by KC Kingmaker
That’s when I saw a profile view of his face, and I skidded to a halt. My brow went high, familiarity haunting me.
I vaguely recognized the man as an outsider who frequently dealt with my family in the Appalachian rainforest. A new arrival, my pack had told me, once I reached the age to join my family’s ventures.
It took a moment to recall his name: Luciano Rockford. An elder wolf shifter from the other side of the country. My pack did business with him.
Hesitance made me neglect telling my Glove of the man’s identity; of the fact I recognized him. We weren’t supposed to know our targets, so I wasn’t sure if knowing Rockford would get me in trouble with the Academy.
So I stayed quiet and followed once he turned a corner out of my view. Before long, he would cross paths with Quentin, who was clearly angling to get the best jump on the shifter.
A howl reached my ears, coming from that direction. My blood ran cold, momentarily freezing me in place.
Elder wolf shifter . . .
Wolf shifters never traveled alone.
My heart kicked into overdrive and I sprinted to where Luciano had disappeared from my vantage.
“Quentin, fall back!” I urged in my mind. “Ambush!”
Scuffling sounds hit me. Grunts, thuds. The sounds of combat.
I careened around the corner and found Luciano sprinting down the way, still in his human form, putting distance between us.
Between me and Luciano, Quentin fought off two wolves attacking him. I jumped into the fray to help him.
“Sunny, advance!” Myria yelled in my head.
She burst out of her hiding spot and emerged from a building half a block up. More wolves jumped out from the shadows.
Sunder appeared a moment later from the left, moving at blinding speed to help me and Quentin with the wolves.
As Sunder and I worked in tandem to fend off the beasts, my head moved on a swivel, realizing Quentin was gone from the melee.
I gazed ahead, eyes widening. He chased after Luciano Rockford as the rest of us battled the elder wolf’s entourage.
Luciano dipped into a building.
Quentin was hot on his heels.
I lost sight of them both and had to turn my attention back to the fight at hand. I raised my arm to take a vicious bite from a wolf, spinning out of the way at the last second.
Sunder flew in and kicked the wolf, launching him ten feet away. His hands moved in a flurry to wisp shadows out from the street, wrapping them around our enemies—enemies which seemed to be multiplying by the second.
“No visual on Quentin!” I shouted.
“Get after him!” Donovenn demanded in my head, his voice the loudest due to him being in control of the mind-link.
I ran toward the building where I’d lost Quentin and Luciano.
That’s when the foreign, spoiled smell that had teased me earlier turned into an overbearing stench.
Powerful wind gusted overhead, nearly knocking me over. I tipped my head to see a huge, monstrous creature appear out from behind a dilapidated structure. Leathery black wings kept me at bay while it took to the sky. The monster gave me a passing glance, its eyes gleaming red, dark fluids drooling from its grotesque mouth.
“What the fuck is that?!” Myria shouted somewhere behind me.
A strong beat of its wings took the beast skyward, flying toward the upper level of the building Quentin and Luciano had disappeared into.
I ran into the building but was slowed by the staircase. I had no wings to carry me. My feet hopped the winding stairs three at a time, until my thighs burned.
When I burst out of the top level, I ran out onto a rooftop. My eyes landed on Luciano and Quentin staring face to face.
Luciano Rockford gritted his teeth, knotting his hands into fists.
Quentin advanced, hands glowing with energy.
“Quentin! fall b—”
The black-winged monster whooshed in from the side, flying in out of nowhere. It hoisted Quentin clean off the ground, picking him up like a ragdoll before flying past.
My stomach dropped, fear cutting through me.
Quentin’s yell died as the monster deposited him over the edge of the building, dropping him out of sight.
My jaw popped open. Speechless, I stared at Luciano across the way. He brushed himself off and frowned at me.
A static sound jarred my brain, discombobulating me. Wincing, I screwed my eyes shut.
When I opened them, Luciano had vanished.
“Q-Quentin,” I croaked in the mind-link.
