Page 47 of Blood and Magic (RBMC: Helena, MT #2)

“Let’s go,” I said, picking up my rifle before nodding toward the end of the hallway.

I stepped and fell to the side, my leg refusing to work.

Hot, sticky liquid pooled in my sock, and I winced.

But my wolf came to the front of my consciousness, taking the pain, dulling it to the point where I could keep going.

“You okay?” Marta said, glancing down at the wound.

“Fine,” I growled and forced myself forward. “My mate’s in there.”

We pushed through the door on the end, and I held my gun up, Marta on my right, Fenris on my left, Larentia and Pink guarding our backs.

The entire ride here, I’d prepared myself for what I might find.

Maeve was still alive, I sensed it in my bones, but she’d been tortured.

I expected her to have been beaten up and bruised, but the sight that greeted us stopped me.

My muscles froze, my heart sank, and wrath boiled through my blood.

Maeve lay on the floor in the middle of a circle of lit candles, vampires chanting all around her. Marx kneeled at her side, his wrist pressed against her mouth while her body writhed and spasmed. At our arrival, he lifted his head, bloody streaks down his chin, his obsidian gaze unfocused.

“Well, well, well,” he said, ignoring us to return to his sick, twisted work. “It’s about time you showed up.”

The other vampires continued speaking in tongues as if we were mere annoyances rather than their death sentences.

“Let her go,” I shouted, holding my rifle up before taking another step forward.

Marx clucked through his teeth, his fangs gleaming in the dim light.

Giant hooks hung from the ceiling, fixed from thick metal chains, and dilapidated machinery lined the walls.

This must have been the room where they dressed the animals after they slaughtered them, and I prayed to whatever fucking fates listening that they hadn’t used any of this shit on my girl. This fucked-up ritual was bad enough.

The sinking weight of dread coiled in my stomach. I knew what they were doing, and I hoped to God we weren’t too late.

“Now, why would I do that?” Marx said with a laugh. He sauntered closer to the edge of the circle, and I aimed the barrel of my rifle right at his head before pulling the trigger. Nothing happened. I tried again. My nerves seized as I got the same result.

Fucking jammed.

I tossed the damned thing to the side and roared, launching myself into the fray.

Marta held her hands out to either side, smoky wisps of magic streaking from her fingertips, while Fenris grabbed a pistol and fired at the onlookers.

I raced toward the circle but hit an invisible wall at the edge, forcing me back.

“Stupid, arrogant shifter,” Marx said with a cruel laugh. “You think you’re the only ones with magic?”

Limbs shaking and panic racing in my molecules, I shoved to my feet and tried again, pounding against the barrier, throwing my body at it, trying to break through.

“Maeve!” I shouted telepathically. “Maeve, come back to me.”

The sounds of metal doors bursting open nearly distracted me, and thick, heavy boots came closer, breaking Marx’s concentration.

He glanced behind me, but I sensed the pack had joined us.

Marta continued to chant spells in the background, Pink hauled vampires over his head like they weighed nothing, and Orion tore through them like a juggernaut, like they were nothing.

But even once the last vampire had been dismembered, the veil still held firm.

I reached down inside, sensing the tether between me and my mate, and I yanked.

I pushed against the magical wall while I tugged Maeve toward my soul.

My vision blackened, my head going dizzy, either from blood loss or the weight of my tie to her, but I ignored it.

My wolf reached out to her fox, curling around her, coating her with the supernatural protection of pack, covering her in everything that was mine.

Kodiak gave me his energy through the bonds, shoving it toward me and through me, into her.

She wasn’t officially a member of his family yet, but that didn’t seem to matter, not when my beast had already decided it would have her.

She opened her eyes and gasped, looking at me with that crystal clear gaze. Was she still in there? Was it still her…or had she been perverted by him?

“Mill,” she whimpered.

“I’m here, sweetheart. I’m here.” I threw energy into her.

I gave her everything I had, pouring my fury through our bond.

I’d never had a mate before. And despite not having officially sealed it with Maeve, something felt different about this.

It was bolder, brighter, stronger. I imagined it like a bolt of lightning, a bright shimmering electric string tying my soul to hers, my blood to her blood. I fed it with my entire soul.

“This all could have been avoided if you had just given me what I asked for at the beginning.” Marx circled to stand in my view, his filthy boots blocking her from me, and when I glanced up at him, the scalding power of my hatred overtook my senses.

I sent that to Maeve, too. I gave her my forcefulness, my will, my dominance.

I turned it all over to her, knowing it would weaken me.

But if it saved her, I would die happily.

I would give her anything to see her live through this as the shifter she’d been when she entered it.

“Mill,” Orion said, coming to stand next to me. “Mill, we can’t get through to her. We can’t?—”

A cold spray of blood hit us both in the face, halting his words.

I blinked and watched as Marx choked, spewing up black liquid, his body convulsing.

A hand protruded from his chest, his putrid heart gripped in between claws as it gave two final beats.

Maeve yanked it back, ripping the damn thing from his body.

Marx collapsed and dropped to his knees, revealing a menacing, pissed-off female behind him.

Her eyes glowed ice blue, her wild dark hair in bloody mats around her head, her canines exposed over red, furious lips as she dropped his putrid heart.

Then she gripped the top of his mouth in one hand, curling her fingers under his teeth, before putting a foot on his shoulder.

With one terrible yank, she separated the top part of his jaw from the rest of his body and tossed it to the side.

I had one final moment to memorize her in all of her bloodthirsty raging beauty before my consciousness gave out on me.