Page 45 of Hunted (Love and Revenge #5)

Dusek

T he first explosion was nothing more than a distant sort of thump, and a ping against the wards. But the second round obliterated the wards and shook the building with a deafening roar.

I was in the lower level in the hallway, drifting toward the elevator to take my turn on guard duty monitoring cameras and wards, when the tremor hit.

Pipes groaned. Drywall and stone cracked, sending a shower of dust raining down on my head.

Something deeper than noise slid beneath my skin, a whisper in the walls that didn’t belong. Foreign magic.

I sensed the wards flare again, then go ominously dead.

Whoever our attackers were, they had somehow managed to quickly and efficiently overcome Sanka’s spellwork—incredibly strong sorcerer magic, which was bolstered by the magic of all the rest of the court.

That explosion seemed to come from the upper level, but it rocked the subterranean level too.

.. which meant it was big. I had to assume that our attackers had made it inside.

I only froze for a second before I retook shadow form and turned to race toward the stairs. The elevator was too risky. If it was still working, it could fail at any moment, becoming a death trap.

The court was already scrambling. Cicely ducked low and sprinted toward the west hallway, hands flying in urgent sign language toward Sanka.

I made out his message through the dust as another explosion rocked the place, closer this time—the fuckers were blasting through to the lower levels, too.

Not just from above, but from somewhere closer at hand as well.

“Pets. Safe.” Cicely had signed to Sanka. Good. If he was fussing over the animals, that must mean Ruya was already safe. I hoped.

“Ruya?” I growled, taking human form to grab his upper arm and spin him to face me before he could race off.

“Dragon,” he signed quickly.

She was with Robin. That was some comfort. Our princess could handle nearly any attack. And she’d level the entire city to keep Ruya safe.

The scent of blood struck next—burning, fresh, wrong .

It coiled through the air, greasy like oil on water.

Some kind of blood magic, more foul than any I’d encountered.

The vampires then? But I dismissed the thought as soon as it came.

I could sense strangers nearby, magic users, but lacking the death-pall that most vampires carried in their auras.

I pulled the shadows tight around me and reached for magic so old it didn’t remember language.

The hallway filled with terror, the air warping with my power.

I let it unfurl, but carefully. I couldn’t fully let loose with allies nearby.

I didn’t want to send court members scampering toward our attackers to get away from me.

Two robed figures rounded the corner, a man and a woman.

The symbol of the triple moon was proudly displayed on their chests.

I was right, then. Not vampires, but witches.

Cultists. The people who had stolen Ruya from her parents, killed her father, enslaved her mother, blinded her and held her hostage while they made her use her magic for their political games.

My lips stretched in a sick parody of a smile, and I let them come closer.

I didn’t know why they were intent on attacking us now, but I was happy to put them down.

As they approached, I saw that something was different about these witches. Their eyes were all wrong—pupilless, glowing from the inside out with some sick mockery of divine light. They raised their hands. Began to chant. I didn’t let them finish.

Whispers crawled from my mouth like insects—primordial syllables meant to be buried, not spoken aloud.

I felt my form changing, growing taller and more skeletal, half-changing into the face of a nightmare.

One cultist dropped to the ground with a wet, gurgling thud as his heart literally exploded from fear.

The other shrieked as her aura fractured.

Not death, exactly. Something worse. An insanity that would make her long for death.

From behind me, Vlad let out a warbled screech, pulling me back from my rage. He divebombed down the hall, his leathery wings blurred with speed. Then he vanished through a branch of the hallway that led deeper into the lower level—toward the entrance to the tunnels.

Good. He was heading toward the fallback route.

The lower levels of the private sanctuary were meant to be impenetrable, our place to dig in if the theater was attacked.

An attack on the theater above was one thing, but if the cult had managed to breech the lower levels, then we were better off abandoning The Fox all together.

Robin would be furious. She had only just finished restoring the damaged areas in the lobby from the last time we were attacked.

I turned and kept my attention focused on the hallway in front of me.

