by Everly Frost
In the distance, Danika’s hawk swoops sharply toward an SUV speeding across the bridge.
Her hawk rises before it swoops again, scraping the top of the vehicle with her talons before rising into the air again. Whoever is in that vehicle will know they’ve been spotted.
We want them to know. They’ll be more likely to turn back if they think they’re going to meet resistance.
Her job done, Danika soars up and back toward the location where the duffel bag is hidden. She’ll dress and take up position in her human form as fast as she can. I need her to remain at a distance and cover us with sniper power as soon as possible.
Iyana steadies her own weapon, quietly settling into a crouched position beside me, her pistol resting on her forearm as she waits for the vehicle to come close enough to take her shot.
“I’ll fire a warning shot to the left of the front passenger,” she whispers. “We don’t want the vehicle to crash and draw attention, but we want them to know we’re serious.”
“Do it,” I say, watching the vehicle approach, counting the seconds before it’s near enough for Iyana to shoot.
I make out two men in the front and more in the back. The two in the front are strangers, but one of the passengers in the back makes my blood boil. It’s difficult to catch any scent from inside a speeding vehicle, but my keen eyesight picks my half-brother out of the shadows in the back seat.
Iyana’s silenced weapon whispers as she fires.
The windscreen cracks on the front passenger side. I can’t see exactly where the bullet hits, but the passenger ducks. The driver wrenches the wheel and the vehicle swerves before it rights again.
If they’re smart, they’ll take a quick left and immediately use the exit ramp to return the way they came.
Instead, the vehicle squeals into the parking lot and halts on the far side. I don’t bother with a sigh of disappointment that they chose to fight. Dawson was never smart.
“Stay here unless it’s safe to join us,” I say to Bridget. A quick glance upward confirms that Danika is in position on the corner of the building above us. “Danika will cover this position.”
Bridget jumps to her feet. “But—”
I’m already running toward the vehicle with Iyana beside me. She’s holstered her gun in favor of a dagger. In the distance, five shifters, including my brother, jump out of the SUV. They immediately split up, drawing us in opposite directions, one group heading for the street on the left, the other for the street one block over. Danika could pick them off one by one right now, but she won’t fire unless our lives are threatened.
Our goal—unlike them—is not to waste life, but to deter them from invading Tristan’s territory again.
“You take the group on the left,” I shout to Iyana. “Dawson is mine!”
Iyana races off to the left, running so fast that she’s a blur. She catches the nearest man, throwing herself through the air and knocking him down before she spins and throws her dagger into the shoulder of the next man. Within seconds, she’s engaged in a fist fight with both of them.
I veer right, my wolf’s power surging through me, increasing my speed as I race to cut Dawson and the other two wolf shifters off. I catch the nearest man, who shouts, wide-eyed, and tries to dodge me. His cry chokes into silence when my boot connects with his throat, sending him sprawling onto the pavement.
I can’t afford to stop. Racing after the second shifter, I grab his arm just as he spins toward me, a pistol aimed right at my chest.
My reflexes kick. Pushing his arm up just in time, the bullet flies wide of my head, but it nicks the tip of my ear, sending shockwaves through me.
In the distance, I hear a hawk’s screech of frustration. Danika can’t take a shot while I’m this close to my attacker and we’re moving around so fast. She also can’t use her hawk’s scream to help me, even in her human form, or she’ll hurt me along with my attacker.
Fear fuels my defenses as I grip the man’s wrist, step, spin, and flip him onto his back. The pistol slides from his hand into mine at the same time. He’s at close range, but I’ve never hit a damn target with a gun in my life.
In the second that I hesitate, the first shifter charges at me.
I spin and kick. His own momentum increases the thud as he meets my foot and stumbles backward. At the same time, I throw the pistol wide, slip my dagger free from the holster around my thigh, and drop to ram it into the shoulder of the man on the ground. Wrenching the blade out, I spin again and throw it into the thigh of the shifter I kicked.
Two blows to the head and they’re both sprawled unconscious on the pavement. I retrieve my dagger before I search for Dawson.
The distraction has given him enough time to run across the parking lot. His legs are a dark blur in black jeans, but his chest is bare, his brown hair flying where it’s cut longer on top.
I give chase, darting after him, pushing myself to go faster as I try to catch up. I don’t know what he plans to do, but I can’t let him get anywhere near the clock tower.
Bullets hit the pavement right in front of him. Danika fires warning shots that force Dawson to pull up sharp, leap backward, and swerve off-course. He veers to the left, away from the street he was headed for, and races alongside the building opposite the parking lot. If he rounds the corner, he’ll be out of Danika’s sights.
But avoiding her bullets slowed him down. The delay is all I need to catch up with him.
I hurtle the rest of the way across the street and ram into him, using all of my strength to knock him against the brick wall at the side of the building and bring him to a complete halt. The impact shudders through me, contact with his body that I don’t welcome. I follow up with a punch, but he recovers fast enough to duck and I nearly hit my fist into the bricks before I pull the punch.
I evade the retaliatory blow he aims for my stomach.
