around us. My body trembled even as heat pooled in my center.
Shit, my wires were seriously crossed.
“We need to get them out of here,” Jaxson growled.
Sam shot forward and began pulling the roots away from the closest
shifter. “How are they here and in Magic Side as well?”
I could hear her heartbeat and practically taste her panic.
“I think we’re in the Dreamlands,” Jaxson whispered as he counted the
figures. “Shit. It’s not everyone.”
The Dreamlands? Fuck. I helped Sam rip the roots from around the
sleeping body as a shudder worked its way up my spine. The moment I pulled
the last root free, the woman’s eyes shot open, and I gasped.
She turned her head as if looking at someone behind my shoulder.
“Mary? Where am I? I was having a nightmare…”
Then the sound of her voice and her form faded away into nothing.
“What just happened?” Sam asked, stunned.
“I think she woke up,” I whispered as I looked from Sam to Jaxson.
Suddenly, I was certain of what was going on. “Jaxson’s right. This isn’t just
a cave in Forks. It’s a portal to the Dreamlands. If we free the people here,
they’ll wake in the real world.”
Jaxson spun his light around the room. “We need to cut these people
down before Kahanov returns.”
A familiar chuckle sounded from the passage ahead, and a sickening
dread crawled down my spine.
“But that wasn’t our deal, Jaxson.”
I spun. Kahanov stood at the far end of the chamber with a shit-eating
grin on his face.
Jaxson’s claws extended. “This ends now, Kahanov. Release my pack.”
“The deal was your shifters for the girl. Why would I release them when
you haven’t met my demand?” The sorcerer paused, and his eyes flicked to
me. “Unless, of course, you’ve reconsidered.”
Irrational dread flooded my veins. I knew Jaxson said he would never
hand me over, but if it came down to several dozen members of his pack or
me, would he really keep his word?
“Wrong answer.” Jaxson dropped his light and bounded forward in a blur
of violence. The sickening sound of claws connecting with flesh was masked
by Kahanov’s scream.
Before I could react, a flash of green flame hurled Jaxson into a wall.
Sam rushed toward Kahanov, but he scrambled up the wall like a spider
and out of her reach, then drew forth the Soul Knife. “Fine. That’s the way
you want to do it? Then I’ll take what’s mine. Savannah’s soul.”
He lunged for me, and I scrambled back. In my terror, I focused on one
thing: summoning the knife to my hand.
With a puff of purple smoke, it vanished from his fist and appeared in
mine.
Kahanov grinned as he leapt back to the wall. “What a clever trick,
Savannah. I wish I’d thought to do that, too. Oh, wait. I did.”
He snapped the blade back to his hand.
My jaw dropped as I looked down at my empty palm.
Shit. This is going to be a problem.
“Die, asshole!” Sam shouted as she pulled out her pistol. She braced it on
her hand with the light and unloaded three rounds at him as he scrambled
along the ceiling of the cavern. I flinched as the deafening gunshots rang
through the cave, making my already damaged ears throb with pain.
I searched wildly for Kahanov, but he was gone.
“Fuck!” Jaxson shouted. “He ran.”
He shone his light over the sleepers dangling from the wall. “Sam, get
these people free. Savannah, you’re with me. There aren’t enough bodies. We
need to find the rest of the pack and take Kahanov down. Time for stealth
mode.”
As Sam turned to the root-bound shifters, I drew the shadows around us,
and we headed into the dark passage.
45
Jaxson
We wound our way through the jagged, twisting cave. A strange blue
glow glazed the wall ahead with color. We moved cautiously until the
narrow, rocky corridor bent and opened into a vast subterranean landscape
that bathed us in eerie light.
Bioluminescent moss covered the walls and ceiling of the massive cavern,
and its unearthly glow reflected off a shimmering pool that filled the center of
the chamber. Gnarled trees with silver, tendril-like leaves grew around the
edges of the water, and their roots snaked across the walls.
At any other time, it would have been breathtaking.
Savannah pointed. There, in the middle of the room, was the grimoire,
floating in the air above the pond.
Still wrapped in Savannah’s shadows, we stepped cautiously through the
entrance, and guilt settled in my heart. I could already see that the roots of the
trees around the pond entombed more sleepers. Many faces that I knew and
loved, others less familiar.
All of them were my responsibility.
I looked behind us. A massive tree rose over the entrance, much like the
one on the shore. It was the only exit.
Savannah’s whisper echoed through the chamber. “Where is he?”
“I don’t—”
Her scream cut me off, and I spun.
Hundreds of roots sprang out from the walls and started wrapping around
her like the tentacles of some alien beast.
Dread and rage filled my chest, and I leapt forward with a growl. I
released my claws and began ripping at the roots—but as soon as I did, new
ones snaked around my own ankles.
Savannah had her claws out and was tearing through the roots as they
grasped at her, but she couldn’t keep up. My heart lurched as a tendril
whipped around her neck and she gasped, “Jaxson!”
