breathing.
The sorcerer laid a hand on my shoulder. “This is where I leave you.
Your ride is waiting. Better go catch it.”
My mind screamed. Fighting my own body, I began padding barefoot
across the creaky wooden floorboards to the stairs. I took each stairstep
deliberately, sleepwalking my way down to the second-floor landing. Then
the first. Pictures of long-dead LaSalles looked back at me from the walls and
emotionlessly watched my descent. My ancestors, impotent to help. Content
to watch me go.
Finally, I reached the entry hall. The sorcerer was nowhere to be seen, but
I still obeyed his will.
I unlocked the five latches on the front door one at a time. Then I swung
it wide and stepped out onto the porch. Six more agonizing steps took me
down to the sidewalk and another dozen took me to the curb.
Then my body stopped with an unsteady jolt.
“Remember to look both ways,” the sorcerer’s distant voice echoed in my
mind—an intrusive, violating feeling—unlike the familiar snarl that echoed
back in response.
But despite my rage, my head turned left. Then right. I was truly alone.
My foot lifted off the still warm pavement and stepped onto the dry, dusty
asphalt of the street.
I stopped short when I reached the middle. Every part of my soul
screamed in agony, but I couldn’t move a muscle more. I just stood, petrified,
beneath the deep yellow glow of the streetlights.
Then a shadow swept over me, and my already pounding heart
accelerated to a breakneck pace.
With an ominous shudder, the street shook as something landed behind
me.
I couldn’t turn my head or even tilt my eyes, but I still could sense the
overwhelming power of the thing. The signature of its magic smelled of deep,
sickly pungent flowers and tasted of overripe fruit. It sounded like the
deafening buzz of millions of cicadas and felt like sap creeping over my skin.
As I stood there, unable to move, an enormous, blurry shape methodically
moved into the corner of my transfixed gaze. Something of unimaginable size
and horror.
Step by shuddering step, it shifted into view, blocking the light from the
streetlamps.
A shudder quaked through me.
Not real. It couldn’t be.
But it was. The thing crouched on six spindly legs that were sheathed in
fur and glistening mucus. Its head was almond shaped, ringed by hundreds of
eyes. Two pairs of wings haltingly rose from its segmented back. They were
decrepit, moth-like things, decorated with hypnotic, iridescent patterns.
Wake up! commanded the voice in my soul.
But I didn’t, and I stood motionless as the thing’s long, narrow head
slowly split open vertically like a Venus flytrap, revealing rows of teeth and a
fine purple tendril of a tongue that unwound and snaked toward me.
I would have wet myself, but I didn’t even have control over that. I was a
statue.
Its hot, wet, reeking breath rolled over me as its tongue slipped across my
chest and neck, leaving a trail of mucus. But rather than bite me in half, the
monster withdrew its head, arched its back, and curled its hindlegs
underneath its body, then reached forward with a pair of glistening, clawed
talons.
A howl tore through the back of my mind, the piercing wail of despair of
a chained beast. But for a second, my eyes had enough freedom to turn away
from the horror and look up into the night sky.
Behind the monster, a pillar of rising clouds boiled into the shape of a
black wolf against the starlit sky.
What the fuck?
I will free you, if you free me. The words boomed in my mind.
It wasn’t the voice of the sorcerer or of the monster. Or the voice in my
soul that kept urging me to wake up. It was a voice that shook my thoughts
and being to my very core.
There was no way for me to respond, only desperate, confused hope.
Suddenly, agony jolted through my body, and a knife-like pain shot
through my fingers and teeth.
I screamed. With my own voice this time. Moving my own mouth. My
body was my own again.
Heart near to ripping out of my chest, I spun as the nightmare’s talons
lashed out. They gouged into my arm and shoulders, but I didn’t care. I could
move. I was free. But how?
I charged toward the monster’s sickening maw and dove beneath its
reach. Pent-up adrenaline surged through my body, and I hurtled forward
with a speed and strength that was far beyond me.
But the thing spun far faster than something its size should have been able
to move. Its jaws snapped open, and it screeched with a dissonant cry that
warped the air around me.
I dodged and dove across the pavement, screaming at the top of my lungs.
Pain burst from my knees and elbows as gravel cut into my skin, but that
didn’t matter. I just had to live.
Its savage claws gripped my flesh, and I felt my body rise into the air.
Then I slammed into the grass. Gasping for breath, I rolled to the side. The
ground shook as talons sank deep beside me, barely missing my skull. Half
crawling, I scrambled over the grass, desperately searching for any kind of
cover, but I was trapped against the side of a moonlit house.
Use your magic.
How?
The nightmare loomed above me and spread its glistening jaws wide.
Summoning every ounce of strength in my body, I abruptly turned and
charged back toward it. Its head snapped down, but I dashed beneath its
centipede-like belly and darted for our neighbors’ bushes. As I ran, I called
the darkness to me. Ice water flowed over my skin, and shadows and streams
of darkness wound around me, the only trick I knew.
