Chapter 141

Amelia

Mapping echo paths was supposed to be technical. Cold. Purely mathematical. It was about controlling space through sound, identifying how footsteps bounced off the concrete, how voices curved through narrow corridors, how to make an enemy hear what you wanted and miss what you didn’t. We were laying the trap through timing and precision, not physical barriers or brute force. But I could feel them.

Every hallway, every choke point, every place where a sound would bounce. I didn’t even have to guess anymore. I dropped chalk marks in perfect arcs through the warehouse tunnels, and they landed exactly where I needed them to. I could hear the trap before we even set it.

“You were a little off at the northwest turn,” Nathan muttered behind me.

“No, I wasn’t.” I pointed two steps ahead. “Watch.”

He stepped, paused, blinked. The echo came back cleanly in a ring. A hollow path like a funnel, steering Darius exactly where we wanted him to go.

The foundry yard was quiet, but too open to control in a chase. We had to guide him there like a deer through brush. Make him think he was escaping when he was walking straight into a snare. A dozen officers stood along the outer rim of the yard, waiting with frequency dampeners and silver cuffs. And if Darius followed the echoes like I knew he would, we’d have him.

Richard stood beside me on the higher scaffolding. Arms crossed. Silent. Watching everything.

“You’ll stay back,” he said without looking at me.

“I always do.”

He didn’t respond. Just reached out and squeezed my hand once, fast, before letting it drop.

The moment stretched. A signal went through my comm. Darius had breached the northwest loading dock.

I backed off from the active route. Almost.

I kept a perimeter watch. Only a little too close. Just to see him pass. Just to confirm it was really him.

He moved like a shadow between walls. Fast and careful. Eyes tracking every sound, every flicker of light. But he followed the path. The chalk. The echoes. Right into the open.

“Go,” I whispered.

The team descended like wolves.

It was over in less than two minutes.

Darius was cuffed and half-conscious, silver pressed tight against his neck. He’d put up a fight, but not a long one. My skin buzzed with adrenaline as I exhaled. Richard glanced back at me once before leading the transport team toward the main gates.

I followed after. Not close, but not far.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

Unknown number.

Just an image. A crude, hand-drawn version of the sigil from my dreams. The one I’d seen burned into the cathedral wall. The one that had appeared behind my eyes when I was barely awake.

The moment I opened it, the air shifted. My head spun. The chalk in my hand snapped in half.

I deleted it immediately. Then erased the number. But the sensation clung to me like smoke. A sick pull in my gut I couldn’t shake.

It was only later, as we were moving back toward the convoy, that it happened.

There’d been a scuffle at the gate. Nothing serious. Just a last kick from Darius before he was loaded into the cell van. But it was enough to slice Richard’s arm open from wrist to elbow. It was only a flesh wound. But it bled.

I smelled it before I saw it. Warm and sharp. Familiar in a way that made my knees buckle.

My body reacted faster than my thoughts.

I was on him in a blink.

“Amelia, don’t—”

I reached for his arm like I meant to help. Pulled a strip of gauze from my pocket, pressed it gently to the open cut. He hissed through his teeth but didn’t stop me. I wiped the blood carefully, but the scent hit me too fast. Too thick. I froze.

My hand shook.

The gauze slipped. I pressed my palm to the wound instead, felt the heat of it pulse beneath my skin. I looked up at him.

And then I leaned down, slow. Deliberate.

My tongue ran the full length of the cut.

He flinched hard. One hand slammed against the wall behind him. My eyes fluttered closed, and a low hum clawed up from my chest like a craving I didn’t know how to fight anymore.

He flinched like I’d punched him. One hand slapped the wall, hard enough to echo.

“Stop. Amelia. Stop.”

But I couldn’t. The taste unraveled something in me. I kissed the inside of his wrist, then his palm. Then I dragged his hand down between my legs.

“I need it,” I whispered, not even sure what I meant.

“Not here,” he said, voice strained. “Not like this.”

I pressed my body against his, grinding without shame. My breath hitched. “I need it now.”

He tried to pull away, but I bit his neck. Not hard. Just enough to make him groan.

“Something’s wrong with you,” he said.

“I know.”

He stared at me for a second too long. Then swore under his breath and pushed me back into the wall. His mouth crashed into mine, fast and bruising. His injured hand stayed behind his back, like he didn’t trust me near it.

His free hand slid beneath my waistband, fingers slipping inside like he already knew what he’d find. I was soaked.

“Fuck,” he breathed.

“I don’t want to wait.”

He unzipped just enough to free himself, and I hooked a leg around his waist.

He hesitated.

“I’m serious,” he said. “You need to talk to a healer. This isn’t normal.”

“Then make it feel normal. Please.”

He gave in with a growl. Not with passion, with frustration and fear.

The sex was messy and fast and almost violent in its urgency. His hips slammed into mine like he was trying to push something out of me. I moaned too loud. Scratched his back. Kissed the blood-damp bandage when he turned his face away.

He tried to keep it quiet, but I felt the tension snapping inside him. Every muscle braced like he thought this might kill me. Or him. Maybe both.

I tightened around him and whispered his name like a lifeline, like he was the only thing keeping me tethered. He gripped my hips with too much force. I felt his whole body strain against holding back.

When I came, it ripped through me sharp and bright. My vision blurred. I realized I was crying only when I saw it hit his chest. He whispered something I didn’t catch, and then he came too, biting down on my shoulder like he couldn’t stop himself.

We collapsed to the floor together. His head hung forward, hair falling over his eyes. I watched him stare at the hand I’d licked clean, like it didn’t belong to him anymore.

Back at the van, he said nothing. Pulled his coat tight and kept his gaze fixed on the middle distance. I reached for his arm once and he flinched like I was fire.

Later, I heard him telling Nathan he’d gotten clipped in the yard. No mention of me. His bandage was already changed.

At the House, I showered first. Alone.

When I came out, he was pacing the bedroom with a fresh bandage. I sat on the edge of the bed and watched him rewrap his arm with quick, efficient motions.

“You need to see someone,” he said. “Tomorrow.”

I didn’t argue. I couldn’t. I just nodded.

Nathan was waiting in the command room with a file.

“Utilities guy talked,” he said. “Said he was paid by a silent partner using an old bell guild fund. Guild’s been defunct for thirty years. But the account’s still active. Still paying out.”

“Why would a bell guild have anything to do with Darius?” I asked.

Nathan raised an eyebrow. “Your guess is better than mine.”

I stared at the wall, but I wasn’t really seeing it.

Somewhere underground, the chalk was still humming.

And the blood was still on my tongue.