My tumble had attracted the attention of several mid-sized stones, which burrowed into the dirt and set off another earthshaking event. I got the distinct feeling they were tattling on me. Careful not to step on one of them, I picked my way to the plaster wall that sealed off a good six feet of space. I felt my way around it but found no door or hatch. Another spasm rocked me, and the fragile plaster split. The sour odor seeping from the cracks had me turning my head and coughing against my shoulder.
“Aunt Dot?” I pounded on the wall. “Isaac?”
No answer.
I sank my furred fingers into the cracks and pried chunks of wall free. Soon it became clear that where the seam had ruptured was fresh plaster. It crumbled into my hands while the walls to either side remained unmoved. The smell overwhelmed me, and my gut twisted while the worst-case scenarios ran rampant.
“Hey,” a scratchy voice whispered.
“Isaac?” I tore into the wall with renewed vigor. “Hold on. I’ve almost got an opening large enough for you to fit through.” My shoulders ached and nails bled with the effort. “Is Aunt Dot with you?” The darkness of their tiny room was absolute. “Is she okay?”
“Harlow did something to her,” Isaac rasped. “Mom hasn’t moved or spoken since she put us down here.”
A twinge rippled through my chest at the sound of Harlow’s name. She was a good kid, and Charybdis was ruining her.
“Don’t worry. It will be okay. I brought the cavalry. Mom, Theo and Graeson are here.” I sat back when the path was cleared. “Can you walk? Or do you need assistance?”
“I think I can manage.” He scooted closer to the hole and stuck his head out, breathing deep of the fresh air. “I can’t leave Mom.”
Worrying my lip between my teeth, I settled on the only course of action that made sense. “I can’t carry her alone, and you’re too weak to help.” I turned toward the light and the shadow Mom cast. “I’m going to have to get Graeson.”
Another tremor shook the earth, and he scowled at a bouncing rock. “What’s going on up there?”
“This whole property is a monolith den. It’s one giant landmine, and I stomped on the trigger.” I pushed to my feet. “I get the impression they haven’t been woken in a long time. It’s taking a while for them to get mobile.” Thunder crashed overhead, and my stomach tightened. “We don’t have long before they come looking for us. They’ll crush the house and bury the cellar if that’s what it takes to protect their home.”
He winced and adjusted himself. “You better hurry.”
Hurry I did. Back at the opening, a coil of rope bopped me on the head before I got a chance to call out to Mom. She peered over the edge, spotted me rubbing my scalp and called, “Sorry, baby. I didn’t realize you were back yet.”
“No problem.” If we survived this, I could always pop some ibuprofen later. “Is it anchored?”
“Yes.” She gripped a knot and held tight. “I’ll keep it steady for you.”
Jogging was about the only exercise I got, so my upper body strength was slim. I had to call on my warg aspect to climb out of there, and Mom gasped and stumbled back, falling on her butt in the dirt when she processed the extent of my transformation.
“H-how is this possible?” She stood and approached me with caution. “Wargs are born, not made.”
I worked my jaw to shake off the transformation before answering. “Isaac thinks my reset is resetting.”
“Remarkable.” Her lips parted. “You truly are a special girl, Cammie.”
No, I wasn’t, but parents weren’t great at seeing the reality of their kids, only the mirage of childhood sweetness they cast over them to soften the sharp edges forged in adulthood.
“Hold your ground, and keep an eye out for movement. I have to get Graeson.” The sounds of battle carried from the front yard, and I winced. “Aunt Dot is bespelled, and Isaac is weak. I have to get help.”
“They’re down there?” She dropped to her knees at the edge. “I thought when you came back alone…”
“I found them.” I patted her shoulder. “They’re safe.” For now, I added silently.
“I’ll keep watch.” She drew a pocketknife and flicked the gleaming blade open. “You go get your mate.”
Respect for Mom buoyed my spirit, and I jogged to the corner of the house. Wary of alerting the lumbering monoliths to our location, although the ones under the house must already sense intruders, I flattened my spine against the building and reached for Graeson’s mind, praying the distraction didn’t cost him.
