by S A Archer
“You’re in here all by yourself?” Isaac grinned, handsome as ever. He slipped inside, making sure the door closed softly behind him. “Where’s the Sidhe?”
As he tilted his head up to sniff at the air, London rushed forward. The place had to be a mess of fey scents, but she couldn’t risk Isaac picking out Kaitlin. The very scent of a Sidhe could send werewolves into a predatory fervor. “You need to leave, Isaac! Now!” London shoved at the wall of his chest, hoping to push him back toward the door.
But Isaac snatched her left wrist. Twisted it back until London squeaked in pain. “What’s this?” His fingertips danced over the bloodied bandage before ripping it off. Isaac pressed the gauze to his nose and inhaled. Immediately, his wolf responded to the Sidhe magic in her blood. His pupils dilated until his eyes seemed pure black and his mouth opened to reveal the wolfish canines growing there.
London stomped on his foot, the unexpected pain breaking Isaac’s grip.
Already he was transforming before her eyes. The long muzzle extended. The mouth filled with flesh-tearing teeth. It’d take him a few seconds to shift into the half-man, half-wolf shape of a werewolf, seconds London would lose when his werewolf strength and speed kicked in.
She bolted away from him. Away from Kaitlin, hoping he’d follow her rather than discover the Sidhe woman. Away from the hallway where Lugh and the other Sidhe had gone. Only one other way to go. Towards the stairs where Kieran disappeared, and hope he was long gone by now.
London slammed through the door and pounded up the stairs at a run. She reached the top just as the door at the bottom burst inward. The saliva dripping snarl of a werewolf echoed up the shaft. London risked a backward glance at the beast chasing her. Nothing about the animal resembled Isaac anymore. He was the jaws of death, bent on ripping her to shreds.
Chapter Forty-One
Leaning back in his office chair, with his feet propped on his desk, Donovan’s eyes closed automatically. His closed office door muted most of the sounds of the fey efficiently disassembling the Glamour Club. With the relocation of the artifact puzzle, the Isle of Fey officially became his new base of operations. The fey that looked to Donovan as their leader were intent on following him. He figured that within forty-eight hours, at most, this building would once more be the abandoned warehouse that it had once been, and the neighborhood surrounding it would bare no sign that it had once housed a thriving fey settlement.
The entire community had grown organically around him, with his barest intervention. He trusted the move would occur just as smoothly without his supervision.
Something for which he was truly thankful. Donovan felt as if he could sleep for a week and still not fully recover. But sleep wasn’t what he slipped into.
The awareness of the Isle filled his mind, as it had when he created it. Each bit of settling rock and shifting sediment, he felt. Every footstep. Every plant taking root into the soil, planted by the fey who meant to transform the new land into their homes. He felt it all.
And if that had been all he felt, he might simply think himself distracted.
But since the moment he reached his hand into the power of the artifact puzzle, the magic seeped into his being. The rolling cadence of voices murmured in the back of his mind, like a chorus whose harmony vibrated through a dwarven cavern. No part of him did not hum with that power. Within this moment of quiet, Donovan gave himself over to the chanting. Rode its power like an ocean wave, carrying him up and down as the deep current undulated around him. It was no wonder the bloodhound had become hyper-focused on this magic, if this was how it felt to him.
The magic had needed the isle. Had directed him to the location. Had guided him in its formation. But even when he’d fulfilled that need, it hadn’t released him.
The magic of the artifacts and of the isle were connected, and both bound to him as fundamentally as his personal aspect of magic. With those filling his awareness, he slipped farther into the meditative state, becoming one with the enchantment that laced through every iota of him.
But those where not the only constants tugging at his consciousness. The lingering connection to Kaitlin continued, ever present. The one that Malcolm had embedded into him when he used Donovan to connect the dying woman to the magic of the ley lines. Even when he set that aside, like a background melody, it never fully left him.
For a time, though he could not have guessed how long, Donovan simply floated in this state of magical trance. Just felt the chords of the vibrations rolling through and around him.
Until…
A woman’s scream tore through his mind.
The panic hit him so suddenly it was as if a shark burst from the peaceful ocean on which he floated, slammed into him with force enough to knock the air from his lungs, and then dragged him down into the choking depths of doom.
“Kaitlin!”
Donovan’s feet hit the floor as he bolted from the chair. Incoming sensations battered him as he teleported. The rushing impact of teeth. The massive blow that tossed her from her feet.
Then the pain and panic gushing from her ended in a black silence that echoed through him like death.
Donovan reappeared at a charge, rushing into the alcove strewn with boxes just off the deserted club.
Between columns of boxes he saw Kaitlin’s motionless body on the floor. A werewolf loomed over top of her, tearing into the meat of her stomach.
Even as Donovan saw this, yet twenty feet away from the Sidhe and her attacker, a massive weight bashed into him from the side with the force of a speeding truck, taking him from his feet before slamming him hard into the ground. The snarls and growls came at him from all angles.
Not a lone wolf… but a pack of them.
And all of them attacking at once.
