Page 31 of Gemini Hunted (Dark Witch Academy #5)

Zara

The first clue I get that something’s gone sideways is that hyena.

The thing explodes from the clotted shadows that fill the cavern and bounds straight for our charmed circle. Which, as we’ve already established, isn’t charmed against flesh-and-blood shifters.

Over Mallory’s turned shoulder, I glimpse a flash of spotted fur, powerful fangs snarling in a grizzly muzzle, an electric flicker of eyes pulsing an eerie blue. Massive shoulders bunch under a matted pelt. Then the monster launches through the air in a leap.

Straight at Mal’s defenseless back.

I suck in a breath and roar in the lightning voice, “STOP!”

The resonant vibrato of my voice mingles with a deafening peal of thunder. Neo barely snatches the duffel from my shoulder in time before an ultraviolet crackle runs over my scalp and down my body.

That shit lights up the black pit of this basement like St. Elmo’s Fire.

For just a blink, my lightning gives us all plenty of light. Hyenas are pouring into the room. My guys playing offense, the ones whose protective perimeter was supposed to keep those hyenas out of the domus— Ronin and Max and my two Fae—they’re nowhere to be seen.

Which is not a good sign.

My chest clenches like a fist. My tummy twists in a tapeworm of anxiety.

Then the hyena leaping for Mal’s exposed back just… ignites. That shaggy spotted fur bursts into green flame.

That’s a whole new problem.

That combustible flash of pus-green fire, appearing out of nowhere to engulf the attacking hyena, is not my witchcraft.

I’m no pyro. I don’t set shit on fire when I summon.

That’s Ronin’s gig.

Flamethrower.

And, like I said, Ronin’s not here.

Warned barely in time by my bellow, Jae snarls, flings himself over a startled Mallory to drive her to the ground, and covers her protectively with his own body. Still clutching my duffel while the kitten yowls in protest, Neo scrambles clear of the flaming hyena.

Right out of the circle.

I fling myself the other way.

Also out of the circle.

My inner dragon bellows in the lightning voice. Summoned by my witchcraft, the narrow slit of sky splits with a crackle of purple lightning.

My control’s better than it used to be. So I’m not waiting around for some weird green fire of unknown origin to finish the job and barbecue that hyena. I hurl my reliable bolt straight at the attacking animal, like a vengeful Zeus on Mt. Olympus.

By the time the hyena hits the space where we were all just standing, that shifter is a flaming husk.

I’m still staring, watching our four-legged attacker dissolve in a swirl of ash and cinders, when the darkness ignites with another flash of green fire.

I spin toward a second hyena—this one bigger than the last—bounding across the cavern toward our scattered, transfixed, and largely undefended bodies.

That line of pus-green fire streaking down its spine? That fire just helps us see the rabid beast coming.

A wild-eyed Jae drags Mallory to her feet. “ Chere , what is happening!”

“Oh, no.” Mallory looks desperately from my electrified form to the flaming hyena galloping toward us. “The booby trap on the secret door. My spell must’ve tripped it!”

“Not the trap,” Neo yells back (which could be the first time I’ve ever heard my bookworm yell anything). “Look at the book!”

In unison, our frantic eyes converge on the Book of Flame and Breath. The abandoned grimoire lies open, face down on the flagstones. The crumpled pages glow and pulse with pus-green fire.

“Oh. Fuck. Me. ” I groan from the heart.

The psi fire that’s incinerating random hyenas is the exact same shade as that fucking cursed book.

The book is attacking.

Not attacking the witch (Mallory) who just channeled its freaky power. Because Mal and Jae are still crouched inside the circle of protection that’s chalked on the floor.

Deprived of the casting witch as a target, that spiteful spellbook is going apeshit. Roasting random others. Maybe every sentient being that book can find. Or just the ones it doesn’t like.

Possibly including my warlocks.

And me.

“Cheese on toast!” I grab Neo’s arm—the only one of my guys I can even see—and drag him back into the pentacle. Who knows if it’s even still intact? If all our rushing around has broken the chalk circle, Mal’s protective pentacle is now useless.

Just to have a Plan B, I summon my own levitation witchcraft and shoot ten feet straight up in the air, my entire body glowing with purple fire like Storm the sexy mutant in X-Men .

I hover directly over sweet Neo, who’s clutching our kitten and staring transfixed at the hyena closing in. (That hyena isn’t burning fast enough, for real.)

My dragon bugles and bates in the cage of my skin. She’s desperate to shift. But there’s no fucking room.

Zaraaaaa! she trumpets in a deafening interior roar that makes my eardrums hum. Save our mates. We rise!

