Page 75 of Jagged Souls

My little sister is going to have a baby when I lost mine…

I press one hand to my stomach, the other to my mouth as a little sob escapes me.

Maddox opens his mouth to say something, but I shake my head, so he turns towards the cage door. He’s about to unlock it and step out when a dozen more werewolves run in.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he groans. “Leno’s never going to let me live this down if he has to rescue me out of a fucking cage.”

Nineteen

HER

“No…” I whisper, none of the humor in Maddox’s tone making it into mine. I don’t give a shit about the wolves. They’re not the ones who raped me, and the cage was made to withstand the monsters in the Shadow Domain. As long as we stand in the middle of it, they can’t touch us. Varius and Dayne are coming for me, and they’ll slaughter every last one of these fuckers if they need to.

But it isn’t just werewolves that have arrived.

It’s Eduardo.

The witch who teleported me here.

“Keep looking at her,” my brother-in-law says as he steps in front of me, blocking me with his body, misinterpreting why I’m afraid, “and I’ll turn your head into a bowling ball.”

Eduardo’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t stop. We’re stuck in a cage. I don’t have any magic, and Maddox is the baby of the family, with a lot left to learn. If he tries to hit him with a spell, the fucker will just block it. The summoning circle has been destroyed, meaning the demons can’t come back, and over a dozen more guards have just entered the gym and taken up guard by the door. If anyone comes in, they’re fucked.

“You have to get out of here,” I urge as I grab Maddox’s arm. “He’s a teleporter.”

Antonio wants me alive for breeding, but they’ll just kill Varius’ brother on arrival – if he’s lucky. Thoughts of him being tortured in medical experiments, of being cut open and stitched back together in an attempt to turn him into a chimera makes my fingers tighten on his arm. “Now.”

“No.”

“Maddox.”

“I’m not leaving you, sis.”

I want to both hug him and hit him. If I could shove him out of the cage, I would, but the werewolves would just tear him into pieces if he’s not in his shadow form.

“Find Varius and lead him here,” I say. But we both know he won’t make it in time. Varius can feel me now that his curse is broken. He knows exactly where I am, and it’s been about ten minutes since the explosion. If he could be here right now, he would be. Maddox making him panic will only distract him, but it’s my only chance of convincing his baby brother to leave.

“He won’t make –” Maddox starts, only to be cut off as the room breaks out into utter chaos. The werewolves howl and snarl in pain as they start sinking into the floor, like a row of dominos being knocked over, starting at the door and spreading out. Sau’s shadow races across the floor, and she has opened herself up to the monsters within.

“Yes!” Maddox shouts, but I’m not feeling his same flare of hope.

Eduardo throws up a ward around all three of us. He’s a strong witch, and although Sau might be stronger, it’ll take her time to break through his defenses. Time where he can complete the teleportation spell and take us all away from here.

Shifting into her human form so she can use the rest of her magic, but keeping the shadows spreading out at her feet to force the werewolves to still give her space, Sau starts to bring out her monsters. They don’t pour free like they did at the house though. Only three of them step out: a giant spider-like thing with two heads and crab claws, a dog with three heads full of shark-like teeth, and a large flying beast that has the upper body of a bat, the bottom half of a serpent, and ‘hair’ made up of wriggling snakes.

As terrifying as they look, they don’t seem capable of taking on seven wolves each.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, my panic increasing. If Sau is already struggling, what’s going to happen when Antonio finally rocks up?

“Nothing,” he says as he launches a series of missiles at Eduardo. The red streaks of magic pass through the bars of the cage, aiming straight for the fucker’s head. They explode against a shimmering blue shield. Eduardo didn’t even look up as he cast it, his attention on the teleportation spell he’s drawing on the floor. With two fingers, he pours his magic into two thick black lines as he circles the cage.

Fuck.

It’s only going to take him one or two minutes to get us out of here. I look at Sau as she starts hammering her magic at the ward, but there’s a paleness to her skin, too much sweat on her brow. She’s used a lot of magic recently, and even if she wasn’t cursed, the amount she’s used would be dangerous for anyone. With every spell, there’s a backlash of magic, and if we use too much too soon, the buildup will kill us.

Blood trickles out of her nose, then starts to gush, and I know that even if she makes it through the ward on time, she isn’t going to be able to kill him. Maddox’s missiles aren’t doing shit. There’s too much of a power difference between them.

A werewolf comes at her from the side, having slipped past her monsters, but she blasts it in half without ever breaking the rhythm of her attacks on the ward. Her magic is already getting hard for her to control. More blood gushes down her face, coming out of her ears now, her eyes. She starts to sway, but she doesn’t stop throwing energy at the ward, her magic such a dark-red that it looks black.