Jaxson
We wound our way through the jagged, twisting cave. A strange blue glow glazed the wall ahead with color. We moved cautiously until the narrow, rocky corridor bent and opened into a vast subterranean landscape that bathed us in eerie light.
Bioluminescent moss covered the walls and ceiling of the massive cavern, and its unearthly glow reflected off a shimmering pool that filled the center of the chamber. Gnarled trees with silver, tendril-like leaves grew around the edges of the water, and their roots snaked across the walls.
At any other time, it would have been breathtaking.
Savannah pointed. There, in the middle of the room, was the grimoire, floating in the air above the pond.
Still wrapped in Savannah’s shadows, we stepped cautiously through the entrance, and guilt settled in my heart. I could already see that the roots of the trees around the pond entombed more sleepers. Many faces that I knew and loved, others less familiar.
All of them were my responsibility.
I looked behind us. A massive tree rose over the entrance, much like the one on the shore. It was the only exit.
Savannah’s whisper echoed through the chamber. “Where is he?”
“I don’t—”
Her scream cut me off, and I spun.
Hundreds of roots sprang out from the walls and started wrapping around her like the tentacles of some alien beast.
Dread and rage filled my chest, and I leapt forward with a growl. I released my claws and began ripping at the roots—but as soon as I did, new ones snaked around my own ankles.
Savannah had her claws out and was tearing through the roots as they grasped at her, but she couldn’t keep up. My heart lurched as a tendril whipped around her neck and she gasped, “Jaxson!”
Fighting my way to her, I tore the root away from her throat and tried to pull her free, but two of the tendrils snaked around my arms and started dragging us apart.
“No!” I growled, my muscles straining.
Savannah summoned the Soul Knife to her hand and sliced through the roots binding her leg. They withered and died, and I heard the trees wail silently in my mind.
Suddenly, the knife vanished from her hand, and she gasped. The voice of the sorcerer echoed over the pond: “I’ll be taking that.”
I turned to see Kahanov standing by the edge of the water, next to a cluster of trees. He waved the knife.
“Screw you!” Savannah shouted from the knot of roots. The blade vanished and reappeared in her palm, and she began desperately cutting again as I fought my own restraints.
She would be a sitting duck if Kahanov attacked, but as long as I held my ground beside her and gave her time to cut herself free, he wouldn’t be able to get close.
As if reading my mind, the sorcerer laughed. “Let’s play a game. It’s called ‘Jaxson Makes a Choice.’”
He positioned his empty hand in front of the chest of a woman entwined in the roots of one of the silver trees. She wasn’t any older than Savannah—maybe a year or two younger. Cara? I couldn’t be sure.
“Touch her, and you’re a dead man!” I bellowed.
Kahanov smiled. “The moment I summon the Soul Knife, I’ll sever her spirit. So you get to choose: Savannah or her.”
“Save her, Jaxson,” Savannah said. “Save them all. Please.”
Her voice cracked with sadness, and the anguish and fear in her eyes was like a dagger to my heart.
The world spun. I was alpha, and my duty to the pack came above all else—but Savannah was my mate, and there was nothing I could do but protect her.
My wolf thundered inside me. Kill him.
Mindless rage churned in my body, and I unleashed a primal roar as I wrenched the roots from around my legs.
“Time’s up!” The Soul Knife disappeared from Savannah’s hand and appeared in Kahanov’s. He rammed it through the woman’s chest, and a trail of smoke rose from the dagger as he yanked it back. The woman’s sleeping eyes shot wide, and her mouth opened in a silent scream.
Savannah’s cry of despair echoed through the chamber as she summoned the blade back from Kahanov’s hand and began cutting frantically at the roots.
The woman faded away, her body vanishing.
“No!” I roared as the roots snaked around my body and began squeezing like a vise, slowly dragging me toward the wall. They cut into my skin, but I couldn’t feel the pain through my shock and rage.
Kahanov began to warily approach. “Once, I thought that if I could teach you to submit, you might be useful. But what kind of pathetic alpha are you? One who’d put a single foolish girl above your whole…”
The sorcerer paused mid-step, and then started to laugh. “Oh, this is too good. How did I not see it before? You two are fated! No wonder you’re willing to let them all die. You don’t have a choice.”
“Fuck you!” I roared.
“What does he mean?” Savannah shouted as she ripped her claws into a root.
“It means he’s about to watch all these poor souls die while futilely trying to save you,” said Kahanov.
Planting my feet, I seized the biggest root I could find and began to pull. My body strained, but the walls of the cave shook, and dozens of rootlets ripped away as rocks tumbled to the ground.
I would rip this cavern down to protect her, if I had to.
The sorcerer laughed as he leapt to another rootbound wolf. “Who’s next?”
Tears filled Savannah’s eyes, and she stopped struggling. My stomach clenched as roots wound around her instantly and started pulling her in.
I strained to get to her. “Don’t you dare stop fighting!”
“Trust me, I’m not,” she rasped. “He needs me alive. I’m buying you time to save your pack. I’ll save myself.”
With that, she let the roots flow over her, and panic seized me. I released the massive root and grabbed her hand. She screamed as the tendrils pulled her in.
Agony and guilt tore through my body as her hand slipped from mine. In the split second before it vanished, the Soul Knife appeared in her grasp.
Then she was gone.
Rage like I’d never known surged up from my soul. I ripped away the roots around me and fought my way forward. “I’ll fucking kill you, Kahanov!”
“Not quite, Jaxson. I don’t need you or these people anymore.” Laughing, the sorcerer leapt to the walls and unleashed a searing blast of flame, setting my clothes alight. I growled with pain and tore free of the roots around me even as my skin burned away.
Almost blind with pain, I grabbed a torn root in my hand and whipped it at him. Kahanov’s laugh was cut short as the whip wrapped around his leg. I pulled, and his body flew from the wall, crashing to the jagged stone of the cavern floor beside me.
I was on him in a second, ramming my claws into his body.
Warm blood splattered across my face.
He screamed, and a billowing cloud of fire burst around me. The blast sent me flying back, and I tumbled across the jagged floor of the cavern. Growling, I rose in time to see the sorcerer stagger to the base of a tree. I lunged, but the roots swallowed him whole.
Suddenly, I was alone. Savannah was gone. And Kahanov was gone.
The shock of it drove the breath from my lungs.
Panicking, I tried to find a way through the cluster where he’d disappeared, but there was only dirt behind the immobile wall of roots.
I tilted my head back and howled with rage.
As the reverberations died through the chamber, Savannah’s words echoed in my mind: I’m buying you time to save your pack.
I looked to the faces of those I’d failed.
My heart clenched. The roots were moving and winding around their necks. Horror filled me, and the weight of what the sorcerer had said sank in: I don’t need you or these people anymore.
I leapt for the nearest body and tore the roots from the man’s throat as I shouted for Neve and Sam.
Savannah had bought my pack time. But time was running out.
