Kat
The blister on the back of my heel screamed at me to stop. Too afraid to hitchhike the dark country roads outside Arik’s lair, I’d walked the first hour after escaping—or, more accurately, melting the latch area on the front door of the lair. My power had grown so much I hadn’t even needed to concentrate to do it, just laid my hand on the metal and bingo, the door no longer stayed shut.
At least I could use my power for something besides turning living things into sushi.
Every step urged me to go back, to make Arik see that I couldn’t be what he wanted me to be. And I reminded each of those steps that, with no purpose, Arik didn’t need me anymore. He certainly didn’t love me. I’d be out one way or the other; I might as well take the initiative on my own. Find home, then find Sun and Grim. Simple, and yet so hard.
Of course, there might not be a home to find. My landlord had been paid up for the month, but I had been gone much longer than that. Maybe, if I was lucky, he’d been too lazy to clear out my stuff. And yet the sight of Buck’s Pistol and Pawn, with its flashing neon sign and rusty bars across the windows, sparked no joy in my chest. Relief, yes—these boots couldn’t come off soon enough—but not happiness. My chest felt colder than the winter air freezing my lungs. Numbness had taken hold since Arik and I left the abandoned parking lot behind two days ago, and shameful though it might be, I wasn’t sure if it was killing someone that had overloaded my emotional circuits, or being forced to kill by the male I loved.
The alley between the pawnshop and the abandoned building next door loomed midnight black as usual, though the stair rail seemed more rickety than I remembered. It wobbled beneath my grip, but when I reached the landing outside the apartment and released the rail, my hand continued to tremble. Something else to ignore. Walking across the ragged boards to the door without tripping was all I could manage right now.
I fished around in the rusted-out gutter for my emergency key, all but collapsing when I found it still there, and wrestled the door open so I could drag myself inside. Thank God the locks hadn’t been changed.
The air was stale, musty. I leaned my back against the closed door and just breathed it in, a part of me unable to believe I’d actually done it. I was home. Safe. Free. The word broke through the fog that held me in its grip, releasing emotion in a sudden flood. Sliding down to the floor, I curled my arms around my knees and choked on a sob.
“What’s this? Tears? From the mighty warrior?”
The voice was slick, hard. Unfamiliar. I abandoned the floor for a hasty fighting stance, searching the murky room for the source of the words. “Who’s there?”
The darkness separated before me, a hulking shape coalescing to walk out of the shadows. The wicked gleam of fangs flashed despite the dearth of light. “You mean you don’t remember me?” The shifter chuckled, the sound crawling up my spine like a million tiny legs. “The male who made you what you are? The one you eviscerated? Now, I might have to punish you for that, female. Right after I return the favor.”
Something clicked in my sluggish brain. My attack, that voice, the pain. Images flashed across the screen behind my eyelids, things I hadn’t even realized I remembered, things I’d hoped to forget.
“M-Maddox?” Could I get the door open before he reached me?
The scrape of a shoe on the cheap linoleum was my only warning. Just like that, the shifter was suddenly right in front of me, his hard body crowding mine, preventing any attempt at escape. “So he told you my name, did he?”
I swallowed hard, the dry click of my throat loud in the silence. Cringing away from Maddox’s touch pushed my hip against the doorknob. “Y-yes,” I said, desperate to distract him as I closed a hand around the cool metal. “Arik told me about you.”
Maddox’s fist closed over mine, squeezing down until the metal bit into my palm and my bones strained from the pressure, my nose tingling with the threat of tears. “It’s a bit like a mouse scrambling at the walls of a maze, isn’t it? The way your mind tries so desperately to come up with a way out. You’re broadcasting so loud I can hear every little thought fluttering through your head.” A creepy smile touched his lips, chilling me more than the freezing winter air in the unheated room. “You wouldn’t want to leave me yet, Katherine, not when we’re just getting acquainted. Or reacquainted.” He chuckled. “I can smell the griffin all over you. So can my wolf. Maybe you want to give him a little taste, huh? I can’t forget it, the sweetness of your blood sliding down my throat.” He leaned close, his lip pulled back to reveal the pink tip of his tongue as it licked over razor-sharp fangs. “Delicious.”