Donovan reached out a hand toward Kaitlin. His power over the stone of the floor sucking her down into it. Forcing her attacker away as she dropped through the floor and out of his reach.
That took just enough time for another set of teeth to clamp over his shoulder and jerk, flinging him into the middle of the pack of crazed werewolves intent on tearing him to shreds.
Chapter Forty-Two
Lugh offered up his hand for Bryce to ‘high five’ when he mastered the javelin of fire with skill enough to punch a hole though the target with one strike.
“Savage!” Bryce proclaimed, bouncing around on the balls of his feet with more excitement than he could contain. Then he raced down to the row of targets to cobble them back together the best he could and set them up to go again.
Dawn snuggled into Lugh’s side. He wrapped an arm around her waist, keeping her small body tucked against him. “You’ve won him over,” she teased, not knowing how true the words were. “He’s been practicing hours a day and never had a jump in skill like this.”
“I understand the frustration. He only needed a little guidance.” Lugh watched the weight of his meaning alight in Dawn’s eyes, for she’d needed it too. Needed someone to embrace her, as she embraced the Seelie light within.
Neither of these earthborn Sidhe resisted him any more, and it was this, more than pride in the young man’s skill, that had him grinning broadly.
Until the ceiling bowed in, as if turned to a viscous liquid.
Bryce backed away from the swelling stalactite that reached down toward him. “What the devil is that?”
On his feet and releasing Dawn in a single fluid motion, Lugh rushed forward. He reached the flexing figure of rock just as it burst open and dropped a body the last few feet to the floor.
“Kaitlin!” Dawn jolted forward, flinging herself down next to the unmoving figure.
“She’s tore up!” Bryce knelt over her. “What is that? How did she fall though the floor?”
“Claw marks.” Lugh identified the wounds, and
then gazed up at the now unmoving rock formation. “Jhaer.”
“What?” Dawn demanded, serious in her assessment of the bloodied girl before her.
Bryce understood. “Donovan!”
“Werewolves,” Lugh growled. “They’re in the building.” He pointed to Dawn. “Look after the girl!”
Lugh raced out of the room, ready for an attack, unsure how deeply they’d penetrated the building. Even with his long legs covering ground quickly, he could hear Bryce just a few short steps behind.
He doubted not that a full pack of them must have raided the Glamour Club, or Donovan wouldn’t have had to drop Kaitlin through the floor to protect her. A single Sidhe, even a trained warrior as Donovan was, could be overwhelmed. That had been the danger of the goblins, the sheer weight of numbers and fearless aggression. And a dozen or more blood-crazed werewolves could rend a Sidhe in minutes.
Though Donovan was no friend, the Sidhe race would suffer with the loss of him.
Following the snarls and screams, Lugh skid into the Glamour Club. The splatter of blood assaulted his senses as the fullness of the carnage struck him. Lugh grabbed Bryce before he could rush into the alcove strewn with horror.
Bryce breathed, “Bloody hell.”
And that it was.
Chapter Forty-Three
The massive jaws around his left forearm chomped down viciously, shattering bone.
Donovan punched his knuckles into the beast’s eye, but failed to beat it off.
Claws tore down his back, digging into his flesh.
A spike of rock sheared up from the stone floor like a sword, missing the animal, but startling it enough to drive it back.
That didn’t matter, three more mauled Donovan’s body, yanking in different directions as if he were nothing but carrion that they fought to wrench apart.
Individually, the beasts were enormously powerful. As a pack, their strength multiplied tenfold. The scent of Sidhe blood alone drove werewolves into a killing frenzy. The taste turned them feral. With the hot sheen of blood from the rips in his flesh coating most of Donovan’s skin and ruined clothing, the werewolves wouldn’t stop now. Not until they stripped the meat from his bones, and he knew it.
Summoning his magic even as he struggled, Donovan’s rage ignited into volcanic fury.
A mouth full of sharp teeth came at his face.
Donovan kicked out, digging his foot into the animal’s gut and shoving it back.
A jerk from the werewolf ripping at his broken left arm yanked him from the ground.
Using the momentum, Donovan punched another animal coming in for a bite, feeling the bones of its face shattering before snatching back his hand.
His magic, still vibrating with ancient power, surged with his growling scream.
He was not prey!
Even as he reached around to the werewolf clamped on his shoulder, the pain from the attacks faded beneath the force of his adrenaline-soaked outrage.
His fingers wrapped around the top of the werewolf’s muzzle and crushed down. The animal’s yelp of pain ended with the crack of bone as he jerked the head away with force enough to snap its neck.
Catching his footing, Donovan pummeled a fist into the ribs of the werewolf still gripping his left arm. The body caved in where he hit it.
Another mouth snapped down onto the back of his neck, but Donovan barely felt the impact. Unable to pierce his skin, the animal staggered back. Donovan spun and used the speed of the twisting of his body to beat the creature in the face, knocking it down with force enough to end its fight in a crumpled heap.
Staggering under the pain, Donovan tucked his broken arm against his chest. He would not fall. He would not surrender.
The final two werewolves stalked around him. The drive of their blood lust compelled them into a charge.
