by Kate Douglas
“I love you, too,” she breathed and dropped the empty syringe to the table. Then she grabbed his hand, and waited for the inevitable with him, this boy who was neither her flesh nor her blood, but was still hers.
His young body began to shake, and his grip tightened as he fell to his knees with a keen of animalistic pain. She went down beside him, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder. Trying to keep the panic out of her voice, she sucked in a breath. “Alex? Alex, tell me what’s going on. What do you feel? I can try some healing spells if you talk to me.”
Never had she felt the inadequacy of her healing skills as sharply as she did now. Treating his bullet wound was nothing compared to this—a poison she’d administered herself. Her heart hammered in her chest, guilt and nausea roiling in her until she wanted to scream.
“No. No!” A large form came hurtling through the open door, and gunfire rang hollowly in the wide lab. Peyton. Chloe’s heart stopped as the man moved with stunning speed.
The Fae, Sasha, stumbled back as a bullet hit her. She screamed when she slammed into the wolf cages, and those who could reach her latched onto her limbs, her clothes, her hair. Spells shot out from her in wild sparks as she made noises worthy of the trapped and terrified animals who grabbed her.
Gregor and Smith dove into action to try to tackle Peyton. Both wolves shifted midair, the crunch of bone barely audible over the clamor from Sasha. Blood sprayed from bullets and teeth, talons and claws. Peyton’s gaze met Chloe’s for a single instant, and his telepathic command pierced her mind. Run!
Alex was already standing, jerking and twitching as if he were having a seizure, but on his feet. That was enough to spur Chloe into action. She leaped for the tottering Tess, drew back her hand, and slapped her friend as hard as she could. “Tess, get it together. Let’s go!”
The redhead blinked as if waking up from a deep slumber, but Chloe wasn’t about to lose this opportunity. She grabbed her friend’s arm and hauled her toward the door, shoving Alex along in front of her. He moved, not as fast as a werewolf should be able to, but they were out of the room without being hit by any stray bullets or spells.
They reached a door to an outside hallway, and it wouldn’t open. “No. Damn it.” Chloe slammed her fist against it, already feeling the pulsating waves of shielding magic that would be difficult to dismantle, even if she knew how to magically disarm a door, which she didn’t.
A gurgle came from Alex’s mouth, spittle falling from his lips. My hack . . . should have . . .
The door clicked, the small, lighted panel beside it flashing from red to green. “Yes.”
Hope she’d lost so recently came rocketing back, and Chloe prayed to whatever deity was paying attention that they made it out of here, that they could get help. Wrenching open the door, she gathered every scrap of magic she had and pushed against the shield spells around the labs. The spells became a visible blue force field, rippling every time Chloe rammed her power into it. Sweat coursed down her face, stuck her clothes to her skin. A shaky opening began to slice through the shield, and Alex shoved the smaller women through it.
“No, you are coming with us, young man. That. Is. Final.” Chloe latched on to his hand, drew on his energy, and used it to widen the opening just enough to yank him over to her side. She lurched forward, almost face-planted into the floor, and made Alex stumble, both of them shaking. They’d have gone down, but Tess latched on to her other wrist, held her up, and steadied the wolf.
“O-okay.” Tess’s voice was shaky, but her grip was firm as she held on to both of them. “How do we get out of here?”
Swiping the sweat from her brow, Chloe cast a frantic look around. A cacophony of roaring came from the lab behind them, followed by the sound of someone crashing into something solid. Or through something solid, like a wall. The thought made ice run through her veins. Whatever they did, getting away from this spot was imperative. There was no telling how long Peyton could or would keep fighting, or how long they had before someone came to investigate the breach in the spell shield. She moved to Alex’s other side and grabbed the boy’s arm. He still swayed where he stood, shivering and panting through clenched fangs.
“Let’s just keep moving.” Chloe pushed them forward and Tess nodded, helping her prop the wolf up so they could shuffle into an ungainly trot. They ignored the elevators and followed the signs for the emergency staircase.
Spilling out onto a cement landing, they faced a sign that said they were on the hundredth floor. Tess leaned over the rail to look down. “I have bad news.”