“I need to borrow your muscles.” I peered around the corner to pinpoint his location but came up empty. “Aunt Dot is unconscious, and Isaac is in a bad way. I’m not strong enough to help. I’m going to have to tag you out.”
“No, you’re not.” His mental snort had me gritting my teeth. “I have another option.”
“What—?” Howls cut short my question. “The pack is here?”
“Haden and Moore are here.” Smugness radiated through the bond. “I figured better safe than sorry.” A slight hesitation had me worried, but he added, “Is this one of those things I should have told you ahead of time?”
Shaking my head where he couldn’t see it, I had to accept this was classic Cord Graeson, and I couldn’t fault him for it. Not when it might be the very thing that saved my family. “You’re the strategist in this relationship. I trust you to make the right call for our people.”
“In that case, stay where you are.”
I smothered a snort. “I never saw that coming.”
“I’ll bow out when they arrive. Four legs are faster than two. They can keep up the distraction while we get your aunt and cousin to safety.”
“Come around back. There’s a cellar. That’s where we’ll be.”
“See you soon.”
“The sooner, the better.” Shoving off the logs, I returned to Mom and filled her in on the situation. “Now we wait.”
“Now we work. See that?” She gestured toward a small stone building up the incline. “It’s an old pump house. That’s where I found the rope. There’s another coil and a few tools if we need them.”
“Good thinking.” I touched her shoulder. “I’ll grab what we need and be right back.”
While she resumed the sentry position, I clambered up the slope. The door swung open under my hand, and I popped my head inside. The rope coiled on a railroad spike driven into the wall. I slid my arm into the opening and hiked it up onto my shoulder. Most of the tools were rusted from lying on the ground, which was damp earth. No floor in here. I tested a few, and they snapped under pressure, the metal or wood or both too rotted to be useful. Backing out the door, I was struck by how solid and heavy it was. Despite the years of exposure, it hadn’t warped, and the bottom hadn’t decayed. I latched it closed and returned to Mom, who had fashioned a loop and was tying a mariner’s knot where it joined the rope I had used earlier.
She lifted her work for my inspection. “If Isaac is as weak as you think, we can have him step in this and hold on while we haul him out of there.”
Small as the knot was, I had doubts. “Will the knot hold?”
“I grew up on the road in the days before the whole clan could afford RVs.” She scoffed. “I can tie knots for tents, laundry lines, horse halters and boats all day long, little girl.”
Fair enough. “What about Aunt Dot?”
A calculating gleam lit her eyes. “Did you notice the pump house door?”
“I did.” Seeing where this was going, I cut her off at the pass. “It’s solid, almost petrified. I bet it weighs a ton.”
“Your mate is a warg,” she said, as if that explained all the mysteries of the universe.
“That doesn’t make him indestructible.” A flash of his chest, soaked in blood, the knife protruding, stole my breath. “I’ll see if I can find a substitute.”
A quick scan of the area netted no suitable alternative for what Mom had in mind. There was only one reason she could want the
door—so we could use it as a litter. I returned to the pump house and studied the hinges.
“What are you doing?” Graeson panted near my ear.
I soaked him in with thirsty eyes, but he was fine. Not a scratch on him. “I need this door.”
“Okay.” He ushered me aside and ripped it off the hinges. “Now what?”
I stared at him, dumbstruck. “Should you be doing that in your condition?”
“I told you, I was at ninety-five percent. One hundred percent after last night.” He leaned forward and kissed the tip of my nose. “I won’t break.”
Instead of saying what beat in my heart, that where Charybdis and his schemes were concerned, we were all breakable, I jerked my chin. “Let’s get this down to the cellar.”
Mom was staring off in the distance, the snarls and growls of the wolves ringing out as the second wave tagged in for their turn. She startled when I touched her arm, and I wondered if the wolves frightened her. How could they? Compared to the monoliths, the wargs were like…fluffy puppies.
“I’ll go down and show you what we’re up against.” I grasped the rope and climbed to the bottom, then scurried out of the way. Graeson landed in a crouch beside me seconds later. “Show-off.”