“He’s gone,” Donovenn said. “I felt him leave the mind-link. That was the crashing sound in our heads.”
“Fuck,” Sunder cursed.
“No!” Myria wailed. “We have to find him!”
“It’s no use,” I replied, voice glum. “He went over the side of the building. That . . . thing pushed him off.”
“Abort the mission,” Donovenn ordered. “I’ve just received word from Wrist Hudson. This has gotten out of hand. Get out of Asberald!”
MY EYES RIPPED OPEN. Sweat lined my forehead and upper lip, the flashback bringing guilty, shameful thoughts to mind.
I hadn’t thought of the “hit gone wrong” in quite some time. With a single wrench in our plan, everything had gone to shit. We had reacted rather than responded, and it had led to Quentin’s unnecessary death.
I’d blocked it out, trying to forget how we had failed so miserably.
But now that I found myself back in Asberald City, it was impossible to ignore the past. Déjà vu tormented me as I snuck around the buildings, cars, and lampposts, even more destroyed than they’d been a year prior.
What used to be a city on the outs was now fully abandoned. Nature had taken over, perhaps at the behest of that black-winged monster. After all, who would want to live in a place where that was roaming around?
Now, after so many days of covertly searching at Headmaster Cane’s orders, I had found myself back at this wretched place.
My search had led me here for a reason. I was sure I’d find what the headmaster was looking for somewhere in this city. Tracks and scent had led me here.
Perhaps the shadow of that leathery demon would provide me the clue I needed to finally be rid of my obligation to the headmaster. He had chosen me for this mission for my discretion. For my expert tracking skills. For my allegiance to him and the Academy.
The nightmares of our final Ghost mission still troubled me, unbeknownst to my Glovemates. As much as I tried to push away the thoughts, I had been the last one to see Quentin before his untimely demise. I had witnessed the demon tackle him and throw him off the edge like nothing more than a toy.
And, worst of all . . . I still kept a secret of my own.
No one knew I’d recognized our target that evening. Luciano Rockford’s handsome mug possessed my thoughts.
I hadn’t gotten a chance to retreat to my Appalachian forest homeland, but I would after this semester at the Academy. I would ask questions and find answers: What did Luciano Rockford mean to our people? Why were my people interacting with him—a target of Shadowblade Academy?
Nothing about the situation sat right with me.
I wanted to tell my Glovemates about the man’s identity, but I wondered if doing so would incriminate me somehow. Would identifying Luciano Rockford make me guilty of something I didn’t even know about?
I had to play it smart. For now, I had to finish Headmaster Cane’s mission. I wanted to get back to the Academy. I missed Donovenn, Coralia, and even Sunder.
Once I found the location Headmaster Cane had commissioned me to find, everything could resume back to normal. My job would be done. I’d be able to wash it clean from my conscien—
I jolted up, a faint smell wafting on the breeze and tickling my nose.
The soft scents of vanilla, fir trees, and summer skies. They mingled with familiarity, the vanilla hitting me the hardest—an intimate, powerful aroma causing a warm sensation to bloom inside m
y belly.
It was a fresh fragrance I’d become attached to ever since my close-quarters training with a certain someone in Jace Hudson’s Physical Intent class.
“Coralia?” I whispered, tilting my head.
A dark stink cut through the blended odors.
Spirits save me, I tire of these familiar smells!
I would never forget this particular reek: spoiled, rotten, evil.
“Coralia!” I gasped.
I burst free from my hideaway and took off toward the scent. My feet wouldn’t carry me fast enough. My body began to shift as I ran headlong into the wind—
Wind I could feel pulsating with danger.
Chapter 33
Coralia
GENEVIEVE KICKED A crumpled Coke can out of her way and stopped walking. Hands on her hips, she tipped her head to stare up at the large empty building in front of us. “This is where Myria went. I followed her here.”
The building had a faded gray surface, built of steel corroding into an ochre, rusted tinge. The windows were all blown out, some jagged glass still visible. It stood at least ten stories high, like many of the buildings in this ominous, deserted cityscape.
