by Mary Hughes
Killer stumbled back. But before he fell he grabbed her arms, using the leverage not only to keep his feet but to whirl her hard into the wall. She bounced off and hit floor.
Good news was she rolled into his toothpick legs, tangled his feet and tripped him.
Bad news was he was wearing boots. Damn, that hurt.
He fell on top of her. She shoved him off and huffed, lying there, trying to get her breath back.
Killer scrambled up. Damned shifter speed.
Noah’s kidneys were still vulnerable and now Killer was in front of her. And he had whipped out the slender-bladed switchknife.
“Nameless Guy,” Sophia shrieked, hauling herself to her elbows. “Go, go!”
The black wolf boiled up to human; his smirk didn’t change in the least. He tapped Killer on the back. “Outside, Fur Boy.”
Killer spun. “Fuckin’ what…?” He blinked, and his face blanked. The knife dropped from his hand. “Oh. Okay.”
Nameless Guy calmly escorted Killer outside. Sophia staggered to a stand, mouth agape, staring after them.
Which was when Bonnie stumbled to one knee like a lame duck—right in front of Noah.
“Oh, ow.” Bonnie batted her eyelashes at him.
Noah automatically reached a chivalrous hand to help her.
Clyde cracked a fist into his skull.
Noah fell back, hand slapping to his head. Blood trickled from under it. His face went white.
Sophia kicked off her shoes, winched up her skirt, ran two steps and sailed a kick to Clyde’s nuts, so fueled with anger she probably dented his prostate.
With a sound like a leaky balloon, Clyde fell to his knees and curled up. Bonnie squeaked, dropped and wrapped arms around to him. “Clyde, honey, speak to me! Are you all right?”
The shot of adrenaline left Sophia. She collapsed against the wall, gasping and weak-kneed and her ribs aching from Killer’s boots, but a short rest and she could get back in the fight.
Nearby, Noah steadied. Blood trickled down his forehead, but his feet were planted, and his eyes surveying the room were sharp.
Mason was actually winning against Attila. She let herself hope.
Then the screen door slammed open.
A tar-paper baritone rasped, “You’re dead meat, Blackwood.”
The room went silent. All fighting stopped. Even Clyde whimpered more quietly.
A man filled the doorway, so big he had to bend to enter. Clad only in stained sweatpants, he was frighteningly lean, a skeleton banded with muscle. He had fists the size of sledgehammers, a small cliff of a jaw and brows that were bony shelves over insane eyes. He climbed through the doorway…and straightened.
Sophia swallowed dry fear.
As his torso unfolded, it revealed a skull tattoo emblazoned on his naked chest. Its fiery tongue curled around his navel. His nipples were its dead eyes.
Sophia’s knees buckled. She braced against the wall to stop herself from going to the floor. She wanted to puke but controlled that too. Her first coherent thought was worry for Noah.
While Noah had speed, agility and brains, there were too many of them—and they didn’t fight fair.
No coming out of this uninjured, not even any guarantee of a win. She swallowed her gall. She’d have to try to tap her magic.
If she even could.
Chapter Seventeen
In Sophia’s skirt pocket, the wand heated.
She didn’t question how it had gotten there. Wands, once claimed, had strange properties. She simply slid her hand into her pocket and touched its smooth carbon fiber surface. The wand reminded her of all she’d renounced.
But it was also a symbol of what she’d been and dreamed to be. Witch princess. Royal Senator. Madam High Minister.
Maybe if she’d waited after Rodolphe’s betrayal she’d have reconsidered. In some ways she’d still been that young, idealistic fool, simply embracing the opposite of Rodolphe in the same blind stupidity.
She’d never know, because cutting off her magic wasn’t “like” cutting off a part of her—it was cutting off part of her.
The ceremony required a death sacrifice. Being a lawful witch, that death could only be hers.
Being a smart witch, she’d done it in pieces. In a three-day ceremony she suffered three potentially fatal wounds involving head, hands and heart. Instead of dying, she used the sacrifices to wall off her magic with three metaphysical funeral domes.