He grunted and followed me to the half-demolished plaster wall. Isaac had climbed out and now sat on the churning earth, sweat beading his forehead. I searched the opening and spotted a nest of gray curls. Isaac must have spent his time dragging Aunt Dot nearer the fresh oxygen too. Gods knew that miserable hole where they had been reeked from their confinement.
As keen as his senses were, Graeson didn’t so much as wrinkle his nose. With a straight face, he hauled Isaac to his feet and slung an arm around his waist. “We’ll get you out first and then come back for your mom.”
Isaac put up a fight but was too weak to do more than annoy Graeson enough to swing him up into a fireman’s carry and walk him to the rope. He trussed Isaac up like a Thanksgiving turkey, then climbed the rope to help Mom haul him out of the cellar.
While they labored with Isaac, I examined Aunt Dot. I touched her skin and found it cool, her expression peaceful. Her utter stillness funneled my thoughts toward how Lori had appeared frozen in time too. I snapped out of it as an idea occurred to me.
A dull thump told me Graeson had landed back in the cellar. “I’ve got an idea.” I waited for him to join me. “Help me get her out in the open.”
He climbed inside the small room and lifted her in his arms. I hadn’t meant for him to carry her alone, but I stood back and let the man work. He settled her on the ground, head cocked as he listened to the crash and boom of rock colliding so near the house the floorboards groaned overhead.
“I want to check her pockets.” I tore the hem of my T-shirt and ripped off a handkerchief-sized hunk of fabric. If my suspicions were correct, the last thing I needed to do was go in barehanded. “Here goes nothing.”
I patted her down the way I would a suspect and was about to turn her onto her side when I found a zipper running down the seam of the sporty capris she wore. I pressed my hand to the outside and located a hard bump the size of my thumbnail. After pulling down the zipper, I reached into the compartment, careful to keep my fingers covered, and pulled out a shining pink stone. Quartz most likely, and definitely bespelled. Its magic seeped through the fabric, and my lids fluttered.
Shock radiated up my arm, and my eyes flipped wide open.
Graeson had knocked the gemstone from my hand.
“Ellis.” He shook my shoulder. “Snap out of it.”
I opened my mouth to respond as the house groaned overhead. Planks buckled and snapped, spearing the cellar floor with their ragged points. Rocks pelted the dirt floor as a stone calf thicker than my waist crashed through the debris. A slice of sky opened up above us, illuminating the furious rock man who was systematically tearing out the walls of the house over our heads. A roar that sounded like smashing boulders rang in our ears.
The monoliths were done playing tag with the wargs. They were hunting us.
“Cam?” a weak voice snagged my attention.
“Hold on.” Graeson gathered a woozy Aunt Dot to him and cut me a look. “Move.”
The stone glinted in the far corner, close enough I could slide over and grab it. Magic that potent might come in handy, especially since my parents had finite resources and we had limited time. We might not be able to wait on the dryad to enchant more stones before we implemented the next phase of our plan. Not after this.
“Pick up your feet, woman.” Graeson stepped in front of me. “Or I will shift, and I will bite you.”
Curling my lip, I shoved to a standing position. He was right. I was acting foolish, desperate, and desperate people made mistakes that cost them their lives.
I sprinted toward the cellar opening and untangled the rope, thankful we wouldn’t need the door after all. Together we bundled up Aunt Dot. Again Graeson climbed up to help Mom pull her to level ground. As I waited for my turn, shifting from foot to foot, my gaze kept sliding back to where the gem rested covered in dirt.
The monolith waded through the rotten flooring like the ancient oak planks were pudding and stomped a clear path right toward me as its wrecking spree continued. Certain it hadn’t seen me yet, that it was just demolishing its way around the house, I tensed to make a run for it.
That gem dropped into Harlow’s pocket could knock her out long enough for me to get her to safety. It was a guarantee I couldn’t resist. Muscles tensed, I sprang forward as a frantic whine brought my head up. There was no voice, but a barrage of images slammed into me.
Theo rammed his fist into the gut of a monolith. Its stone navel wept magma, its furious bellow a battle cry as it swung a massive forearm toward Theo, knocking him off his feet and sending him flying.