Fighting my way to her, I tore the root away from her throat and tried to
pull her free, but two of the tendrils snaked around my arms and started
dragging us apart.
“No!” I growled, my muscles straining.
Savannah summoned the Soul Knife to her hand and sliced through the
roots binding her leg. They withered and died, and I heard the trees wail
silently in my mind.
Suddenly, the knife vanished from her hand, and she gasped. The voice of
the sorcerer echoed over the pond: “I’ll be taking that.”
I turned to see Kahanov standing by the edge of the water, next to a
cluster of trees. He waved the knife.
“Screw you!” Savannah shouted from the knot of roots. The blade
vanished and reappeared in her palm, and she began desperately cutting again
as I fought my own restraints.
She would be a sitting duck if Kahanov attacked, but as long as I held my
ground beside her and gave her time to cut herself free, he wouldn’t be able
to get close.
As if reading my mind, the sorcerer laughed. “Let’s play a game. It’s
called ‘Jaxson Makes a Choice.’”
He positioned his empty hand in front of the chest of a woman entwined
in the roots of one of the silver trees. She wasn’t any older than Savannah—
maybe a year or two younger. Cara? I couldn’t be sure.
“Touch her, and you’re a dead man!” I bellowed.
Kahanov smiled. “The moment I summon the Soul Knife, I’ll sever her
spirit. So you get to choose: Savannah or her.�
�
“Save her, Jaxson,” Savannah said. “Save them all. Please.”
Her voice cracked with sadness, and the anguish and fear in her eyes was
like a dagger to my heart.
The world spun. I was alpha, and my duty to the pack came above all else
—but Savannah was my mate, and there was nothing I could do but protect
her.
My wolf thundered inside me. Kill him.
Mindless rage churned in my body, and I unleashed a primal roar as I
wrenched the roots from around my legs.
“Time’s up!” The Soul Knife disappeared from Savannah’s hand and
appeared in Kahanov’s. He rammed it through the woman’s chest, and a trail
of smoke rose from the dagger as he yanked it back. The woman’s sleeping
eyes shot wide, and her mouth opened in a silent scream.
Savannah’s cry of despair echoed through the chamber as she summoned
the blade back from Kahanov’s hand and began cutting frantically at the
roots.
The woman faded away, her body vanishing.
“No!” I roared as the roots snaked around my body and began squeezing
like a vise, slowly dragging me toward the wall. They cut into my skin, but I
couldn’t feel the pain through my shock and rage.
Kahanov began to warily approach. “Once, I thought that if I could teach
you to submit, you might be useful. But what kind of pathetic alpha are you?
One who’d put a single foolish girl above your whole…”
The sorcerer paused mid-step, and then started to laugh. “Oh, this is too
good. How did I not see it before? You two are fated! No wonder you’re
willing to let them all die. You don’t have a choice.”
“Fuck you!” I roared.
“What does he mean?” Savannah shouted as she ripped her claws into a
root.
“It means he’s about to watch all these poor souls die while futilely trying
to save you,” said Kahanov.
Planting my feet, I seized the biggest root I could find and began to pull.
My body strained, but the walls of the cave shook, and dozens of rootlets
ripped away as rocks tumbled to the ground.
I would rip this cavern down to protect her, if I had to.
The sorcerer laughed as he leapt to another rootbound wolf. “Who’s
next?”
Tears filled Savannah’s eyes, and she stopped struggling. My stomach
clenched as roots wound around her instantly and started pulling her in.
I strained to get to her. “Don’t you dare stop fighting!”
“Trust me, I’m not,” she rasped. “He needs me alive. I’m buying you time
to save your pack. I’ll save myself.”
With that, she let the roots flow over her, and panic seized me. I released
the massive root and grabbed her hand. She screamed as the tendrils pulled
her in.
Agony and guilt tore through my body as her hand slipped from mine. In
the split second before it vanished, the Soul Knife appeared in her grasp.
Then she was gone.
Rage like I’d never known surged up from my soul. I ripped away the
roots around me and fought my way forward. “I’ll fucking kill you,
Kahanov!”
“Not quite, Jaxson. I don’t need you or these people anymore.” Laughing,
the sorcerer leapt to the walls and unleashed a searing blast of flame, setting
my clothes alight. I growled with pain and tore free of the roots around me
even as my skin burned away.
Almost blind with pain, I grabbed a torn root in my hand and whipped it
at him. Kahanov’s laugh was cut short as the whip wrapped around his leg. I
pulled, and his body flew from the wall, crashing to the jagged stone of the
cavern floor beside me.
I was on him in a second, ramming my claws into his body.
Warm blood splattered across my face.
He screamed, and a billowing cloud of fire burst around me. The blast
sent me flying back, and I tumbled across the jagged floor of the cavern.
Growling, I rose in time to see the sorcerer stagger to the base of a tree. I
lunged, but the roots swallowed him whole.