So she’d lived. But unlocking even a portion of her magic by breaking a dome would potentially kill her. At the very least, it would hurt like she was dying.
Break all three and it really would kill her.
It would have been safer to simply expel all her power into another witch. Share Power was a spell used fairly often, sharing bits of magical energy that time and rest would replenish. More rarely a complete Evacuate was used, not fatal, but it was permanent. She hadn’t been brave enough to become irreversibly mundane.
Or maybe even then, she knew she’d need her magic one day.
“Ivan.” Noah straightened to his full height.
She scanned for allies. Mason was locked in combat with Attila, Nameless Guy was as good as gone. If she didn’t want Noah to face the monster alone, it was up to her.
Didn’t matter if using magic killed her. For Noah.
She’d never studying fighting, but she’d practiced magical combat with her brother. A deep breath shunted the horror into a place where she’d deal with it later.
She pulled the wand from her pocket. It was smooth and warm and good in her hand. She held it in front of her. Its fittings gleamed against the black, glittering silver like Noah’s eyes before the change and rich gold like after.
“Sophia, no!” Either seeing the flash of metal or even now attuned to her as his mate, Noah spun toward her.
Ivan launched a massive fist at his head.
She screamed.
Mason’s eyes were huge and horrified. He pushed himself off Attila, shouting Noah’s name, and barreled toward Ivan at ramming speed.
Noah shifted aside at the noise; Ivan’s sledgehammer fist barely missed his skull.
It carried into Mason’s jaw. Mason went down.
Ivan swung at Noah again. Sophia slashed the wand at Ivan as Noah slid aside again. The fist would miss—Clyde shoved Noah back toward Ivan.
Ivan clipped Noah’s skull.
Hand trembling, she opened her third eye and slammed into her head seal, to crack the hardened glass dome for the first of her trapped magic.
A horrible crack shuddered through her skull as a knife of pain sliced her brain. She choked on a cry. Squinting through her third eye, she saw a hairline crack branch through the dome’s glass—and her face sheared in half with acid pain. She screamed and clutched her head with both hands. Her wand slapped against her cheek.
“Sophia!” Noah surged toward her.
Clyde grabbed his arm. Noah’s momentum threw him into an arc around Clyde—toward Attila. With a vicious grin of triumph, Attila raised hands to seize him.
Noah simply went with it—with a lifted knee.
It slammed it into Attila’s gut. Attila’s grin disappeared. He tried to suck in a breath, couldn’t.
Noah curled in on Clyde like a yoyo and punched his temple. Clyde reeled back.
Sophia, stomach heaving, vision blurry, breathed through her pain, wiping her eyes. Taking stock. Head seal was cracked but not broken. Her magic was still locked away. Mason out cold. Only Noah left. Of the anti-alphas, Clyde and Attila stunned but only Killer completely gone.
Time to live to fight another day. “Noah,” she croaked. “We have to go.”
Noah glanced at her—as Ivan slammed a pile-driver fist to the top of his head.
A small sigh, all the more horrible for how soft it was, an
d Noah collapsed to his knees.
Ivan wound up for the finishing blow.
“Help!” She screamed it, opening her third eye and plunging with all her might toward the hairline crack.
Nameless Guy shot through the door.
She hit psychic glass. The dome’s crack widened slightly—and two skillets of pain smashed her skull. Nausea wrung her guts like a washcloth. She gasped and fell to her knees.
Nameless Guy cut between Ivan and Noah and slapped Ivan so hard he left a hand print on the massive gaunt cheek. “Hey,” he shouted in Ivan’s ear. “Here, doggie, doggie. Yeah, you.”
Ivan lumbered into a turn, swinging sledge-fists at Nameless Guy. Nameless Guy danced lithely out of the way. Ivan kept swinging like a bull. Nameless Guy kept doing the lambada, keeping Ivan occupied.
Noah stumbled to his feet and headed for Sophia. Clyde grabbed for his arm. Noah punched him in the face. Clyde’s nose spurted blood.
