play together nicely. I gritted my teeth. “Are you insane, running around with
those?”
Amal shrugged. “The cases are pretty rugged.”
I placed my hand on Savannah’s arm. “Emergency use only.”
However, I was pretty sure my warning completely missed the mark.
Savannah had an eager gleam in her eyes that reminded me of her half-mad
cousin.
I silently cursed as she clipped the bombs to her belt, then stepped around
her before she started up the stairs. “I’ll go first.”
The door in the cave was already open, and I was betting that Kahanov
had used the same entrance. By now, he probably knew we were here and
had prepared an ambush.
Savannah sighed but let me pass. “Fine, you get blasted first and have all
the fun.”
We ascended the time-worn stairwell until we reached a narrow door,
slightly ajar. I pushed it open slowly, revealing an expansive kitchen with
white and black tile. A pot sat cooking on an old gas stove, and a body lay on
the floor beside a knife. Blood was splattered everywhere.
“I don’t think that happened chopping vegetables,” Savannah whispered.
“Kahanov is here,” I growled as a deep rage clouded my thoughts and a
savage drive to hunt and kill filled my mind.
The bastard had attacked my pack and put five of my wolves to sleep.
He’d also attacked Savannah, and with the mate bond, that didn’t sit well.
My vision clouded as my body shook with fury. My claws ripped out, and
my fangs erupted as hair bristled along my arms. I didn’t push them back but
remained in that liminal state between man and beast.
“We need to move fast,” Amal said.
My senses blazing, I shot forward and out into a long, pearl-white gallery.
The room’s vaulted ceiling was covered with ornate gold decorations. Gold-
framed paintings hung along the walls, and erotic marble sculptures stood in
the corners.
It was absolutely garish.
“This place is gorgeous,” Savannah murmured.
There was no door—the room simply ended and was followed by
chamber after chamber, as far as I could see.
We moved on.
“I thought this was a tower,” Savannah said, as she peeked out a window.
Then she slapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, God. I think I’m going to be
sick.”
I was by her side in a second. The skyline of the sleepy Italian town
spread out before us.
Perpendicularly.
My head snapped around. The corridor was the tower. Somehow, the
mage had turned gravity on its side, and we were walking upward.
“Man, that’s freaky,” Amal whispered.
“Then don’t look out the window,” I said. It didn’t really make any
difference, just as long as gravity didn’t suddenly switch when we were
partway up.
I moved silently from room to room, relying on my senses for warning.
All we found were ravaged remains of golden automatons.
“Magic robots. Probably guards,” Amal explained to Savannah.
Halfway through the interconnected galleries, we came to a room with a
massive hearth ringed by red velvet chairs. I froze.
Someone was sitting in front of the embers. In an instant, I had my claws
at the figure’s throat—an old man, sleeping, and breathing slowly.
Not Kahanov.
I shoved my hand over his mouth and shook him awake, but he still didn’t
stir.
“He’s like the sleepers,” Amal whispered.
“What do you want to bet that Kahanov knocked out everybody here, the
mage included?” Savannah asked.
I was too enraged to respond. He was close. I could feel it in my bones.
We passed through a library and halted in front of a dimly lit gallery.
The hair on my neck rose. The shadows were all wrong, and a scent of
rotting fruit hung in the air. I tasted blood and copper, and my skin felt slick,
like it was covered in oil.
Savannah met my eyes, pinched her nose, and mouthed blood demon.
Kahanov hadn’t just been here—he was here.
My wolf surged in my chest with excitement. It was time for a reckoning.
I moved forward cautiously. Seven glowing glass cases occupied the
center of the gallery. Each displayed a single object, most likely a magical
artifact.
The furthest case was open. And empty.
Shit.
It had to have held the Soul Knife.
Suddenly, a voice called out from the shadows. “What a treat! You
people are such a delight to work with. Here I sent you all sorts of invitations,
and you turned them down. But now, when I’d lost all hope of you coming,
you show up at the perfect time.”
Kahanov.
24
Savannah
My veins turned to ice. Kahanov’s voice was just like it had been in my
dreams.
Except now, the nightmare was real.
We were flanking the door to the gallery, our backs pressed up against the
wall. My index finger burned on the trigger of my pistol, and my heartbeat
was so loud, I was sure the entire town could hear it. I was going to finally be
face to face with that asshole. He’d hunted, imprisoned, and haunted me, and
if that wasn’t enough, he’d turned me into a monster.
The writhing hatred that rose in my chest was so strong that I could
barely see. Pain shot through my jaw as my canines erupted, and my
fingertips itched.
Let me rip his throat out, the wolf growled in my mind.
I stood firm against her. Not a chance. He’s mine.
Slowly, the itching subsided, but my canines didn’t retract. I nodded to
Jaxson. Ready.
