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 tiny 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.