More intruders poured in now. The air stank of rot and twisted magic.

All this just to take back one reluctant slave?

It seemed over the top. But whatever their purpose here, the Order of the Triple Moon was throwing everything they had at us.

I squared off and let my presence stretch to block the hallway, defending the route to the tunnels behind me so the others could make their way to safety.

I could sense Sanka casing spells somewhere above me on the upper level of the theater.

A burst of cold and ice shards told me Yukio was around the corner in the next hall over, protecting that route as well.

The cultists must have blown out the entire west side of the theater and its foundation.

I didn’t like the implications. The crazy witches had somehow amassed a fuckton of power.

Dread settled in my belly at the thought of the dark things they must have done.

But I had other things to focus on right now.

Pushing my aura outward, I crippled cultists with fear.

The ones who managed to shield against my bubak power fell to the knives in my hands.

Never fight with magic alone—it was a basic lesson.

Whoever trained these assholes had done a terrible job of it.

Robin appeared at the far end of the hall as I yanked my blade out of my most recent opponent’s throat.

Her hair was a mess, one side of her face was splattered with blood, and she was covered in dust and debris.

Her aura shimmered with searing heat, every step measured and lethal.

I glanced down and saw the floor tiles crack wherever her feet landed, steam rising from the surface.

Fire dripped from her clawed fingertips and her eyes were slit-pupiled and glowing.

But her protective rage was doing its job—Ruya strode quickly behind her, one hand clutching the back of Robin’s blouse, not nearly as dirty and roughed up as Robin was.

Clearly, our alpha had taken the brunt of whatever had happened upstairs. Thank the every deity that existed.

Martina followed at Ruya’s heels, bruised and blood-flecked, but upright and brandishing her fangs and a knife in warning.

The curse breaker was awkwardly draped over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Sanka rushed in behind her, his back to Martina’s, one palm glowing with bright red magic, the other gripping a short blade laced with sigils.

Sadavir approached from the adjoining hallway in naga form, moving like a ripple of sinuous steel.

Ruya’s true mate was impressive in his usual form.

But as a naga, he was even taller, broader.

The coils of his long, powerful tail were so thick they took up the breadth of the hallway.

His long snake fangs dripped with glistening venom and the blood drops across his chin said he’d put already put those fangs to good use.

Yukio trailed behind, eyes narrowed, casting illusions—fae glamor that made it look like the hallway had collapsed into impassable rubble.

I locked eyes with my furious alpha.

“West wall,” Robin snapped, confirming my assessment. “Push them back and take down the ceilings so they can’t find the tunnel entrance. Hold the line until Ruya and the betas are out. Her dragon eyes flicked over us all in a hurried headcount. “Fuck. One short! We need to find Josh.”

Sadavir hissed and surged forward, but Robin held up a hand.

“Stay with your mate! The vampire is harder to kill than our omega.” Robin snapped.

Then she turned her back on him and ignored him, whipping her head toward Sanka.

“Sorcerer. I want them to think we were crushed here when the ceilings fell in.” Her blazing eyes lit on me. “Bubak, find our vampire.”

I peeled off as Robin continued to issue rapid-fire orders to the court, shadows wrapped around me like a second skin. I needed to find the missing beta, or we’d all die here waiting for him to show up.

In the western wing, I found utter ruin.

A spelled antique tapestry lay scorched on the floor, symbols blistered away.

Bookshelves had been toppled, and smoldering pages were strewn everywhere.

One of Ruya’s tea sets—her favorite—lay shattered beneath a falling beam.

For some reason, the sight of the scattered pieces of gold-painted porcelain made my blood boil.

She was supposed to be safe here. We all were. This was our sanctuary.

A cultist lunged from the hole in the wall behind the debris, his blade aimed for my gut.

I didn’t move.

My shadow moved for me. It rose in an unnatural arc, took shape around the man, and closed like a fist. He screamed once—an echo swallowed in velvet dark. I let him drop, his eyes glazed and catatonic with horror, and kept moving.