His teeth would never touch my throat again. I’d die first.
“What do you want?” It wasn’t a taste of me, at least not in the long run; I already knew that. He either wanted to use me or wanted me to die. Either way, I was screwed.
Maddox opened his mouth to speak. Without warning a blow hit the door behind me, forcing it inward. The wood shattered around my back, the pressure pushing me into Maddox. He fell backward, scrabbling along my arms for a firm grip.
He snagged one coat sleeve, but I was already moving. I somersaulted over him, feeling the material rip down my arm as I flipped and came quickly to my feet. I was across the small living room in seconds. Maddox’s head whipped in my direction before all his attention focused on the massive body standing in the now empty doorway.
Sun.
Two Archai flanked the shifter, still on the porch. Neither wore Grim’s distinctive robe. All three had glowing eyes trained on Maddox. I slumped back against the paneled wall, relief stealing the strength from my muscles.
“Back for more, gentlemen?” Maddox asked, his gaze on Sun. Anticipation lit his eyes, though they glowed red instead of the beautiful gold I’d seen so often in Arik’s eyes.
A curse came from outside the door, and abruptly the two warriors behind Sun retreated, the sound of a fight breaking out. Anigma reinforcements? Whoever they were, Sun didn’t even glance back. He advanced instead.
So did Maddox—toward me.
I glanced behind me. A long hall led to a bedroom and tiny bathroom, both with no exit. At the other end was a window big enough I could crawl out that way, but I knew from experience there was nothing beneath it.
I was trapped. Great.
Automatically my weight settled into my hips and feet, and my hands came up, open, spread like a criminal surrendering to the police. Energy crackled beneath the skin of my palms, and I tried to breathe it away, tried to lock it back inside me. Sun was somewhere behind Maddox, and unleashing my power—
The thought made me sick.
My power surged in response to my fear. Being attacked wasn’t a problem when you had a weapon like mine—if you could control it. That was the problem. Anyone who said they could concentrate when they fought was either completely emotionless or had been fighting so many years that everything was automatic, muscle memory. I had neither advantage; I’d learned that with Walter. Just thinking the name brought back the memory of the gargoyle’s body disintegrating beneath my hands. Could I do that to Maddox? Yes. Could I do it without hurting anyone else? There were now at least three shifters in this room or somewhere nearby that I’d rather not turn into human confetti. I just didn’t have the control to guarantee the outcome.
Watching Maddox’s approach, I tried to gauge my options. I had to get this right.
Maddox lunged across the room. I threw myself to the side.
Midflight, I drew my energy together and pushed it across the room with a shouted, “No!” Maddox took the blast in the middle of his stomach and flew backward like one of those cartoon characters catching a cannonball in his gut. He hit the far wall with a distinct crack, but I didn’t stop. Knowing it might mean the difference between surviving and not, I threw another blast of energy in the shifter’s direction, using a loud yell and surging adrenaline to give it impetus.
The second strike hit Maddox high on his chest just as he tried to leap forward. His back hit the wall again, the plaster and wood splintering into a thousand pieces on impact. Dust from the brick wall of the building puffed out around his massive body. It would’ve been funny if I wasn’t bracing myself for retaliation. Wondering where the hell everyone else was.
I glanced around for Sun. The phoenix was frozen in the middle of the room, one foot in front of the other as if he’d stopped midstep. His gaze was on me, round and amazed. As I watched, something calculating entered the look, something I’d seen time and again in Arik’s eyes, when he was trying to figure out how he could use me. Sun was evaluating my power, deciding what to do with me, with it.
My gut sank through the floor. It didn’t matter where I went; I’d always be a weapon, wouldn’t I?