On a three count, Jaxson and Amal swung into the room, claws out. I
followed behind, pistol raised to cover them.
No one was there.
My heartbeat drowned out all sound as they rushed along the sides of
cases. There wasn’t enough cover to conceal a blood demon, but I could
smell it.
Where is—
The breath exploded from my lungs, and my pistol flew from my grasp as
a brutal force ripped me up into the air. Suddenly, I was face to face with a
blood demon, suspended from the ceiling. My heart clenched with terror as
the demon lurched along the roof of the gallery, holding me dangling from its
claws.
In a blur of motion, Jaxson leapt to the wall and climbed. He was on us in
seconds, and he sunk his claws into the thing’s leg and pulled. The demon
lost its grip on the ceiling, and we dropped.
Agony ripped through my shoulder as I slammed into the ground. I rolled
over to get away from the sinuous monster, but the demon lashed out with its
sickly green talons and dug them into my leg. Searing pain tore through me,
and I screamed.
Jaxson jumped to my side and wrenched the demon’s grasping hands
away. It howled and roared, but the unearthly sound was cut short as Jaxson
tore through its throat.
Blood sprayed over me as I scrambled forward on my knees, searching
for my gun.
Wolf time?
No, I thought, my hands shaking from shock and pain.
Blasts of wicked green flames roared around us, and I
scampered behind
a display case just in time to see Kahanov spider-climb across the ceiling and
drop down behind a case on the far side. What the fuck?
His voice echoed through the room. “Jaxson, let’s be reasonable. Hand
over the girl, and I’ll wake your wolves. I’ll even give her back when I’m
done, to make things fair. On my own blood oath, I only need a part of her
soul.”
“She’s mine. I’ll never hand her over,” Jaxson snarled, the sound verging
on animalistic.
My wolf surged in my chest, but my stomach twisted. Two men arguing
over who would have me?
Screw that.
“You want me, Kahanov? Here I am!” I stepped out and whipped a
potion bomb at him, not even sure which type.
He peeked out, and his eyes went wide in horror. And then everything
slowed down.
The momentary smug smile plastered across my face was torn away when
Jaxson leapt forward and hauled me through the door.
The potion bomb plinked off the case where Kahanov was hiding and
burst against the marble floor. A storm of lightning erupted through the room
and threw Kahanov back toward the open exit of the gallery. Glass exploded
through the air as all the cases shattered.
Then circles of once-invisible runes began glowing everywhere—around
each case, on the walls, on the floor. The whole place buzzed with unstable
magic.
Aw, shit.
Time sped up again as Jaxson yanked me around the corner and threw his
body over mine beside a couch.
The tower shook with a series of ear-shattering blasts. I couldn’t even
hear them after the first—just bone-jarring thud after thud, followed by a
long, constant ringing in my ears.
I buried my face in Jaxson’s shoulder as the wall beside us lurched, and
then the impossibly tall bookshelf listed and fell. It slammed into the back of
the couch, just a couple feet above our heads. Books rained down on top of
Jaxson’s back, and one struck me in the corner of my eye.
Silence.
I struggled beneath the weight of Jaxson’s muscled form and a hundred
books. “Jax! Are you okay?”
I was shouting but could barely hear my own voice above the ringing.
He was breathing, though. I felt his chest rising and falling against mine,
and the powerful scent of his body intoxicated my mind.
His deep growl reverberated through my body and down into my core.
With a swift motion, he heaved himself up and hurled the shelf out of our
way. Books poured off to either side of him as he climbed free. Then he held
out a hand.
I grasped it, and he pulled me up and into his arms. His eyes burned with
possessiveness and desire. It was too intense, and I looked away, my gaze
landing on Amal’s singed and crumpled form. “Amal!”
“Here,” she said, picking herself off the floor with a groan.
Jaxson let me go, and I met his hard stare. I forced a smile. “Thanks for
that. Who knew a little reading could be so hard on your body?”
Wordlessly, he extended his claws and moved toward the door.
I peeked around him. “Holy shit.”
The room was blackened to its core. The paintings on the walls were
gone, as were the cabinets and glass cases.
“Cases like those that hold dangerous and deadly magical objects are
often protected with magical traps. You managed to detonate them all,”
Jaxson growled.
I nodded. “Okay. That’s pretty obvious now, but it wasn’t an entirely
flawed plan. Maybe I got him?”
Jaxson shook his head and began making his way carefully through the
smoldering wreckage. “Step lightly. If any of the traps survived the
explosion, they’ll be unstable.”
Amal handed me her pistol. “I think you should maybe stick to this.”
We moved gingerly through the gallery. I spotted a vase from one of the
shattered cases, amazingly still intact. Apparently, magical objects were
rather hard to destroy.