Screeching like a banshee, Bonnie launched herself, clawing, at Noah. Noah barely blocked her. Attila, breathing again, seized Noah from behind, tethering him for Bonnie’s scratching. Blood and weals striped Noah’s cheeks.
Sophia shrieked. Mine. Screw pain, screw magic. She leaped for Bonnie, grabbed her by both arms and pulled her off. The wand, still in Sophia’s hand, blazed against Bonnie’s flesh.
With a pained howl, the wolf woman twisted loose. The fiery wand line on her arm would burn like hell when the adrenaline stopped pumping. But for now she fisted her hands together—and slammed them into Sophia’s head like launching a volleyball.
Sophia’s world shook and went suddenly, inexplicably silent. Light flared too bright. She crushed her lids shut.
Her skull exploded with pain. Sound rushed back but fractured, like it was filtered through crystal shards. She slit her eyes open. Her cheek was smashed to the wall, where she’d landed after the punch. Her vision buzzed like she was holding a blender at high.
Through her blurred sight she saw Bonnie scratching more long weals on Noah, Attila still attached. Behind them, Clyde tore strips off his own shirt and wadded them up his nostrils.
Sophia gritted teeth against a wave of nausea, pushed away from the wall and stumbled toward them.
Bonnie spun on her and planted a fist in her belly. Sophia folded in two.
Clyde swung a punch at Noah. Noah dodged—into Attila’s waiting first. Noah collapsed to hands and knees.
For the first time, he stopped fighting back.
Attila, Bonnie and Clyde went at him like a pack of wolves bringing down a great stag. They ganged up on him, pounding on him, raining blows on his head, shoulders, gut.
He made a small, terrible noise. Blood ran from his nose, his mouth, his ears.
Bonnie started to shift. Clyde howled, human voice changing midway to a sound far more animal and eerie. Noah feebly blocked Attila’s punches to waver to his feet.
Sophia willed her head to stop spinning and her guts to stay out of her throat. She tried to straighten, managed a hunched stoop and raised her wand in front of her, two-handed. It blurred in her double sight.
Bonnie’s wolf circled Noah, darting in and out to nip at his hamstrings. Clyde opened huge wolf jaws and chomped Noah’s shin.
Bone splintered.
Attila grabbed Noah’s arm and wrenched up, dislocating his shoulder.
Noah made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a pained sigh.
Sophia cried out. They weren’t just going to disable him.
They were going to kill him.
Blood pounding in her ears, desperate for even a thread of power to fight with, she opened her third eye, braced herself—and smashed everything she had into that glass dome.
Cracks opened everywhere. Bolts of bright magic shot out, directly into her brain. She clenched her eyelids and doubled over, gasping.
It still wasn’t enough. Her magic, too little too late, wasn’t going to save them.
Like Rodolphe and the girl.
Mundane authorities had come to the rescue then. They could now too.
Suddenly she knew what to do. She opened her eyes, hobbled to the end table, snatched up the handset and dialed by feel alone.
“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?” The dispatcher was Sophia’s summer swim instructor.
Sophia grunted through her pain, “Help. They’re killing Noah.”
“Sophia? What are you…no, never mind. Where?”
“Bonnie and Clyde’s. Hurry!”
Keys clicked. “Our emergency units are on the other side of town. Five minutes. Can you hold on?”
Did they have five minutes?
Nameless Guy—gone. Mason—unconscious. Noah—bleeding and broken, his left arm hanging useless, against two wolves and a human.
And Attila scooped up Killer’s switchblade and brandished it with a bloody smile.
Five minutes? They probably didn’t even have five seconds.
That was when Noah’s eyes met Sophia’s.
Despite all his pain, he focused on her. Mouthed, “Get out of here.”
Then he shifted too.
Clyde hit Noah’s wolf. Noah was bigger but Clyde’s momentum made Noah stagger. Bonnie hit him mid-stagger and took him to his knees.
Attila leaped onto his back, stabbing him with the blade. “Second blood!”
Bonnie and Clyde piled onto Noah too, trying to bring him down, biting hackles and back and belly.
They were trying to kill her mate.