“I really don’t want any bad news,” Chloe wheezed as she hefted more of Alex’s weight. The kid was pure muscle and getting heavier by the second. She hoped that was just her perception and that he wasn’t starting a half-shift. They’d never be able to carry him then. Panic made her heart trip, but she refused to give in now.
Tess glanced back over her shoulder. “Well, suck it up, princess, because that’s what you’re getting. We have to go up, maybe use a door for a higher floor. There are people coming up these stairs at a run. Listen.”
It was faint, but there was definitely the pounding of footsteps from further down, and moving at much faster speeds than a human could run. Since any sane werewolf was running on pack land or locked in for the full moon, she had to assume that meant vampires. Or, worse, not sane werewolves. Neither option was one she wanted to deal with. “All right. Up we go. Let’s get out of Smithville.”
Heaving Alex up the steps one at a time, her heart broke every time he tripped and stumbled. His breath came out at a pant, sweat pouring down his face. He didn’t even pause to wipe it away, just used one hand on the railing to help haul himself up the stairs. Filtering as much of her own healing energy to him as she could spare, she took a moment to be grateful he didn’t tell them to leave him, because they didn’t have time for that argument. The little genius had to know she wouldn’t do it. Neither would Tess, when she wasn’t damn near catatonic.
All three of them staggered drunkenly up to the landing one floor above where they had started, only to find there was no going any further. They’d reached the roof. “Oh, fuck.”
“Better out there than sardined on a stairway,” Tess stated, shoving on the metal bar that opened the door.
A piercing alarm shrieked when it swung wide, and Chloe winced, but worked with Tess to jockey Alex through the opening.
“Can you use your magic woo-woo to booby trap the door?” Tess gave her a hopeful look, swatted the heavy metal door shut, and shrugged. “Because there went any element of surprise we had about where we got off the stairwell.”
“They can track us by scent anyway. They’re werewolves. And vampires. Both are coming after us, so they’ll find us in the next minute or so.” Alex sucked in a deep breath of the cool air, untainted by the oppressive fear and human waste of the laboratory. “I can smell them.”
He pushed away from their support, managed a few steps on his own before he threw his head back to stare at the full moon peeking out from between the clouds. Chloe used the free moment to press her hands against the door. Booby trap. She’d never tried to booby trap anything in her entire life. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on what she wanted, letting her ugly emotions feed the energy needed for the spell. Pain, agony, fire, corrosion, death for whoever opened the door. She twisted the words into an endless litany in her mind, building a shield around the door, a shield that sparked with red and orange and white-hot flames. Heat radiated from the metal surface in front of her, and she gasped, jolting backward.
“Holy freaking shit,” Tess breathed.
No kidding. The door had expanded, warping, melting into its frame. The shield around it shimmered, smelled of molten iron, and whispered of ominous things. Chloe shook out her hands, ridding herself of the dark energy the spell had generated.
A choking sound from Alex brought her around to face him, and a low sob from the boy made her hurry to his side. She cupped his cheeks between her palms. “Alex, honey.
You can’t freak out on me now. I know it’s not good, but the other option was dying in a silver cage. We’ll find a way out of this. I know we will.”
“No.” He shook his head, a single tear streaking down his face, and he swiped it away, embarrassment reflecting in his eyes. “It’s full moon, and I’m still human.” He flung his arms out, extending and retracting his claws. “Look. I can shift, but I don’t have to. We did it, Chloe. It worked.”
“Gods.” She didn’t know what else to say. So many things spun through her mind, wild hope, crazy scientific possibilities, deathly terror because the danger was nowhere near past. She grabbed for something real, something sane. “The side effects aren’t good, because you weren’t doing so hot.”
He snorted. “A few minutes for the healing magic to kick in, but that’s nothing if it means wolves don’t have to worry about dying. Some tests, some tweaking. But look at me. I’m not even having to fight for it, and I’m human.”
Something enormous slammed into the door, making them both jolt back to ugly reality. Tess called from where she was prowling around the edge of the building. “Could we hold off on the celebration until we’re out of here, please?”