For the next thirty seconds, we trade quick blows as he tries to get past me, but I continue to force him up against the wall, blocking each attempt to escape. I sacrifice my defenses to keep him there—taking a punch on my chin and another across my temple.
By the time he slumps against the wall, I’m bleeding down the side of my face, but he’s in worse condition, blood dripping from his split cheek and his eye closing up.
He slides down the wall and I follow him, gripping his shoulder with one hand while I bend my knee and rest it against his chest, pinning him in place. “Why are you here, Dawson? What’s Baxter’s plan?” I demand to know.
Dawson stares at me, his good eye narrowing. He spits blood onto my chest and watches it drip when I don’t wipe it away. One corner of his mouth rises into a cruel grin. “You look more like yourself with a bit of blood on you, Tessa.”
I snarl. “Are you here to beat up more young women?”
He laughs, spitting more blood as he speaks. “Giving those bitches what they deserved was nowhere near as satisfying as feeling your bones pop beneath my hands.”
My stomach turns. He fractured my bones too many times and always with fanatical intensity.
My jaw clenches. “Those days are over.”
He pushes his chest against my hold. I watch for any sign he’s going to strike out, but his arms remain at his sides. “Those days will never be over, Tessa. You won’t be safe for long.”
My fists snap out, raining blows on Dawson’s face and torso. He manages to evade one of the hits, but the others land—one on his cheek, one across his temple, a third across his ribs before he attempts to fight back.
His fist catches me on my shoulder before I strike him across the head hard enough to daze him.
But what really makes me sick is that he seems to be enjoying it.
“Hell, big sister.” He laughs. “Your pathetic father taught you how to take a punch, but someone else has taught you how to fight. I’m going to love breaking you again.”
“Tell me what you’re doing here! What is your plan?”
He laughs, coughs, and clutches his
ribs. “I’m here to borrow a book from the library.”
There’s a library two blocks from the tower where the pack lives. It’s where he and Baxter attacked the two girls.
Rage burns hot inside me. “The only reason I’m letting you live tonight is so you can take a message back to Baxter Griffin. Whatever he plans, he will fail. The next wolves he sends across the bridge will die.”
“Baxter doesn’t give a fuck!” Dawson shouts, revealing the first sign of real emotion—anger—that he’s shown tonight. “He wants to tear Tristan’s world apart, one piece at a time, one pack member at a time. The more he hurts Tristan, the better. He doesn’t care about conquering territory. He wants to destroy Tristan.”
I narrow my eyes at my half-brother. The packs have always been at odds with each other, but if Baxter’s only goal were to gain territory and power, he would attack in one swift strike, not take out Tristan’s pack, one member at a time, leaving them battered and broken.
“It’s personal,” I whisper, the realization making me shudder. Tristan told me that I hated Baxter Griffin more than he did, which could mean… whatever the feud between them is… Baxter is the one who feels wronged.
I grip Dawson’s shoulders tightly, demanding that he answer me. “What did Tristan do?”
Dawson’s good eye brightens. His grin grows wider, but he remains silent.
He won’t tell me.
Releasing Dawson with disgust, I prepare to haul him back to his vehicle, but he grabs me, demanding my attention. “Has Tristan told you about his mother?”
I pause, my forehead creasing.
Tristan has never mentioned his mother and he’s barely spoken about his father—other than telling me he was determined not to be like him. I saw Tristan’s inner darkness when we melded, but I didn’t see his memories. I don’t know anything about his family history other than the fact he killed his father a year ago.
Taking advantage of my loosening grip, Dawson edges to the left of the wall, drawing my attention with him. “I heard that Tristan killed her, just like he killed his father. He hurts everyone close to him. Does that include you, Tessa? Are you close to him?”
I’m done with this treacherous conversation.
I release a growl, ready to knock Dawson out when it suddenly hits me…
Everything around us is so quiet.
Dawson grins at me as he observes me freeze.
He leans forward to whisper, “I’ve done what I came to do, Tessa.”
I jump away from him, looking up for the first time since I caught him against the wall. I sight along the building and then spin to the parking lot across the street behind me where the SUV first pulled in. I’ve had my back to it all this time.
A glistening wall shimmers around us, curving up and around our position. It’s far enough away, and high enough up, that it didn’t shimmer at the edge of my vision and catch my attention. Inside the glimmering cage, I hear only the expected sounds: a breeze that carries the hint of rain, the quiet hum of a sleeping city, the distant lap of water at the edge of the river.
I hear Dawson’s breathing.
But outside the cage, the parking lot is in turmoil.
Two enormous men, both dressed in full body black clothing and masks, stride through the wolf shifters who lie either unconscious on the ground or are too wounded to get up.
The first man is built like my former alpha, Peter Nash. He isn’t carrying a weapon, but his body bulges with muscle—thick chest, enormous biceps, muscled thighs. He walks straight at Bridget, who must have joined the fight at some stage.
Warning bullets pluck at the pavement at the enormous man’s feet—the same pattern Danika used to force Dawson off-course. She’s trying to ward him off, but her next bullets won’t be warnings.
Iyana steps into the enormous man’s path, pulling out her gun, but he bats her away. His big fist knocks into her chest so hard that she flies backward, lands heavily on her side, and doesn’t get up.