Fury rose in her, so vast and pure it had no name. It shoved aside pain, nausea and even sanity. She lifted her wand and pointed it at the wolves. Years of training lifted with it, flooding her in an instant. She pressed her thumb against the wand’s metal inlays.
Silver and gold inlays, like Noah’s changing eyes. A lucky resonance, serendipity, but magic worked that way sometimes. She knew intuitively what to do the moment she touched those inlays.
“I sing silver. I sing gold.” In her hand, the wand began to hum, the metaphysical resonance becoming physical. “I sing to protect him that is silver and gold. Let my song burst forth.” The vibrations reached a fevered pitch, higher and higher and higher yet until the glass of the first seal shattered.
Shock waves surged forth. She braced for pain but the song snared the waves, absorbed them into the wand and translated them into potential energy.
Magic potential that she formed into reality with a snarled, “Blast.”
A bolt shot from the tip of the wand. The air before it compressed, then expanded in a concussion wave that threw the wolves and human flying like toy jacks. Bang-bang-bang, they smashed into the wall, cracking plaster.
For an instant, it felt so damned good. Magic hadn’t been a part of her life, it was her life. Joy welled up and burst inside her.
Just as the brutal pain hit her head in backlash, a tsunami of death that exploded into a thousand sharp razors, slicing her brain to confetti. She screamed, but like a nightmare nothing came out of the rictus of her mouth. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She gasped and fell to her knees, her guts quaking until death spewed from her depths.
“Sophia, oh no.” Shaking hands gathered her head to a hard wall of chest that pumped like bellows. A cheek pressed the crown of her head, confining the pain. A heart beat fast and furious under her ear.
The caressing hands, the thudding heart caught her attention. Like being in a womb, they soothed her. Absorbed some of the pain, drew it out.
“Sophia.” The voice resonated deep. “Love, please be all right.”
Love. At the word she felt a click, and the worst of the pain, that jagged shard of death magic just…disappeared.
From the doorway, a slow clapping started. Sophia cracked a physical eye.
Nameless Guy, in human form, lounged against the jamb. “Very nice.”
Noah released her to stalk over to Nameless Guy—and punched his jaw so fast she only saw his head jerk. Noah snarled, “Why didn’t you get Sophia to safety?”
Nameless Guy only smiled.
And then, to Sophia’s utter shock, Noah whirled his fury on her. “What the fuck did you think you were doing? Why didn’t you leave?”
“You…” She rose to her feet, but the death magic, though no longer killing her, had mauled her insides like dough hooks. She staggered, managed to rasp out, “You were hurt. Dying!”
“I don’t care! Those anti-alphas were primed for blood. They’d have turned on you next. Next time I say get out, you get out, hear?” He swept her off her feet. Carrying her, he stalked past Nameless Guy.
She was impressed by his concern and furious at his caveman way of showing it. “You can’t order me around.”
He stopped on the sidewalk and gently set her on her feet, only to grab her shoulders and whirl her to face him. Nose-to-nose, he growled at her, “Let’s get one thing straight, Miss Hereditary Witch Princess. I can, and I will. For as long as the hex binds us together, you are my mate. I’m alpha. That means when it comes to pack safety, your safety, you listen to me.”
Now was a fine time to finally acknowledge their mating. She met his fury with cold anger. “Then I guess it’s even more important that we get that hex canceled out.”
His pupils constricted abruptly, as if a killing pain had hit him. He didn’t move any other way, could have been a statue.
“Fine.” He released her.
Took two steps away.
Spun back and grabbed her by both arms. “No. You will listen to me, Sophia. I will not be in that position again, you in danger and me scared shitless that you’re going get hurt or do something stupidly brave and die…I will not go through that again, do you hear?”
She seized his face. “I was scared too! You were bleeding and they were ganging up on you—”
“I’m not important. If anything happened to you—”
“The fuck you’re not important. I’ll show you how important you are.” She grabbed his head and kissed him.
A shocked instant. Then he wrapped her in powerful arms and kissed her back, his mouth desperate on hers. He kissed her so fiercely her very bones melted.
