Page 36

I don’t know if it was me yelling or what, but something made Droog overcome his fear of dogs or whatever it was that had sent him into a retreat.

He leaned over and tried to smash Rome between his hands, but Rome wasn’t a warrior for nothing.

He jumped over Droog’s head and ran down the giant’s back.

He sank his teeth into Droog’s butt, worried it like a bone, and ripped out a big chunk.

Droog screamed, then screamed again as Og’s chain came around and clipped his ankles.

Unfortunately, it caught Rome, too, and he went down.

“Rome!” Mira screamed.

A gray light burst from where I’d last seen her and something zipped across the circle and into Droog with a wet thunk. When the light faded, I saw she’d skewered him with an I-beam. He flopped to the ground, dead before his body stopped quaking.

The crowd loved it.

As it roared its approval, I bolted toward Rome, but she beat me there by hurtling Og’s chain like an Olympian. She dropped to her knees and ran her hands over him, looking for injuries.

I kept one eye on Og as I crouched next to them. Sweating and growling, the rephaim leaned opposite the chain to add more speed and power in its swing. The hook glided about two feet above the ground, so I figured Rome was safe where he lay, but Mira and me were dead if we didn’t move.

“Boots, you need to get up. The chain’s coming back around—”

Gray power shot across the arena and ripped the chain outta Og’s hands.

She didn’t slow it down or change its path, just raised it to the level of the second row of spectators and let it fly.

Even from the floor of the arena, I could hear bones breaking and the unmistakable wet schlunk! of limbs separating from bodies.

Strangely enough, the crowd loved that, too. Og’s slack-jawed expression probably fed into it.

A hand fisted up in the front of my shirt and yanked me down, and I met a pair of blazing golden eyes.

Yikes .

Mira was pissed. Like ready-to-melt-down-the-world pissed.

“End. This. Now!” she snarled.

Pushing to my feet, I turned and faced Og. After checking on Greel, he’d regained his swagger because his brother was still alive inside the metal cocoon.

“One down, two to go,” he mocked me.

“Too bad I don’t have time to kill you in the way you deserve.”

“And what way is that?” He put his hands on his hips and laughed. “Slowly? Painfully? By a thousand cuts from that tiny sword of yours?”

I dropped the katana, and it dissolved into blue sparks before it hit the concrete.

“I don’t need a sword.”

Tuning out the crowd, I filled my hands with blue fire and flung it at his legs.

He dodged, and I ran parallel to him until we were on the far side of the arena.

He tried to stomp on me, but a quick roll took me around him.

He spun on his heel, but I was faster and whipped a rope of power around his ankle.

He stumbled and had to brace one hand on the ground, which gave me time to run around to his back.

Holding up both hands, I unleashed hundreds of flechettes.

Just for fun, I shaped them like railroad spikes.

They tore through his tough hide and turned the backs of his legs to raw hamburger in seconds.

Howling, he rose and pivoted, and the knees I’d just destroyed gave out on him.

He landed on his side with an almighty whump!

He pulled himself along on his elbows toward a line of metal fire barrels.

Before he could reach them, I raced over and sank my left arm deep into a cut on his thigh, then fired off chains of lightning, one from each finger.

Zig-zag patterns burst across his skin, and he sat up with a screech and swatted at me.

I had to duck, but managed to keep my arm in his wound.

Twice more, I hit him with five chains of lightning before the edge of his flailing hand caught my shoulder and knocked me away.

He fell flat onto his back. Blood streamed from his ears and his whole body twitched, but his fists clenched and he bared his teeth at me.

I didn’t draw the fight out any longer. Rome was injured, Mira was mad, and, even knee-capped and electrocuted, Og was still a threat.

I bundled all thirteen feet of him in a blanket of power and squeezed.

“Is the queen of the peri at your den?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, so I tightened the blanket around him until I heard something crunch.

“Yes,” he groaned, “in the dungeon.”

“Who told you to take her?”

“No one. My own idea.”

“Liar.” I forced the power to crush him even more. “You don’t have the balls for that kind of move.”

His eyes bulged and his skin turned gray.

Crap. Went too hard too fast.

Now I had only seconds before he was nothing more than rubble for the stone pile.

“You know I don’t like repeating myself, Og. Who told you to take her? Who ?”

“Samuel Cas—”

He turned into stone with his mouth still open.

