Good,” I breathed. But relief only lasted a moment as realization set in.
    “I’m so sorry, Alexis,” she said, her voice small again and full of sorrow.
    “Stay safe, okay?” We’ll be there soon , I didn’t tell her.
    “Please don’t worry about me. Just . . . find