With breathtaking speed, the man grabs Bridget’s arm—the one she’s using to throw a punch at him—and then her neck, lifting her off her feet. Her mouth is open. She’s trying to scream—might have screamed already, but I can’t hear her. Her legs kick, her free arm hits at her captor, but he doesn’t let go.
The man behind him appears slim in comparison but is as bulky as Tristan. He carries a wooden shotgun with an impossibly crooked barrel, so warped, he couldn’t possibly fire bullets from it. It would explode in his face. Surely.
With his firearm outstretched in his left hand, perfectly balanced despite its length, he aims high as he pulls the trigger.
Light flashes around the shotgun’s chamber. A glowing bullet shoots from the barrel. I spin, my hair flying, trying to follow the bullet’s trajectory to the roof of the building, where Danika is hiding.
The glowing bullet hits the edge of the building. At the same time, lightning shimmers in the sky above, striking directly downward to the spot where the bullet hit, as if the bullet is a lightning rod.
The rooftop lights up.
Danika’s rising silhouette is sharply visible in the explosion. She leaps from the roof, shifting midair into her hawk, beating her wings furiously as she tries to escape.
The man pulls the trigger again.
The second bullet narrowly misses her outstretched wings as she banks left. Lightning spears from the sky and hits the air right where she was flying a split second ago.
That shotgun is not an ordinary gun.
These men are not ordinary men.
On the ground, the first man is gripping Bridget so hard, he’s going to break her neck.
“No!” My scream sounds empty inside the shimmering cage.
All of it has happened within the space of a few seconds, so fast that I’m screaming at myself to move, to get out there, to fight them.
“You won’t get out of this cage, Tessa!” Dawson shouts as he races past me, spinning to face me before he slips backward through the shimmering wall.
He gives me a final smirk. “Have fun watching your friends die.”
I step toward the magical shield. Something or someone made this cage and it wasn’t Dawson. Magic thrums through it, a magic that reminds me of electricity, sharp and biting like the lightning the second man is conjuring.
Helen told me that I repel magic.
It’s time to test the extent of my abilities.
With a scream, I run straight at the glistening wall.
I punch right through it, sending shards of glittering wall spraying through the air before they disappear.
The remaining magic is like cobwebs sticking to my skin, but I shake off the feeling with a scream of rage.
In the distance, the man with the warped gun jolts and spins in my direction. Only a few paces away from me, Dawson loses his footing, stumbles, and shouts. “Fuck! That’s not supposed to happen.” He takes off, sprinting away from me, heading across the parking lot.
Suddenly, all of the sensory input I was missing floods in.
Magic crackles around the man with the gun. Even his weapon has an aura of power around it. It’s definitely not a normal shotgun, and he has to be some kind of warlock.
The enormous man holding Bridget glows icy blue, but he doesn’t carry any weapon that indicates what kind of supernatural he is.
I don’t care what they are. Bridget’s retaliation is weak now.
She’s dying.
On the ground nearby, Iyana hasn’t risen to her feet, and I can’t see Danika in the sky—can only pray that they’re both alive.
I launch into a run. I can’t let the enormous man kill Bridget, but I won’t reach him in time with my human speed.
Without thinking, I release my wolf.
She leaps ahead of me, speeding across the distance toward the enormous man. She is dark again, her energy more inky than Tristan’s wolf.
She reaches the man in seconds.
Leaping at his chest, her energy rages through
him. I feel the rush of air before she hits him, then the clawing, raking, tearing sensation as she passes through his body. She is not a calm force this time, but a destructive one.
Landing easily on the other side, she finds her feet and spins back to him.
He roars with pain, drops Bridget, and jolts away from my wolf, clutching at his chest where she clawed through his body. I never imagined that my wolf could hurt someone. I thought she would distract him long enough for me to reach them, but her energy was sharp like real claws. If I could see his face beneath his mask, I’m sure it would be twisted with pain.
I’m only five paces away from ramming into him when the warlock with the shotgun turns his weapon toward me.
Thunder rumbles above us as he pulls the trigger. The chamber sparks, I sense the lightning gather in the air all around me, and there’s no time—none at all—to dodge.
Lightning spears through me.
The white hot bullet hits my chest.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Pain explodes through my torso.
The impact throws me back onto the pavement where my head hits, the blow stunning me. Light bursts around me as I fall, sparks leaving my body, lightning running off me in liquid streams. It pools around my arms, hands, and fingertips as I lie with my head turned to one side, trying to understand why I’m not dead.
I repel magic.
But damn, that hurt.
A shadow looms over me and once again, I scream at myself to move.
The warlock with the gun tilts his head, looking down at me, his weapon lowered. I can’t see anything beneath his face mask, not what he looks like, or read anything from his expression.
All he says is, “Fuck.”
My chest feels like it’s on fire. I might repel magic, but the physical impact has knocked the air out of me. I manage to roll to the side as the pools of liquid lightning disappear into the ground.
I push myself up just in time to see the warlock run to the enormous man and grab his arm.
They both glance back at me a second before they disappear.
I blink at the spot where they were located a second ago.