No more answers from him, but I got the ones I came for.

Dissolving the power, I looked for Mira and Rome and was satisfied to see they were right where I’d left them.

Now that the danger had passed, my ears registered the crowd again, and the volume was staggering. Half seemed to be cheering and the other half booing, and fists were flying throughout the stands.

We need to get outta here before some bright boy jumps into the ring and the rest follow.

I wasn’t gonna ask Mira to finish Greel off, so I jogged over, wedged open a hole in his metal coffin, called up a dagger, and severed both his carotid artery and jugular vein with one quick slice. Then I quick-stepped back to avoid the blood that spurted up in a fountain.

I guess it wouldn’t make a difference. I’m already soaked in Og’s blood up to my armpit.

Less than ten seconds passed before Greel stopped blubbering. Another ten and his body was stone.

A gong sounded, and Rock stood up.

#

Mira

A boulder-shaped rephaim stood in the umpire chair and somehow enhanced his voice over the crowd, which had devolved into chaos.

“You have the victory this day, Kerry Harker. All that belonged to Og is now yours.” He acknowledged the win by lowering his head, but not his eyes. “Take your kith and leave, lest some of my hothead kin forget themselves.”

“Bring it on!” Kerry planted his feet and raised his face to the rephaim. “It would give me great pleasure to cleanse the world of your filthy race.”

Enough.

I yanked off a charm, popped it in my mouth and, with effort, scooped Rome up in my arms. Staggering under his weight, I carried his furry butt over to Kerry.

I. Have. Had. Enough!

I clamped a hand on his shoulder and chomped down on the charm. Power, dry and bitter, flared against my teeth, making me grimace.

We landed in a tangled heap on the living room floor of the safe house. I lay there with my head tipped back and my eyes closed and fought the intense urge to vomit.

“Where have you all been?” Jax stood over us with his hands on his hips. “And why didn’t you ask us to join the fun?”

“Where did this dog come from?” Gigi twirled one of her black curls around her index finger. “Ooo, is it Rome? It must be. He’s gone, too, and I can’t see him letting you two get into trouble without him.”

Kerry, who had ended up beneath me somehow, was squirming and pulling at his hand, which I still held tight. I squeezed it—hard—and heard him yelp.

“Be still, Harker! You can handle it for one … freaking … MINUTE! ”

He went still. Rome made that hurt-dog whine as he lay in a crushing weight on top of me. Jax, realizing the problem, tried to lift him off me.

“Dang, Rome! You’re heavy!” He half-shoved, half-lifted the mastiff off of me.

“Where’d you go?” Gigi asked.

“I had something I needed to take care of and they tagged along.” Kerry’s voice was muffled, and I realized he was lying on his belly with me sprawled over his back.

I dropped his hand and rolled to the side, gulping back bile.

I wasn’t sure if it was a delayed reaction from actually killing someone, but everything in my stomach was making a bid for freedom.

I ignored it and crawled over to kneel next to Rome.

I laid my hand on his head, and his dark eyes latched onto mine.

“How bad is he, Jax?” I asked.

“Looks like his front legs are broken. Could be why he’s not shifting back.”

“Can you do anything for him?” I stroked his cheeks and saggy jowls and touched my nose to his wet one.

“Working on it.”

I could hear the others talking, but focused on Rome until Jax told me to move so he could work. Rusty orange coiled around the mastiff’s front legs and I didn’t want to get in the way, so I stood and turned on Kerry.

“What were you thinking?” Even I could hear the venom in my voice. “You wanted to stay there and go toe-to-toe with the entire tribe! You coulda been killed, you idiot!”

“It don’t matter what happens to me,” he mumbled.

Wrong thing to say, pal.

“Maybe to you it doesn’t, but it does to the rest of us!

” Ooo, I was hot! I stepped into his space and glared up at him.

“And when we finally find Gemma, how do you think we’ll feel if we have to tell her you got yourself killed?

That you didn’t care about her enough to stay alive and find her yourself? ”

The tiger came out at that. With eyes like neon, he bent his head until we were nose-to-nose.

“Say that again.”

“If you get yourself killed,” I said through my teeth, “think what it would do to her. Can you imagine how she’d feel when she found out?”

“We were in the middle of a fight when she was kidnapped! For all I know, she’d be relieved that she doesn’t have to put up with me anymore!”