“The ambush . . .” Sunny muttered, trailing off.
I looked over my shoulder. “Huh?”
“Nothing.” He stepped up beside us, moving at a languid pace. His eyes darted with a suspicious glint. “She went into this building?”
“No,” Genevieve answered. She pointed at the ground. “She stopped right here.” She thrust a thumb over her shoulder. “I was hiding across the street while I watched her.”
“Okay.” Sunny caressed his clean-shaven chin, a pensive look on his face. “Then what happened?”
“Then the portal opened.”
A creeping chill ran up my spine. My head whipped over to her at the same time as Sunny’s.
“What portal?” we asked in unison.
Genevieve’s shoulders bobbed. “It wasn’t a shadowgate. It was like fabric ripping the air open. The kind of portal a Briarwitch alum uses.”
I asked, “What happened when the portal opened, Vivi?”
“Myria started . . . talking to herself.” The way Genevieve said it told me she wasn’t sure what she had really seen. “She mumbled. I couldn’t hear her from where I was hiding, except at one point. I remember her saying, ‘Yes, I would like find Quentin.’ It stuck out because it was loud and echoed off the walls of the buildings.”
“Like she was answering a question,” I muttered, biting the inside of my cheek anxiously.
“Sure. But I didn’t see her talking to anyone.”
“Or a command,” Sunny added. When I raised my brow, he explained, “This has the hallmarks of a possession.”
“A possession?” Fear coiled tight around my heart.
“It sounded like she was doing what she came here to do,” Genevieve said, her voice nonchalant.
“Exactly,” Sunny rumbled.
“She stepped into the portal right after that and disappeared.” Her words lingered, an ominous weight to them.
“Sunny,” I piped up, “what do you mean by a ‘possession’? You think Myria was, what, brainwashed?”
“Or convinced. Conditioned. Persuaded to do something she thought she already wanted to do, as Vivi said.”
“Expand on that.”
“If what Vivi is saying is true—”
“It is,” she snapped.
“—then it sounds like Myria was lured away from Shadowblade Academy by an unknown presence. By a promise. Perhaps a voice in her mind. She was told to come here, to the sight of Quentin’s disappearance, and was offered something in return for stepping into that portal. Of course, this is all conjecture.”
Something about his theory rang true in my soul. It upped the creepiness factor of this eerie, haunted place tenfold. “What would they have offered her?”
“I don’t know.” His jaw muscles tightened, anger flashing across his eyes. “Whatever the promise, it was most likely a ploy to capture her.”
“Who would have a power like that?”
“Spirits only know,” he sighed. The vampire looked troubled, as if he’d only just realized we were in over our heads.
There was something he wasn’t telling me.
Trying to settle the fear pumping through my veins, I chewed on my lip and searched the area around me. My eyes followed Sunny, who prowled around the base of the building, eyes on the ground.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
“A sign. A clue.”
“Like what?”
“A shadow out of . . .” He stopped, then brushed debris and garbage out of the way with his boot. “Place.”
“I told you,” Genevieve said, “it wasn’t a shadowgate on the ground. It was a magic portal hanging in the air.”
Sunny ignored her and squatted to inspect what he’d found. Fidgeting, I went and stared over his shoulder at the black circle etched into the ground. Its penumbra was lighter than the core—a dark, solid gradient on the cracked pavement, like the circle had been drawn by chalk and then inked inside the lines.
Sunny’s eyes scanned the nearby lampposts and buildings, then back to the circle, to see if he could find anything that would have cast the shadow.
“That isn’t supposed to be there,” I choked, confirming Sunny’s suspicion when he nodded.
Abruptly, he jolted to his full height, nearly knocking into me. His nostrils flared and he put his arms out, backing away from the building and the circle. “Stay back,” he growled.
“What’s wrong?”
A low buzz rang through the air. Or was it just happening in my ears? Whatever it was, it hadn’t been there a second before—almost like Sunny had activated something by brushing the shadowed circle clear of debris.