Suddenly, I was alone. Savannah was gone. And Kahanov was gone.
The shock of it drove the breath from my lungs.
Panicking, I tried to find a way through the cluster where he’d
disappeared, but there was only dirt behind the immobile wall of roots.
I tilted my head back and howled with rage.
As the reverberations died through the chamber, Savannah’s words
echoed in my mind: I’m buying you time to save your pack.
I looked to the faces of those I’d failed.
My heart clenched. The roots were moving and winding around their
necks. Horror filled me, and the weight of what the sorcerer had said sank in:
I don’t need you or these people anymore.
I leapt for the nearest body and tore the roots from the man’s throat as I
shouted for Neve and Sam.
Savannah had bought my pack time. But time was running out.
46
Savannah
The writhing roots dragged my body downward through a long, snaking
tunnel. I screamed as rocks ripped into my skin and tore my clothes.
Suddenly, I was falling, and then agony shot up my spine as my body
slammed into the ground.
Groaning, I rolled to my side. I was in a large, dark cavern. Small patches
of bioluminescent moss cast a dim light, enough that my shadow magic let
me see clearly in the dark.
Clutching my aching arm, I got to my feet and looked up. Far above, the
hole I had fallen from was closing as roots filled the tunnel and knit together.
Panic fluttered in my chest, and I quickly searched the chamber for
hidden exits but found none.
I was trapped.
At the far end of the cavern, another cluster of roots on the ceiling began
to move. They slowly descended from the ceiling with Kahanov in their
grasp.
He raised his hands, and three giant balls of light formed in the air,
illuminating the dank interior cavern. “Ah, Savannah. Alone once again. This
time, there’s nowhere to run.”
“Let me go, Kahanov, or I’ll fucking kill you.”
“Kahanov? Dear, no. You all keep calling me that, but Ulan hasn’t been
here for a long, long time. His body has been very useful, though.”
I backed away and extended my claws. “What the fuck are you talking
about, and why are you after me, you asshole?”
He summoned the knife as the roots set him down, and menace and foul
magic vibrated the air. “Your family killed my wolf, and so I’m going to take
yours in return. I’ll be whole again, and then I’ll bring your family and the
Order and the pack to their knees. They’ll beg the dark god for his mercy, but
the only mercy we will offer is death.”
The dark god? An image of the black wolf in the sky outside of my aunt
and uncle’s house filled my mind. But before I could process it, he lunged.
I spun away from the blade and suddenly extinguished the magic lights
high overhead with my shadow magic.
Kahanov lurched forward, blinded for just a second.
I summoned the blade and struck.
Some sixth sense made him turn, and the tip only grazed his skin. He
bellowed with anger and released a blast of gre
en fire where I’d been—but
I’d already moved away.
The blade vanished from my hands and reappeared in his.
He laughed. “You think you can hide in the dark, Savannah? You think
that will save you?”
A stream of emerald fire poured from Kahanov’s hands like the jet of a
flame thrower. He spun, sweeping it through the room. I dove out of the way,
but the flickering light betrayed my location.
I rolled to the side and tried to scramble out of his reach, but the knife
found my shoulder in the fading light of the flames. White-hot searing pain
shot through my body, but it was the agony in my soul that sent terror
through my veins.
My wolf howled, and a deep sense of wrongness flowed through me as
the knife caught on something that wasn’t flesh—my soul.
Before he could strike again, I screamed as I rammed my claws into the
bastard and sent him flying back across the room.
With my heart thundering in my ears, I crawled to my feet and stumbled
deeper into the cave.
Kahanov looked down at the blood-covered knife in his hand and laughed
maniacally.
“Come, now, Savannah, stop cowering in the shadows. I don’t need to see
you to hurt you. I’m a blood sorcerer, and as long as I have your blood, I can
torture you all I want.” Before I could react, he licked the blade, and the
blood trickling down his fingers suddenly began to smoke.
Then it burst into flame.
I screamed in agony as the blood in my veins turned to fire. I staggered to
my knees, gasping with pain.
Help me, I begged my wolf.
She growled in my mind. We are wolfborn. Pain is part of who we are.
It’s nothing to us. Channel it, master it, like when we shift.
I tried to master it, but I couldn’t. It hurt too damned much.
Kahanov laughed again. “I’ve tasted your blood, and now I can sense
where you are. Your shadows won’t hide you anymore, little wolf.”
The fire surrounding his hand went out, but the fire in my veins only
worsened.
I lay gasping and choking as his magic incinerated me from the inside
out. I had no idea how to fight this. His magic was living flames in my
veins…
My breath caught. My aunt had taught me how to deal with fire. Could it
work?
I steeled my mind and summoned my magic. The darkness trickled
through me like ice water, slowly extinguishing the blaze within, just as I’d
Untamed Fate (Magic Side: Wolf Bound Book 2) Page 31