Donovan sidestepped the slashing claws of one, instead catching its wrist and ripping its arm from its body with a wet wrenching sound. When it hit the ground his boot crushed its throat.
The last one landed on his back. Donovan flipped it over as he dropped to a knee. His palm slammed downward into the animal’s chest, crushing its ribcage into its heart and lungs.
The sudden quiet after the battle didn’t register immediately.
Nor did the presence of those who watched.
He shuddered as the horrific pain broke through the flood of adrenaline and fighting instincts. Even the power of the magic couldn’t wash away the tearing agony. Attempting to flex his left hand sent a staggering lance of pain through his entire being that made all the scratches and bites pale into a background of screaming torment. Vision blurred with sweat and pain tears, he squeezed closed his eyes. Donovan hunched over his bent knee, unable to rise or to stop the pained growl that escaped between his clenched teeth. Already the blood loss peeled away his fortitude, making the room spin.
The squawk of shock, brought his head up. Blinking to force himself to focus, his dark eyes fixed on Lugh and Bryce. The lad gawked, his eyes impossibly wide. So stunned he froze utterly.
Even Lugh remained uncharacteristically still, the most evidence of shock he could expect from the Seelie.
At first, Donovan thought that it was the blood and carnage he’d wrought that caused their reaction. Until he realized that they stared at him, and not the bodies.
Donovan glanced down at himself, not ready to witness the damage done to him.
But instead of ruined flesh and dripping blood, he discovering the hard gleam of brown marble.
“I may have spoken too soon,” Lugh breathed a whisper. “Surely no Sidhe could survive as an elemental. Is this a layer of rock armor, then?”
Lugh had to be right. Donovan felt his heart beating, and no doubt it pushed blood and not some molten rock through his body. As he watched his right hand turn palm up, the urgency of his magic cooled. And with it, the layer of rock evaporated like frost, thinning into patches before completely burning away. Beneath the vanished armor, the blood continued to rush from jagged wounds.
Dawn’s voice cut through the stunned silence as she shoved between Lugh and Bryce. Her shoes slipped on the blood, but Lugh’s quick hand steadied her before she landed in the spreading scarlet pool. Unconcerned for herself, she shrugged off his grip and knelt in the horror surrounding Donovan. Her trembling fingers brushed over his face before caressing his mangled arm. Whether from effort or from shock Dawn’s body shivered as she closed her eyes and Touched him with her healing magic.
The sharp elven curse that burst from him when the bones snapped back into place made her wince, the only apology she offered.
“Manifestation, was it?” Lugh inquired, voice soft with curiosity and sympathy that Donovan refused to believe was genuine. No more so than the Glamour that Lugh used to hide his fangs and the darkness of the beast lurking within him. “The nature of fire or light makes it easy to manifest. But rock? That would be a challenge.” Those light blue eyes of Lugh’s searched Donovan’s face with far too much insight. Or was that suspicion? “At least, it should have been a challenge.”
Uninterested in satisfying the Seelie’s curiosity, Donovan offered no explanation. Partially, because he hadn’t fully processed the fight himself. Before that day he couldn’t have wrenched a werewolf’s arm from its body, nor crushed its chest cavity with a single strike. Had that been just the added strength of the rock armor? Or had it been something more?
He didn’t worry over that further. Not when he felt the presence rushing toward him. “Kaitlin,” he breathed her name, as the young Sidhe rushed past Lugh and Bryce, and flung her thin frame into Donovan’s embrace. His good arm circled her automatically, feeling the pull of their connection. During the fight, he’d not felt the effect of Dawn’s healing on the young woman. And until this very moment, he hadn’t
even known for certain if she had survived. Her soft body pillowed against his muscled chest in a familiar way. Much more familiar than simple acquaintances.
And certainly, that was what Lugh suspected, given his thoughtful half step back and the nearly imperceptible tilt of his head. And yet, for all this Seelie imaged that he knew, he hadn’t begun to suspect the truth of it, for Kaitlin wasn’t Donovan’s lover.
The magic went much deeper than that.
Chapter Forty-Four
London raced onto the second floor with Isaac in full, psycho werewolf mode tearing up the stairwell mere strides behind her.
But the hallway she found herself in offered little more than a series of closed doors, with a thousand potential places to get cornered.
A door near the end of the row jerked open. “What are you playing at?” Kieran demanded, his handsome scowl accusing her as much as the annoyance in his voice.
“Get back!” London shouted at him just as the furious werewolf exploded like demonic rage into the hallway.
Kieran saw it. His face barely had the chance to register shock before London struck him in the center of his sternum with a straight arm that propelled him backward. She yanked the door closed on him and shouted with all the intention she could muster, “Seal!” A crackle and spark of magic flared all about the door, and London scrambled away from it.
As she reached the end of the hall, she spun back to witness the massive werewolf slamming himself against Kieran’s door like giant, furry death with teeth like a lion’s and claws as long as butcher knives. He had to be over seven feet tall in werewolf form with a muzzle like a grizzly. With the craze of bloodlust possessing him, he howled his fury.