His stretched hands curled into fists, body flexing and head swiveling. Goosebumps trailed up my neck and arms.
“Sunny, earlier when you said ‘the ambush’ . . . Venn told me about it,” I whispered. The buzz in my ears grew louder, accompanied by a faint rotten smell, like sewage. I screwed up my face. “About your final assignment as Ghosts. As a Glove. What did you mean—”
“This is the spot Quentin fell when he was tossed off the building. That shadow. I could probably triangulate his landing right there.” He was looking more and more bestial as the seconds passed, peeling his upper lip back and baring his teeth as he tried to keep his arms in front of me and Vivi.
“You no longer think he was killed?”
Before Sunny could answer, a harsh ripping sound broke my train of thought. I inhaled sharply as a jagged slit cut through the sky in front of us, right over the shadowed circle. The slit cleaved open, and I realized the buzzing hadn’t been coming from inside my head, but from that fuzzy, static-like apparition.
A cloven foot stepped out of the portal, followed by a furry leg.
Genevieve yelped.
“Stay back!” Sunny roared. He put his hands together and they glowed with fire. The air around me grew sticky and heady, zapped of oxygen.
Before the entity from the portal could step all the way through, Sunny launched a fireball from his hands, the evocation like a comet trailing through the night sky.
It burst on the monstrous leg and dissipated into smoke. The rest of the creature stepped through, the portal staying open behind him.
My mouth dropped.
Giant black wings spread out behind it, ragged and spiny, covered in leathery skin. Sunny was a tall guy, yet this beast had a few feet on him. Ripped, veiny muscles bulged from its grotesque, naked body. Trapped in the darkness of its monstrous face glowed two red eyes.
A literal fucking demon. The stuff of nightmares.
The monster screamed, two vicious voices coiling together—one ragged and raspy, the other guttural and ferocious.
When it turned its crimson gaze on the three of us, I stumbled backward.
Vivi stepped up beside Sunny, both of them starting
to summon magic from their reservoirs. Tongues of fire spit from Sunny’s hand. Sheets of ice flowed out of Vivi’s as she aimed at the creature’s feet to try and freeze it to the ground.
Just as quickly as the beast was tangled in crystalline ice patches, it broke free and lumbered toward us. The monster stepped away from the portal and the gate flickered.
“Fuck!” Sunny yelled.
Another winged beast rocketed into our world, this one already moving at full speed through the air, headed right for us.
Sunny and Genevieve moved in tandem, rolling left and right, respectively, to avoid getting bulldozed by the flying entity.
Being the scared dumbass I was, I just stood there, stunned, watching my impending doom as those terrifying red eyes grew larger.
“Coralia!” Sunny wailed.
I winced, body deflating as the demon’s hands came out with dagger-sharp talons ready to rip me to shreds.
Well fuck me stupid. I guess this is how it all—
A black blur streaked through the sky mere feet in front of me, crashing into the flying demon from the side and knocking it off its trajectory.
—ends?
My mouth made an O, eyes following the demon as it tumbled to the ground and rolled over its wings.
The black blur launched off with a growl, baring fangs as it raised its hackles. Giant paws came down to batter the demon’s face.
I squinted in confusion. Where the fuck did the black panther come from?!
The monster defended itself, taking serrated claws across its arms, and then roared in the big cat’s face and smacked him off its prone body.
“Dax!” Sunny yelled. I glanced over and saw the vampire on his feet, body going taut as his red cloak swayed behind him. He looked ready to take to the sky himself, the presence of the panther reinvigorating him.
That’s . . . Dax?
I almost broke out laughing as everything fell into place: Dax’s fear of my own kitty, Brucey. A battle of wills, an assertion of dominance. The way he kept to the shadows. His dark, midnight skin, an identical hue to the fur, and those dark eyes tinged in yellow.
Dax was a panther shifter.
But where the hell did he come from? I couldn’t think on it for any length of time. Dax was circling the demon, dodging strikes and nipping at its dark body, but the monster only looked slightly inconvenienced.