Page 78 of Contested Crown

Running a marathon and then turning around and running wind sprints, I thought. We were doing too much, too fast.

He will die, Basil hissed in my ear.Before I even get to speak to him again.

There was a wistfulness in the words, and Basil didn’t even mention eating Cade.

“Let’sgo,” Summer said. She gestured toward her painting. “Hurry! They’ll find us soon.”

“What?” I asked, feeling as though I actuallywasslow and stupid, that I wasn’t even pretending.

“I’ve been waiting all night!” She gestured, frustrated. All of her paintings were lined up, pulled down from storage, placed side by side, and then stacked up until it looked like a mosaic of chaotic colors.

“You can help us get past the outer wards?” Cade asked.

“Youcan help me get past the wards on my room,” Summer said. “Break that wall.”

She pointed at the window that faced the ocean. Her fingers were still spattered with black paint, and when I squinted at her unfinished painting, I saw that it wasn’t chaos at all.

Instead, it was layers and layers of Cade’s tattoos on top of each other. Two figures were hidden underneath.

I glanced at Cade, and he shrugged. Carefully, I handed the duffel bag to Cade, then headed to the wall. Reaching down, I picked up the nearest solid object—a small footstool—and pitched it through the window. When it broke, I turned back to Summer.

“No, the wholewall,” she said, gesturing. Her brows were drawn together, and she glanced at the door to her room. “Hurry!”

“Miles,” Cade said. He pushed himself up off his knees and extended his hands.

His magic flowed into me, endless streams of it that wrapped around my skin until I was just as tattooed as he’d been the first time we met. The power pulsed against my skin, and Basil groaned in pleasure on my skin.

Tell him to give you more, Basil hissed.I could do something with this.

“Gross, Basil,” I muttered. Bringing my fist up, I slammed it into the wall with all of my strength. In human form, werewolves were strong. I expected to maybe crack the wall, dent it, and then have to tear it down.

My fist impacted like a wrecking ball, tearing a hole through the drywall, insulation, and exterior stucco. Wind blew the debris back into the room, and I didn’t ask if Summer needed more. Instead, I moved a bit and hit again, my fist taking out the window frame and most of the wall.

A howl rose inside me, under my skin, echoing down to my bones. I could feel hair growing on my skin, prickles of it. Drawing my hand back, I struck again and decimated the other side of the window. Claws sprouted, not full ones but the hint of them, just sharp enough to nick my own palms when I fisted my hand to take another swing.

My wolf. I didn’t dare hope.

“Yes!” Summer laughed, the wind tossing bits of plaster and wood into her hair and dress as she clapped her hands. “Come here.”

Turning, I glanced at Cade. He was slumped over the bag, too weak to even move. I was across the room without realizing it, and I picked him up, wrapping the bag’s handles around my wrist.

As I cradled him to my chest, I wanted to shift and tear every person in the house limb from limb, kill them for what they’d done to him, kill them for even thinking of threatening him. He wasmine. He wasmine, and my wolf knew it.

Summer pointed to a spot in the center of her studio, and I followed her just as the door burst open and Elizabeth stumbled through. She looked wild—hair mussed, eyes wide.

“Summer! Don’t!”

Like a conductor, Summer reached out, and the loose sleeve of her dress dropped down, revealing an unmarked forearm. Panic spiked up my stomach to my throat. What if she didn’t have any magic at all? What if that was part of why they kept her locked up here?

The emotion made my spine start to shift, my growl going feral in my throat.

Elizabeth was weaving her spiderweb in front of her, the blue magic getting thicker and thicker. But before she could let it loose, Summer took out a paintbrush and gestured.

The paintings she’d stacked up came alive. The paint flowed off the canvases and surrounded us. The calming blues and greens of an impressionist masterpiece engulfed us.

Then they fell away. Los Santos welcomed me home.

ChapterTwenty-Six