A ray of green light slammed into Jaxson’s chest and sent him flying back
into the smoldering debris. Then Kahanov skittered like a spider through the
top of the doorway and leapt down toward me with a pale green blade in his
hand.
The Soul Knife.
I dodged back as the metal swiped within an inch of my throat.
Before I could extend my claws, Amal flew into him and hurled him
backward through the air. He slammed into the wall, and the knife clattered
across the floor.
I froze, torn between going for Kahanov and for the knife.
He rose, hands burning with green light and blood dripping from his
chest.
With no time to think, I called my magic and smothered the floor with
shadows. Kahanov looked about wildly for the knife, and then, with a howl
of rage, he released a wall of green fire that ripped through the room.
Searing pain blinded me for a second as the unnatural flames burned my
exposed skin. It was all I could do to concentrate on the shadows hiding the
blade. Agony took every lucid thought from me, save one—protect the knife.
I rolled over in time to see Amal whip a potion bomb through the air.
There was a blinding flash of light, and when my vision returned, Jaxson was
hauling me to my feet, and Kahanov was gone.
“Are you okay?”
“Get him!” I shouted. “I’ll grab the knife!”
Jaxson and Amal raced into the next room as I staggered over to where
the Soul Knife still lay in the charred debris, cloaked by a veil of darkness
that only I could see through. I scooped it up and slipped it into my belt.
That’s one for our side.
I raced into the next room with Amal’s pistol raised and skidded to halt in
front of a massive bed, atop which lay two sleeping people, both buck naked.
One of them had to be the mage, knocked out by Kahanov’s dream magic.
But the feature that drew my attention was the open window.
“Fuck!” Jaxson snarled.
“Did he just jump out the window?” I shouted as I swept through the
room.
In answer to my question, the floor and walls quaked as the window
exploded inward and showered us with broken glass and shattered stone. A
monstrous head rammed through the wreckage, and my heart seized with
terror.
Noctith demon. Fuck.
Its head split open vertically, revealing rows and rows of savage teeth,
and it sent a deafening screech pulsing through the room. Everything spun as
vertigo overcame me, and I felt a trail of blood run from my ear down my
neck.
The thing screeched again as it rammed its neck further through the
opening. Stone and wood crumbled as the monster forced its way through,
and I took cover behind a cabinet.
It was a living nightmare. Fear made manifest.
I froze as it swung its head toward Amal and spread its hideous jaws
wide. A thick cloud of pink gas boiled from its mouth.
She staggered out of the way, but the gas surrounded her in seconds, and
she fell to the floor. I recalled Neve’s words and shuddered. These fuckers
breathed clouds of sleeping gas, and we were trapped in a tin
y room.
With a furious roar, Jaxson leapt forward and sank his claws into its neck.
The thing shook, and Jaxson flew back against the wall. My heart stilled, and
something in my chest pulled as the demon opened its mouth to breathe.
We can’t lose him.
Without thinking, I burst out from the shelter of the dresser and hurled a
potion bomb toward the demon’s open maw. Unfortunately, the beast
snapped its jaws shut, and the bomb ricocheted off its head and into the wall.
Oh, shit. Not ag—
I dove for cover behind the dresser as a fireball enveloped the room. The
dresser lifted off its feet and flew over my head before smashing into the
wall. Bits of stone debris rained down around me. Rolling over, I gasped and
choked on the smoke.
Stars and town lights twinkled through a gaping hole where the window
had been. The demon was gone.
“Jax!” I coughed.
He heaved part of the vanity off himself and stood. “Are you insane?”
“Yes.” I scrambled across the debris to where Amal was lying beside the
two sleepers, who had landed behind the overturned bed. She was still
breathing. I shook her hard. “Amal!”
No response. She was out cold.
Jaxson was at my side in an instant. “Fuck. She’s alive, at least.” He
pulled the rubble off her and lifted her sleeping form. “We need to get out of
here. Did you get the knife?”
I stormed over to the hole in the tower. “Yes, but I can’t believe that
asshole got away.”
“Doesn’t matter. We got the Soul Knife. That’s a win.”
I touched the knife tucked in my belt as I looked out over the strange
vertical horizon. The lights of the town twinkling on the left, and the starlit
predawn sky on the right. I tilted my head to the right to correctly orient the
view. The scene should have soothed me, but the circumstances only made
my blood boil.
A set of black talons lashed through the open gap and tore into my jacket.
I screamed in shock and dug my claws into the crumbling stone wall as the
noctith demon yanked me toward the window.
My jacket ripped away, and Jaxson lunged for me.
Then my grip slipped.
25
Savannah
I screamed in terror as I fell, the wind buffeting my clothes.
The night sky spun in circles around me as I tumbled downward. I caught
flashes of stars. Of the misty valley. Of the garden far below.
Untamed Fate (Magic Side: Wolf Bound Book 2) Page 18
