Before he could stop me, I bolted into the trees, sprinting hard, desperate to find Cass.
Boaz had a killer headache from the gazebo incident, and he was sore from all the hits Addie landed, but he could have run a triathlon the second he lost his grip on her and she fled into the woods. He ran after her, crashing through the leaves and debris, no stealth whatsoever, but in that moment, he didn’t care about how much noise he made. He cared about Addie.
The killer might be in the woods, but he didn’t slow. Addie would give away their location long before him, and it chilled his blood to think what the killer might do if they got their hands on her while Cass was still breathing.
Only the secretive nature of their friendship had spared Addie. He believed that in his bones. The killer would have circled around to her, given time. No one could convince him otherwise. And here she was, throwing herself at them.
With every ounce of strength left in him, Boaz poured on speed until he caught her. He slammed into her, and they tumbled to the ground. He only half absorbed the impact, and she cried out from the shock. He would have clamped a hand over her mouth if he wasn’t certain she would bite him.
“Addie, you’ve got to calm down.” He struggled to restrain her. “Think.”
“Cass might be out there.”
“And she might be alive.” He hated to be the bad guy, but she left him no choice. “The killer might finish her off if they hear us coming.”
The fight drained out of her, and tears poured down her face. “Oh, goddess.”
“Shhh.” He released her slowly, unsure if this was a trick or if he had gotten through to her. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.” Twin tracks glistened on her cheeks. “She’s my best friend.”
“I know.” He hit his knees then helped her sit on the forest floor. “Let’s go find her.”
Backup was on the way, but they would arrive too late to help Cass, and Addie knew it.
Nodding, she rose to her feet then helped him stand. “All right.”
Worried she might bolt, he took her hand and laced their fingers. “Come on.”
Her legs didn’t work right the first step or so, but he kept tugging her along until she remembered how to walk. The farther they traveled, the quieter she became until he worried she might never speak again.
Away from the fire, the music pounded, making it easier for them to track its source.
They came into a pecan grove filled with broken limbs on every tree and ratty leaves in dull colors.
“I didn’t know this was back here.”
Boaz jolted at hearing Addie’s voice after so long. “Are we still on Cass’s property?”
“She owns the entire hill.”
Her return to quiet made it clear small talk was over, but at least the spark was back in her eyes when they came across yet another phone resting on the stump of a tree cut down long enough to turn mushy with rot. This one, he could tell, belonged to Cass.
“You must be my replacement,” a feminine voice called. “She’s always had a thing for blondes.”
Boaz’s fingers spasmed around Addie’s, and he tightened his grip on her. “Who are you?”
“Not Delacorte, if that’s what you were thinking.” Her laughter was high and light. “I’m Serena.”
Addie’s fingers went limp in his. “Cass said you died.”
“I did.” The speaker made no move to reveal herself. “And then I was brought back. Resuscitated. The sheriff was in Delacorte’s pocket. He set the whole thing up to keep Delacorte’s hands clean.” Her voice trembled. “Delacorte meant to give me to Cass as a gift, or a bribe, I don’t know. It mattered to him that she accepted his offer of eternity, that she wanted it, but she kept refusing him.”
That explained why they got it wrong. Serena knew Cass well enough to guess where she would go looking for her, at the Lovers, and Serena had laid a false trail to give her time to arrange one last tableau. She had gone as far as to plant Ari’s scent there, perhaps using a piece of clothing, and attacked him and Honey to further make it appear as though her plans had been thwarted when they had been stumbling deeper into her trap with every step.
Hand to her throat, Addie said, “I’m sorry for—”
“I don’t want your pity. I want revenge.” A short woman wearing jeans and a flannel shirt stepped from behind a cluster of trunks. Her blonde hair was worn high in a tail, and her brown eyes were warm. “Lovers always say they’ll die for one another, but it’s only words. Not for us.”
Careful to keep Addie a step behind him, he engaged the vampire to get her focus off Addie. “Why punish Cass when you’ve admitted she’s just as much a victim as you?”
“He enjoyed what he did to me so much, he did it to her too. He was tired of waiting. He beat her half to death, really got his jollies, and then got the sheriff to call in the same necromancer to make it all go away,” Serena said. “That left him no use for me. He should have killed me true dead or set me free. He could have sold me into an immortal brothel, and I would have thanked him, but no. He kept me.”
Slowly, he crept forward, doing his best to scan the area for signs of Cass while inching closer to Serena. “Why?”
She had come here to talk, and he was giving her the platform she craved with a live audience.
But the sky was lightening, pinks and purples on its edges, and he had to move this along.
“He planned to use me to leash her, I think.” She tugged on her ponytail. “I’m pretty sure that was the plan.” Her gaze twitched to her left, to him, drawn by his movement. “But he never got the chance.”
“Cass killed him,” Addie said, making