I didn’t wait for the rope. I shifted my hands and dug my nails into cracks in the plaster, hauling myself higher until Graeson cursed and lifted me out the rest of the way. “Theo—”
He set his jaw. “I’m on it.”
“We have to get them to the car.” Assuming it hadn’t been crushed yet. I turned to Isaac. “Can you walk?”
Isaac wobbled to his feet with a sharp nod. Aunt Dot made it to her knees before collapsing. Calling on every drop of magic left in me, I assumed my warg aspect. “Geth her on mah back,” I lisped through fangs. Her weight settled against me, and I set off at a clip toward the rental. Mom kept pace with Isaac, and I watched them from the corner of my eye.
Thank the gods, the car was untouched except for the cracked rear windshield. A lumpy rock the size of my fist twitched near the trunk. I stepped over it and sidled up to the passenger door, where I raked deep furrows in the paint with my claws while attempting to open it. “Cheth for keths.”
“The fob is in the cup holder,” Mom confirmed, sliding behind the wheel and cranking the engine. “Sounds like everything is as it should be.”
With Isaac’s help, I managed to get Aunt Dot off my back. I sandwiched her between the car and my hips so she wouldn’t face plant and then twisted around to get her settled in the backseat. Magic poured off me, as slick as sweat, and my aspect faded.
“Hold her upright,” I ordered, shoving Isaac in beside his mother. “I’m going back for Graeson.” And Theo.
“No need.” Graeson arrived with Theo in his arms. He placed him gently on the backseat, ignoring Isaac’s frantic questions. Chaining my wrist with his hand, he yanked me aside as two muddy wargs, foaming at the mouth from exertion, leapt into the backseat, sprawling across laps as best they could. “Moore broke a leg and Haden has a crushed rib,” he explained before I could ask why they didn’t run for the safety of the trees instead. He slammed the door behind them, dragged me to the front passenger seat, sat and folded me onto his lap then forced the door shut. “We’re clear.”
A frustrated roar echoed by several granite throats told us the monoliths had spotted us.
Tires spun and dirt sprayed the air behind us
as Mom stomped on the accelerator, twisting the wheel until the car whirled and we faced back the way we had come. I clutched the handle mounted to the ceiling and planted both feet against the windshield. Graeson wrapped his arms around my waist, buried his face in my neck, and we both held on for dear life.
Chapter 16
Hospitals were out of the question for the injured, so we returned to our hotel. The wolves trotted off as soon as the car doors opened. I trusted they knew their way back to the RV park. Abram could take it from there. Mom did recon, making sure the path was clear before Graeson hauled a blood-soaked Theo inside and up the elevators before returning to help me with the others. Isaac limped alongside me, but Graeson carried Aunt Dot since her eyes kept crossing.
Back in my room, I ran a bath for Isaac and let him relax while Mom and Graeson situated Theo on my bed. She put in a call to a local doctor, a dwarf, who made house calls. While we waited, we fished Isaac out and put him to bed in Theo’s room wearing his brother’s clothes. Aunt Dot we cleaned up, changed into a hotel-issued robe and tucked in beside Isaac. Graeson, being the thoughtful man he was, had ordered room service while we were elbows-deep in suds, but no one was in the mood to eat while Theo’s fate remained uncertain.
I was visiting with Aunt Dot and Isaac when firm raps next door sent me jogging out of the room. “Dr. Wayne?” The stocky man whose head came up to my shoulder nodded, and I stuck out my arm. “I’m relieved you could come on such short notice.”
“Short notice is my specialty.” He grasped my hand, and clean, bright magic tickled my palm. Not a trace of darkness blighted him. He indicated the door behind me. “Is the patient in there?”
“No.” I used my room card to grant us access. “My cousin is this way.”
I led him to Theo’s bedside then went to stand with Graeson. Mom kept her spot on the mattress with his hand on her lap, standing in for Aunt Dot even though Theo had been combative and snarky to her from the start.
A quick examination left the dwarf sporting a quizzical brow. “How did you say this happened?”
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