As the thing spun, I crashed over the hedge and rolled across the grass.
Then I clambered to my feet and ducked into shadows cast by the adjacent
house. I called the shadows to me, every ounce of darkness the night had to
give.
Panting but trying not to make a sound, I pressed my back against the
wall. Darkness floated around me like a deep mist—though somehow, I could
see through it.
The thing was searching. Its flytrap-like head snapped toward me, and I
stifled a wail.
God save me now.
Its attention didn’t waver. Could it see me?
Of course it could. It was a nightmare. Certainly, it could see me
cowering in the shadows, magic or no. But it didn’t move to strike or look
way.
Hope sparked. Maybe it couldn’t see me through the magical veil of
darkness that I’d pulled around my body. But I was certain it knew I was
here. It could probably smell my fear.
Then don’t be afraid.
I steeled my soul. I was fucking Savannah Caine.
When I was a waitress, before I’d known any of this was real, I’d
pancaked the first werewolf that had attacked me. I’d fought off blood
demons, blood drainers, and more werewolves. I had a body count before I
had an ounce of control over my magic. My pulse slowed.
The thing turned its head. Then a bunch of gills opened up.
What the
fuck?
I assumed those were some stupid sensing organs for situations when it
couldn’t see the hapless victim it wanted to devour.
Suddenly, it screeched, and its head snapped away from me as a roaring
ball of fire slammed into it.
Casey.
The monstrosity shrieked again, and the air reverberated with power and
magic. It reared back to strike, but streams of flame poured toward it,
billowing around its form.
Casey shouted above the roaring fire, “Savannah!”
The thing’s wings unfolded, but as it began to rise, a black shape swept
around its back and leapt into the air. Moonlight glistened off the set of
savage claws that sank into the nightmare’s flesh. A golden inferno of fire
raging around him, Jaxson climbed hand over hand up the monster’s spine,
using his claws like pitons.
Where the fuck had he come from?
With a single swipe of his claws, he shredded the wings on the right side
of the thing’s body, and it fell.
He was at its throat in a second and shredded its neck and gills with his
claws.
“Stand back, Laurent!” a shrill voice commanded. My aunt.
Jaxson leapt away from the gurgling beast as a green bolt of energy burst
from the shadows of our porch.
The nightmare’s corpse twitched, and emerald veins of light crackled
across its body. The air around me shook, and with a thunderclap, the thing’s
form sucked down into nothingness.
Just like that, it was gone.
Stillness settled over the street, leaving Jaxson, Casey, and my aunt alone.
Then they began calling my name.
I pressed my back against the wall and shuddered with silent tears as their
shouts echoed along the street. Jaxson’s voice pulled on my chest, and I
wanted to run to him, but I couldn’t move—though this time, it wasn’t
because of the sorcerer’s spells. The deep weight of the emotions churning in
my heart had frozen my will to move.
Everything felt wrong.
I would never be able to unsee that abomination looming over me. The
scent of rotten fruit still hung in the air, and I trembled at the memory of the
monster’s tongue tracing over my skin.
But that wasn’t what was dragging me back into the shadows.
Kahanov had taken control of my body. I’d been a puppet. A toy, offered
up to a monster.
I bared my teeth as an animalistic rage rose within me. My bloodthirsty
thoughts echoed in a single chorus: Never again.
8
Jaxson
My body quaked with rage, and my wolf tore at my chest, demanding to
be set free.
I scanned the street as the blood on my claws began to smoke and
evaporate, leaving behind the sickly aroma of overripe fruit. The scent made
me weary, dulling my thoughts.
What was that thing?
Casey’s voice shook me from my dark thoughts. “What the hell are you
doing in our territory, Laurent?”
I slowly turned my attention to the fool LaSalle, who had a ball of flame
hovering in his hand. “Watching out for Savannah. Someone has to.”
He started to speak, but I turned on him and silenced him with my
presence. He was a mosquito.
Laurel LaSalle, on the other hand, had me worried. She hadn’t said a
thing, but her eyes hadn’t left me for an instant. Her gaze was almost painful,
as if it were slowly peeling the skin from my body.
“The moment we find Savannah, you get the hell out of here,
understand?” Casey hissed.
“Gladly.”
He started bellowing Savannah’s name again, but I snarled at him.
“Quiet, asshole. She’s here and afraid. Shouting isn’t going to calm her.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m a wolf, and I can smell her.”
But it was more than scent. Something was pulling me toward her, a sixth
sense leading me on. Had that always been there?
I crossed a yard and paused, then slowly stepped over to the shadows in
the lee of a house. They were too black. Too deep. “Savannah? Are you
there?”
No response came, but I didn’t need one. I could hear her thundering
heartbeat and smell her fear.
