Page 118 of Found in Obscurity

“I found it!” Kit exclaimed.

Lorin glanced over to see Kit holding up a set of keys triumphantly. Lorin left the book where it was and grabbed for one of the torches with shaky hands before rushing over to help.

They approached the first cage with a cougar shifter inside it. It growled at the sight of Lorin and he backed off. He understood its mistrust of him as a witch.

Kit gave a warning growl back, amber eyes sharp. “He’s my mate. He’s here to help you.”

The cougar didn’t look like it believed him, but it quieted down, at least. Kit examined the lock on the cage before testing the keys he believed would fit.

Realizing what was going on, the other shifters went wild, desperate to be released as well. Ellis tried to calm them, but it was hard to reason with someone who had been trapped for who knows how long. Lorin understood their mania.

Sudden thunder shook the very earth under their feet, rattling the cages and throwing several people off balance. The shifters cried out in every animal language.

Ellis ran back up the stairs and Lorin steadied Kit as he stumbled.

The acrid smell of smoke began to crawl down the stairs and Lorin gasped as Ellis shouted, “They’ve set the woods ablaze!”

Lorin could taste the raw power in the air, the intent to harm and destroy hanging heavy and thick.

“We have to hurry,” Lorin said.

Kit nodded firmly, his eyes wide with worry as he hurried to unlock the cages.

“Please don’t scatter,” Kit begged them one by one as he released their bonds. “We’ll show you the safest way out. I know you want to run.”

It was hard to corral them, especially with the smoke rising and their animal instincts telling them to escape it.

The ground continued to shake with magic.

Lorin left Ellis and Kit to it for a moment to rush up the stairs to check what was happening for himself.

He crested the top of the stairs and immediately saw the patches of magical purple flames that weren’t dampened by the winter season. They had caught and the fire was raging, spreading. The sky was lit up with unnatural flashes as magic clashed.

They had to hurry.

Kit

Kit unlocked cage after cage, fighting back the trauma that threatened to freeze him in place. He remembered these cages. This place. They were fragments of memories, blocked by magic and clouded with fear, but there was no mistaking this feeling. He looked at the shifters and knew. He’d lived the torment reflected in their eyes.

Shifters poured out, clawing their way over one another, desperate for freedom, some turning back to help free the others.

As he moved deeper, he realized there was a scent lingering in the air that was becoming clearer to him, above the filth and magic and smoke. It poked at the hole in his heart that had been leaking his joy slowly, drop by drop, despite his happiness at finding Lorin. An involuntary yip burst from his throat, followed by a whine.

His family. It smelled like his family. But it couldn’t be…could it? They’d escaped! He had watched them escape. He’d been searching for them out in the world for years. They couldn’t have been here all along. The coven couldn’t have…

“Kit?” Lorin called. “What’s wrong?”

Kit couldn’t hear him. His pulse was hammering in his ears, his eyes unfocused as he concentrated on the scent. He’d carried that scent on his skin for years before it was taken from him. Stolen. The scents he knew so well. The scents that made up the base of his own scent.

He broke into a sprint, following the trail with a closed throat, on the verge of breaking down.

“Kit!”

He yanked cages open, the metal doors banging into other cages, making so much noise the place was shaking with it.

“They’re here. I know they’re here. Please,” he muttered to himself, continuing on his rampage until there were only a few cages left unopened in front of him.

He opened the second to last cage to let a small beaver shifter out before there was nothing left but a large metal crate about five feet tall tucked into the very corner of the dark room.