Stumbling back from the door, they all gathered near the railing. Twinkling city lights stretched in a panorama around them, brightly lit high-rises and the Space Needle piercing the sky, with the Puget Sound a dark swath in the distance. Chloe was almost ashamed of the relief that rushed through her at being back in a metropolis, surrounded by millions of lights. “Well, we’re downtown. As if that helps from up here.”
Wind rushed up, pushing them back from the edge of the building. This time, when whoever was at the door pounded on the metal, he or she got through it. Chloe groaned at the shock that punched through her with breath-stealing force as her shield gave way. Then a great explosion shook the very air around them when the door blew. They ducked, hitting the hard cement surface of the roof. Screams, flames, the putrid stink of burning flesh.
Chloe stared in stunned silence, unable to believe what she had wrought. Bodies on fire danced in grotesque patterns across the roof, some moving so fast they made streaks in the darkness. Slowly, they collapsed. Dead. She knew they were dead.
“Holy shit,” Tess gasped.
Even Alex turned to give Chloe an incredulous look. Shaking her head in mute silence, she clenched her quaking fingers. “I don’t know how I did that.”
A quiver ran through the wolf’s body, and his nostrils expanded as he pulled in a deep breath. “Smith’s coming. Gregor and Sasha. A female wolf, too. Get ready.”
No Peyton. Had he survived the fight? Had he run as soon as he had the opportunity? Chloe still associated the man with the burn of bronze against her skin, so she wasn’t ready to trust that he’d helped them for some altruistic reason. For all she knew, he was hoping to overthrow Smith and take over and they’d just provided a handy excuse. She wasn’t willing to trust much of anything anymore.
And then there was no more time for thinking.
The wolves are mine. Alex tensed beside her, his muscles twisting and flexing as he grew into a monstrous half-shift. His dark skin went pitch black, his facial bones stretching into a muzzle with massive, dripping fangs. The tall boy grew to a height of almost seven feet, and his ropy young muscles swelled to a rippling sinew so huge he exploded from his baggy T-shirt. Parts of him shrank in and others thrust forward, making grotesque sucking and crackling sound effects.
It took place in a handful of seconds, but those terrifying moments stayed with a person forever. Tess choked and swayed, her eyes forming perfect circles as she stared at the transformed Alex. A deep roar ripped loose from the teen, answered when two other half-shifted wolves plunged through the smoking doorway. They leaped forward, dropping into crouches to survey their prey.
A noise that was almost a chuckle rippled from Alex before he launched himself toward them. Chloe grabbed for his arm, wanting to hold him back, but he was moving faster than her reflexes could keep up with. She missed, crying out as the three half-animals collided with the crunch of shattering bones.
“Get down!” Red streaked through the night, and Tess dove to knock Chloe off her feet as a spellbomb exploded where she’d been standing.
Tess covered both of their heads with her arms, and Chloe automatically threw up a shield around them. The next bomb exploded like shooting fireworks against her warding spell, and she jerked when the dark magic ruptured her shield. It was a blow to the solar plexus that left her gasping, and before she’d managed to recover, Tess bounded off her, which gave Gregor the opportunity to drag her away from Chloe’s protection.
That left Sasha blasting another spell at Chloe, who threw up another shield to block it, but sprawled onto her backside when it struck.
Her heart pounded so loudly in her ears, all she could hear was the rush of blood. Magic hummed beneath her skin, waiting for her to direct it. She wracked her brain for any self-defense spells she knew. Merek’s teaching of Alex hadn’t included lessons in casting because wolves couldn’t cast well. Chloe didn’t think she could do any of the physical moves they’d drilled. The only magic she was proficient at was what she used at home and at work. Potion making, practical everyday magic. Merek would know the right spells if he were here, and her heart cinched so hard thinking of him that she gasped with the pain. Tears pricked her eyes. There was another kind of spell she’d used recently, with Merek. Seduction spells. She staggered under the weight of agony that threatened to crush her, and she desperately tried to shove it away, to remain numb.
The Fae woman’s face swam before her tear-glazed eyes.