“The thing is gone. You’re safe.” I stepped forward, but Savannah swept
out of the darkness, away from me and from her cousin. The shadows clung
to her, trailing her like a long black dress, moving softly in the glow of the
streetlights.
It was beautiful.
“I will never be safe.”
Her voice rang with anger, but I could tell it was covering for terror. I
sensed she wanted to run toward me, but she just kept moving away.
Casey came over and reached for her. “Hey, it’s going to be okay, Savy.”
She spun away. “No, it is not.”
He shrugged. “Look, the bug is dead, and we all lived. It’s nothing a belt
of whiskey can’t fix.”
“What do you know? Nothing,” she spat, maneuvering around us like
boxers in the ring. “Kahanov just invaded my dreams and made me sleepwalk
out here. Then he tried to feed me to a horror from the abyss. I am not
freaking okay, and I don’t think I’m ever going to sleep again.”
Shocked silence hung in the street.
He’d invaded her dreams?
That fucker. My body shook as I tried to repress my wolf, and my hands
and face ached as I held back the shift.
“Holy shit,” Casey murmured, eyes wide.
I wanted to go to Savannah, but I suspected the moment any of us took a
step forward, she would back away—she was on edge, a tiger against a wall.
Perhaps the others understood as well, because not one of us moved.
Finally, Savannah licked her lips. “Do any of you know what the hell that
was? It was under his control and sent to capture me.”
“It was a demon, though not one I’ve ever encountered. Come back in the
house, and we’ll figure this out.” Laurel’s voice seemed like a placid lake, but
that was just a well-controlled veneer concealing a torrent of anger that made
the hair on my neck stand on end. Her signature was oppressive—bees
buzzing in my mind and a choking scent of spices. How Savannah could
stand to be around them, I didn’t know.
I pushed my alpha presence toward Savannah, trying to calm her unease.
“Clearly, Kahanov is capable of far more than blood magic. I warned you that
staying here would be dangerous. You should come back to Dockside, and
I’ll put you in a safehouse with an armed detail.”
Casey gave a bitter laugh. “No way in hell is she going back to Dockside
with you. She’s safer here, and you know it. Bullets and claws aren’t going to
do shit against that kind of thing.”
I spun on him and snarled. “You annoyed it. I ripped its throat out.”
“All the more reason she’s not going with you,” he retorted.
Savannah stepped forward, fists tightly balled. “Stop talking about me
like I’m not here! Both of you!”
Casey flinched.
Laurel moved to the railing of her porch. “I can show you a way to
protect yourself, Savannah, so that never happens again.”
“How?”
; “When we trained this morning, you took cover in a circle of protection. I
can make one around your bed that will shield your mind—that includes your
dreams as well as protection against mind reading and scrying. It’ll take time,
but I can show you how.”
My wolf rose in protest, but I reined it in. As much as I wanted to take
Savannah away from there, I couldn’t guarantee that Kahanov wouldn’t
hijack her dreams again.
Savannah looked between us, then met my gaze. “Yes. That’s what I
want. Teach me to protect myself.”
I took a step forward. “Savannah—”
“We’ve got this, wolf,” Casey spat.
I twisted and narrowed my eyes at the asshole. “Obviously, you don’t,
LaSalle.”
Savannah moved up the stairs beside her aunt. “Jaxson, I’m staying here.”
Bitterness wound around me. Fine. If that’s what she wanted, so be it.
I turned to go, but she spoke. “Casey, Aunt Laurel, give me a minute?”
With reluctance, they headed inside.
Savannah stared down at me from the rail, wrapped in her cloak of
shadows. “I saw what you did. Thank you.”
I set my jaw. I wasn’t going to be patronized. “He’ll send more, whether
you’re sleeping or not. We need to figure out what that is. Could you draw it?
Like you’ve done before?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Send me a picture, and I’ll pass it on to Neve. I’ll let you know
what she finds.”
Savannah nodded and turned toward the door. She paused as she held it
open, letting the yellow light spill out. “You can’t protect me from this,
Jaxson. You know that, right?”
Then she disappeared inside and shut the door.
By the next morning, shit had spiraled out of control. Three members of my
pack were in the hospital. They’d gone to sleep, and no one could wake them.
I had no doubt that this was the result of another sort of dream attack and
that Kahanov was to blame. His powers had grown. But how?
Dark thoughts percolating in my mind, I stormed through the halls of the
hospital. With a nod of my head to the security guard, I entered the restricted
wing where the sleepers had been taken. I had to see them for myself, to face
the consequence of my choices.
My phone dinged, and I stole a glance as I pushed through a set of double
doors. A text from Neve: Got Savannah’s drawing this morning, and I
tracked down what the demon is. Come to the Archives. You’re not going to
Untamed Fate (Magic Side: Wolf Bound Book 2) Page 6