Without hesitation, I slammed my fists into his shoulders with all of my fury behind the move. Obviously not expecting an attack, he staggered back and fell on his butt. He sat there and stared up at me with shock in his eyes.

I stood over him and ached to do it again.

“Come on, Harker! Get up and go supernova on me! Make me a pile of ash right here, right now!”

Gigi tried to get between us, but Kerry pushed her back.

“Don’t touch her while you’re upset!” Jax hollered. “You’ll hurt her by accident.”

Kerry growled, Rome growled, and I wanted to growl.

“Gemma needs you,” I barked at him, “and you’re giving up on her!”

“I’m not giving up on her!” he roared and rocketed to his feet.

“Good! Because she wanted me to beg you not to!”

He turned into a statue, and the fight went out of his eyes.

“What? When? At City of the Future?”

“Yeah. In the church.”

“What— What else did she say?”

“She said, ‘Tell Kerry I love him. Sorry I hurt him. Beg him not to give up on me. He’ll always be my one and only.’ Does that sound like she doesn’t care?”

“Are you lying to me?” His face went paper white.

“Why would I? I have no horse in this race.”

He covered his eyes with a hand that trembled and dropped his head.

I felt awful and scolded myself for hurting him.

“Look, I’m sorry. I know you—”

“Don’t apologize. You’re right. I’m messing up.” His deep voice sank to a whisper. “I’m so angry, I feel like I’m gonna explode. And now that Chance isn’t here, I have to fight against losing it all the time. I can’t— I can’t do this anymore!”

“What’s the alternative?” Gigi asked. “Even if you went smiting through the Dark World, how is that going to find her? All that would do it is slow us down. Plus, we don’t know what consequences that would have for her.

We need to keep asking questions. We’ve found out a lot already.

It’s only a matter of time now until we get her back. ”

“My head hears you, but my heart is saying, ‘What are they doing to her?’ It’s killing me, Gigi! It’s killing me!”

“Amanda Greenaway owes you a favor, right? Let’s see if she can do anything.”

“Who’s Amanda Greenaway?” I asked.

“A miracle worker.” Kerry blew out a long, slow breath. “She doesn’t owe me anything.”

I didn’t know what scope of miracles a miracle worker could perform, but I hoped Amanda could at least ease Kerry’s mind. Much more of this and nothing anyone said or did was gonna hold him back.

“Well, Amanda thinks she owes you,” Gigi said. “Take advantage of it and call her.”

He held out for about thirty seconds.

“All right. At the least, maybe she’ll have some ideas we haven’t thought of. I don’t know how to contact her, though.”

“Ask Clem for her number. Oh, wait. She probably hasn’t had time to figure out phones yet.” Gigi bit her lip for a second, then brightened. “Ask him to pass a message along to her. They are married.”

He nodded, pulled out his phone, and walked toward his bedroom.

Rome trotted up to me and stuck his nose in my hand.

“You’re all better now?” I knelt down to rub the wrinkles between his eyes.

“He’s better,” Jax said as he joined us.

“He’s also lucky. I’ve never been able to heal humans, only animals, so I wasn’t sure if it would work to heal a human who shifted into an animal.

Anyway, he wants to change back, but I’m making him wait a bit to be sure the bones are knit well enough to withstand a shift. ”

Rome nuzzled his face into my hands and made a doggy noise.

“He says, ‘That’s why we weren’t letting Kerry leave at night.’ ” Jax laughed. “Well, at least the damage was controllable this time.”

“Baby, what can we do to help Kerry?” Gigi looped her arm through his. “He has too much time to brood.”

“We need to find something to distract him.” I sank my fingers in Rome’s soft ruff. “Maybe we can ask Josef if they have a nest of something Diabolical that needs cleaned out.”

“Let him blow off steam by blowing things away?” Jax grinned.

“Something like that.”

“I’m more worried about what’s going to happen when his rage runs out. It’s all that’s fueling him right now.” Gigi chewed on her thumb nail.

“Oh, I don’t think we need to worry about his fury tank running dry anytime soon.”

“I’m not so sure, Mira. That much anger takes a lot of energy. Even as powerful as he is, he isn’t eating or sleeping. At least, not well. When he crashes, and he will, he’s going to crash hard.”

“One problem at a time, Gi.” Jax dropped his chin on Gigi’s head. “We’ll keep him busy for now and hope for the best. That’s all we can do.”