A high scream of pain drew Sun’s attention to the door. The next moment, a large shifter dressed all in black—an Anigma soldier?—shot through the door and tackled Sun to the ground. I had half a second to stare as the two grappled before a massive body hit me like a freight train. Distracted, I went down under the rib-crushing weight.
Maddox. In full shift.
The massive canine was easily twice the size of a wolf in the wild and felt like it weighed five hundred pounds. I used every trick Arik had taught me to escape, but Maddox was a warrior with centuries of fighting experience, even in dog form. Every twist, every strike and duck and shift of my hips was countered with expertise and a certain grim satisfaction that glowed in its red eyes. The front paws, as big as saucers, locked my arms down, preventing gestures that might give my power impetus. The wolf’s body weight stole my breath but not my ability to move my legs, and when my knee managed to slide between its hind legs and catch it unaware, striking what might well be the monster’s only delicate parts, the wolf snarled with rage. A quick snap of its jaws cut a searing gash across my cheek, and I flinched back with nowhere to go. The wolf brought its muzzle down right next to my throat and growled low and mean.
I went limp, conserving what little energy I had left. Breathing quick and light, all I could manage with the animal’s body crushing mine, I waited for my chance. The sickening sound of metal cutting through bone and flesh gave me one.
Maddox’s werewolf roared and reared back, claws digging at the knife sticking hilt-deep into its shoulder. I watched it hover there above me as if frozen in time, and then, without conscious thought, my hand rose and I pushed my open palm toward its face. “Off!”
The werewolf took the blow like an amateur boxer on the receiving end of a heavyweight champion’s fist, its body flipping in an awkward curve backward to land five feet away. A quick arch and push brought it to its feet, swaying, those deadly fangs catching the light as it growled its fury into the air.
And then a rough grip on my arm dragged me backward down the hall.
“Arik?”
I’d waited two days for him to stop hovering and go out to feed. He must’ve come back earlier than expected, only to find me gone.
My luck was shitty tonight, wasn’t it?
“Arik!”
That was Sun. The big male darted across the living room, gaze locked on us. Maddox lunged into his path, the knife from his shoulder now gone. The two males came together like Titans of old, power reverberating through the room. Sun’s long, gleaming knife flashed in the light. One of the males fell, I wasn’t sure which, but then they were tumbling across my living room out of sight. Shards of wood and cinder block splintering the air said my homemade bookshelf had met its demise.
I didn’t see the rest. Arik yanked me forward, and all I could focus on then was him, his glowing gaze caressing my body, anxious, worried. His lips tightened when his eyes settled on the blood smearing my face.
“Will you come with me?”
He was asking? That was new. So was the worry. I glanced back toward the two shifters crashing around my living room, fighting savagely to overpower each other. The look in Sun’s eyes came back to me, the cruelty in Maddox’s red gaze.
Assuming Sun won, would the Archai be any different than Arik? In that moment I felt any chance at a safe place, a place where I could be happy and left in peace, disappear. None of the shifters would stop chasing me, would they? Didn’t matter if their intentions were good or bad. They’d all eventually use me.
“I’ll come.” I’d fight any other battles as we came to them.
Arik nodded without comment. As his wings shot out from his back to fill the hallway, he jerked his head toward the open window he must have entered through. “Think you can make that big enough for the two of us and my wings?”
The security of his presence allowed me to tap more easily into the power running in my veins. “Yeah.”
A deafening roar sounded behind us. I turned. Maddox’s wolf surged toward us on all fours, fangs dripping, hell in its eyes. Panic sparked deep in my core.
I jerked around to the window and threw out my hands. “Open!”
Power coalesced in my chest, seared down my hands, the surge so strong I thought it might rip my body apart. The next instant, it did. I caught a brief glimpse of the entire back half of my apartment exploding as I fell to the floor. Arik caught me before I could hit, his legs already hurrying us toward the destruction as I blacked out in his arms.