Page 34 of Another Damned Storm (Another Damned #3)
I looked between Matt and Lily. “Stay here. Lock down everything you can and arm anyone who can hold a weapon.”
“You aren’t seriously going back out there,” my brother said. “You barely have control.”
What I didn’t have was time to argue, so I pictured Hook in my mind and said, “For once in your life, Matty, just do what you’re fucking told.”
“Nev—”
The next thing I knew, I was back in the park getting pelted with warm rain that was coming at me sideways. And fuck, that trip took a toll on me too. Almost as bad as when I flashed Matt?—
No. Dread coiled in my stomach. A girl’s high-pitched scream cut through the storm, and I whipped around to see Angie being hoisted off the ground by a demon twice my size.
Stupid, reckless girl. She must have grabbed me as I was flashing.
I didn’t have time to pull my blade. Not when it was her life on the line. I just barreled forward, rolled at the last second, and took the thing out at the knees.
It let Angie go and she scrambled away, but not before one of its claws managed to tear a gash in the back of her calf. She stumbled and went down hard a few yards away. I only saw it in bits and pieces, snatching glances as I fought the nasty fucker in front of me.
It took an eternity to beat him into submission with my bare fists. The second I had the chance, I slipped my blade free of my boot, jammed it in the side of his neck clear to the hilt, and shoved it backward with all my strength.
It wasn’t a full decapitation, but severing the thing’s spine would have to do until I could get Angie back to Salus. Except when I turned to look for her, a different monster had her, his muscular arm wrapped tight around her fragile neck.
“Lapalme,” I gritted out. “If you so much as scratch her?—”
“You’ll what?” he fired back.
The challenge in his voice called to the darkness deep inside me, loosening the reins I was fighting to hold onto.
Instead of letting that feeling take hold, what was left of the calculating part of my brain kicked in, and I put out a call of my own. I might not have actually summoned anyone on purpose before, but the primal power living inside me knew what to do.
The call was silent on the outside, without so much as an eye twitch. On the inside, though, it ripped through my mind like a lion’s roar.
Lapalme’s eyes flew wide. “What the hell did you just do?”
The next instant, Emerson was by my side, followed quickly by half a dozen other huge, muscled men who looked both confused and ready to tear someone’s head off.
“Let my niece go, Lapalme,” I demanded.
“You bitch.” His eyes darted from me to Emerson and back. “You want her? Take her.” He shoved her away and was gone before her knees skidded into the dirt.
“Follow him!” Emerson yelled. The others popped out of existence as quickly as they’d arrived, but he hung back. “Never, you okay?”
I looked up at him, but I didn’t have to catch my reflection in his wide eyes to know what he was seeing. Power and energy coursed through me, pumping through every vein, pulsing at every nerve ending.
The wildness wasn’t clawing its way to the surface anymore.
It was already there.
It took focus to make my lips form the words I needed to say, and even when I managed them, they sounded more like a growl than anything. “Take her to Salus.”
“Easy now, Never,” Emerson soothed, inching closer to me. “You’ve practiced this, remember?”
Oh, I remembered. The wind shifted abruptly, and I held up a hand to shield my eyes from the biting rain as I squinted up. Everything above us was in chaos. The rain was going one way. Shredded leaves and twigs from dying trees were flying another. Even the clouds seemed to be at war.
Lightning illuminated the sky and searing pain shot through me, nearly bringing me to my knees. Only that pain wasn’t mine.
Did that old piece of shit just hit my pirate with lightning?
The agony lasted just a few seconds, but it was enough. I glared at the ancient demon in front of me. “Take her.” The sky lit up again. “Please, Emerson.”
Fuck, I barely sounded human .
He pressed his lips into a thin line and nodded. Then he lifted her off the ground, cradling her small body close to his chest, and flashed her away.
And not one goddamn second too soon.
The sky erupted in a series of blinding bursts.
More pain raced through our link, but I didn’t have to focus on Hook to find him.
One thought of him brought me to a circle of blackened earth where Thrain stood, wearing a vicious scowl that distorted his face into something worthy of a Disney villain.
And Hook…
Fury erupted inside me at the sight of him. He was pinned, his body half-sunk in the mud, and his clothes and skin smoldering as one bolt of lightning after another pummeled him.
The wild animal inside me surged. I barely registered the nip of pain as my fingernails elongated and sharpened to deadly points. Even the crimson tint to my skin wasn’t enough to bring me back down.
If anything, seeing the change just fed the monster inside, and in a blink, the last of my control snapped.
I turned my fury on Thrain, throwing myself at him with a roar that shook the air. I swung and slashed, tearing his ancient robe and gray-blue skin to shreds. Even the crippling cold of his blood pouring over my hands and splashing my face didn’t slow me down.
I was one thing and one thing only in that moment: destruction.
He tried to fight, to claw his way to escape, but I just dragged him right back.
Then I shoved my fist into his chest, through cloth and skin and bone, until I found the withered muscle that pumped that noxious blood of his. A ripple of satisfaction washed over me when my shiny new claws popped through the outer membrane, and I squeezed.
And squeezed.
Until his desperate pleas were nothing more than bloody spurts and gurgles.