“Take it easy in there, showgirl,” I mutter. “Don’t bring the roof down. I got this.”

Hoping like hell the borders of Mal’s protective circle reach this high, so I don’t get fricasseed in pus-colored fire (which is not the way I wanna kick the bucket), I hum in my throat to call my lightning.

The hyena’s almost on top of us when my bolt of purple whup-ass forks through the skylight and fries that monster to a crisp.

Halfway across our circle, the beast dissolves in a cloud of ash and smoke.

Neo’s still blinking at the mess when a harsh metallic clatter fills the air.

“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter. “Now what?”

In unison, we all spin toward the rusted medieval portcullis embedded in the rear wall. That’s the grate the reservoir flows through. The grate that normally blocks the low, creepy, cobwebby tunnel I assume leads to the septic tank.

Only that portcullis isn’t blocking the tunnel anymore.

The whole contraption is rising, bars vibrating, hidden gears whining. Iron teeth coated with centuries of green goop—beslimed and dripping—emerge from the black water.

“Yay, it’s the passage!” Mal yells. “We opened it!”

I’m still staring suspiciously at the slasher flick setup of that freaky-looking tunnel when Jae sweeps Mal to her feet, snatches up her bulging backpack, swings the beam of the flashlight around, and drags his girl straight toward the tunnel.

Disheveled and unsettled as she clearly is, Mal still has the determination to slip free of her guy, tear out of her uniform blazer, and throw her garment over the glowing spellbook.

“Are you crazy?” I yell down to her. “Don’t touch that thing!”

“The curse is already triggered,” she calls back. “Its power is finite. And we might still need the book.”

“Sweet Jesus, Mal…” I cut myself short with a frustrated headshake. My stubborn friend is already stumbling toward the passage, propelled by Jae’s urgent grip, with the wrapped book clutched to her chest.

Very clearly, no one’s safe outside the circle.

But it’s equally clear we can’t stay where we are.

From my elevation, hovering ten feet above the fray, the shit’s flying fast and furious.

Spotted hyenas from this AIB kill squad are leaping and bounding toward our circle from all directions.

Here and there, the virulent green fire of the triggered curse is incinerating a handful of shifters to ash.

Which gives me enough light to see the rest.

A chill of foreboding skitters down my spine.

There are way too many bad guys.

“Shit,” I whisper. “What happened to the rest of my warlocks?”

And Mal’s right about one thing. That curse is a spent force. No new fires are lighting.

That means if we wanna live, we’re gonna need to fight.

Before my eyes, Jae shifts into his monstrous two-legged werewolf.

His loup-garou. Muzzle lengthening and splitting around slavering teeth, black fur bristling down his chest, talons sprouting from gnarled fingers.

Fully shifted, he twists with a snarl and lunges at a hyena that’s headed straight for Mallory.

The two go down—hyena and werewolf—in a thrashing tangle of limbs and teeth and claws that rips a horrified scream from Mal.

Girl oughta be hauling ass for that passage, for real. She’s the weakest witch in the room.

A liability right now, if I’m being honest.

Well, Mallory McSnicker might be the running joke of this Academy.

But she’s definitely no coward.

Plus she clearly loves her wolf. The same way I love mine.

Grim and white-faced with resolve, she hovers just beyond the snarl and thrash of fighting shifters till she sees an opening. Then she darts into the fray and smashes her phone book-sized grimoire on the hyena’s noggin. She brings that book down like Thor’s hammer.

The beast drops without a whimper.

Jae lunges in and rips out the monster’s throat in a spray of bright arterial blood, then tips back his wolfish face in an eerie howl.

Chills race over my skin and goosebumps swarm down my arms.

But Mallory just squeezes her werewolf’s bristly shoulder—with zero fucking fear—and urges her bloodstained monster gently to his feet.

Under her tender hand, the two stumble toward the tunnel.

Now that the path is (temporarily) clear, it’s way past time for me to get Neo to safety.

“Hey, baby,” I call down to my fated mate, who’s staring in astonishment at the sight of innocent Mallory wrapped fearlessly around her big bad wolf. “You gotta vamoose. Into that tunnel. I’ll cover you.”

My bookworm gazes up at me, wide-eyed with trepidation. He’s no fighter… like, at all… even though he’s been begging us nonstop to teach him. But his alphas (including me, if I’m honest) have all been kinda dubious.

None of us want him hurt.

Now’s the exact moment I realize teaching Neo to defend himself is a common-sense good idea.

You know, assuming we make it outta this mess alive.

I swoop down to land next to my guy and grip his thick biceps, quivering with nervous tension under his Academy blazer. “It’s okay, baby. It really is. Go with Jae and Mal. I’m right behind you.”