That face had haunted her dreams for weeks. The woman who’d tortured her, ripped her already-fragile sense of safety away in a handful of moments. Rage exploded inside her, and she didn’t need the spells. Her magic simply reacted as she wanted it to; the simple magic she used with Merek turned dark and deadly.
Massive bolts of lightning shot from her fingertips, sizzling toward the other woman. Sasha tried to set a magical shield around herself, but the amount of fury behind Chloe’s spell meant some of it got through.
A cold smile of satisfaction curled Chloe’s lips as she watched utter shock widen the Fae’s eyes. Then her body began to writhe as the lightning hit her, arced around her, bit into her flesh. A harsh scream wrenched from her throat. The shield before her wavered, and Chloe used the momentary lapse to her advantage. A part of her was stunned at her own ruthlessness, while the rest of her simply reacted.
Another round of lightning forked from her hands, slamming into the Fae. The anger inside Chloe was nowhere near burning out, and she fed it into the spell. Flashes of memory erupted in her mind. Her own torture by this woman. Barely escaping the last full moon with Alex. Tess’s betrayed, hurt expression when she’d found out they’d all lied to her. The stench of Luca’s flesh igniting in the morning sun. Blood covering Merek’s body, his beloved gray eyes going blank. A raw sob tore from Chloe, but she didn’t allow herself to stop.
What remained of Sasha’s shield disintegrated in a shower of blue sparks, and Chloe hit the other woman again and again. The shrieks that came from the Fae were barely human, a wild sound of pain. The noise trailed off as she finally passed out, but her body kept jerking spasmodically under the hits of lightning.
Chloe could kill the other woman. She wanted to kill her. For Merek, for Alex, for herself, for being part of an organization that had harmed so many she loved. She stood on the edge of a precipice she’d never faced before. Violence, rage . . . murder.
For Merek, she pulled back, shut down the magic. For Alex and Tess, she didn’t allow herself to look at what her hate had produced. It would fuel her nightmares for years to come.
She had won the fight, but no sense of victory stole through her as she turned away. She was numb, finally, and she welcomed it. Anything to keep from feeling, from coping with what she had seen and done. She staggered only a step or two before she ran toward
the sound of a scream in the night. High-pitched and terrified. Only a woman’s voice could make a noise like that. Tess.
The sound cut off so abruptly it sent chills racing over Chloe’s flesh. She paused, staring blindly into the cloud-shadowed darkness. Gods, she fucking hated the dark. “Tess!”
Where had the sound come from? She didn’t know which way to go now. Shit. The glare from the city lights only made it harder to see.
“Tess!”
The scream came again, ending in a gurgling choke. Chloe’s heart hammered against her breastbone, and she shot forward, sprinting through the night and praying the roof stayed even underneath her.
The clouds parted, and moonlight gilded the gruesome scene before her. Gregor circled Tess, fangs bared and dripping pink foam. Blood poured from a series of bite marks around Tess’s throat, but she was still on her feet, still fighting. The vampire feigned left, darting right in a blur of speed, but Tess had already dived for the ground, both fists swinging in blind arcs.
She connected, hard.
The vampire staggered back maybe an inch, but Tess kicked out with her foot and swept him off his feet.
Damn impressive for a Normal to be holding her own against a full-grown male vamp. Chloe shook herself, and torched the bloodsucker with her lightning. He jolted and spun, hunching forward in a hissing roar that made her heart stop. He came at her, fangs gleaming in the moonlight.
Chloe glanced around, frantic. A weapon. She needed a weapon. Spells alone wouldn’t do much to a vampire. Only sunlight would, and it was nighttime. She sliced him with lightning again, concentrating hard on the glow of it. Sunshine. She needed it to be sunshine. Her magic answered her commands eagerly. The crackle of it lifted the hair on the back of her neck. A ball formed between her hands, so brilliant she had to turn her face away and close her eyes.
A hoarse shout from Gregor, and the stink of burnt flesh told her the spell was working. It was too much to maintain for long, but when she blinked her eyes open, there was no one near her. Not Gregor, not Tess.