Page 21 of Relics of the Wolf (Magnetic Magic #2)

21

Radomir held up a finger, and the twenty armored men stopped in the hallway a few yards back from the door.

“Touch it now, and cooperate with me,” he told me, “and perhaps I’ll let your lover walk away.”

Abrams stirred, but he didn’t object. Maybe he’d long ago written Duncan off as lost.

“I understand he’s recalcitrant and unwilling to properly bend his knee to an employer,” Radomir added.

“ Employer , right.” Duncan had shifted so that his back wasn’t to any of the security thugs, and he could monitor them while also watching me and the men behind the desk. He met my eyes briefly. His hand was still in his pocket.

The new arrivals hadn’t changed anything for him. He was still ready to fight.

I didn’t know if I was. This was starting to look suicidal. Unless one of these artifacts could do more than share a vision with me.

“All right,” I said, conceding but only to buy time to think. Reaching forward, I rested a finger on the wolf head in the center of the medallion.

It startled me by glowing much more strongly than it had in Mom’s cabin. Silver light bathed the faces of the older men and gleamed off the windows in the office. Either the medallion’s reaction to me was stronger because my potion had fully worn off now or… it knew I was in trouble.

I had no idea how to properly use an artifact or summon its magic, but I imagined it getting brighter and brighter, then lashing out with magic at the two men. They were the leaders here. If we took them down?—

The medallion did intensify its glow, the silvery light growing so bright that I had to look away. Unfortunately, it didn’t hurl great beams of power at my enemies. Radomir grunted and reached over the artifacts, grabbing my wrist.

I reacted on instinct, lunging over the desk to punch him in the face. His nose splattered under my fist, and he released me as he cursed and reeled back.

Footsteps thundered in the hallway—the security men charging toward the office.

Duncan slammed the door shut. I almost laughed at the idea of that stopping the army, but then an explosion ripped from the hallway, the floor and walls shuddering all around me. Duncan had also thrown a grenade out there.

Screams of pain as well as curses sounded, and my stomach churned at the thought of men’s body parts being blown off. Something heavy flew across the office, clipping the back of my shoulder and almost knocking me to my knees. The door. The explosion had blown it from its hinges.

As if that weren’t enough, gunfire opened up. It came both from the hall and from within the office—the two security men inside with us.

At that point, surviving was all I could think about. I dropped to my hands and knees and scrambled behind the desk for cover, hardly caring that the two older men were probably already crouched back there.

Smoke filled the air, and wood snapped. Support beams giving way?

A roar sounded near the doorway. Duncan? It sounded like his voice, but it wasn’t human. And wolves didn’t roar. What the hell?

I lifted my head, surprised Radomir and Abrams weren’t beside me behind the desk, but they’d run toward the metal safe in the corner of the room. Yes, that would provide better protection than wooden furniture.

More gunshots and roars came from the doorway, along with the sounds of cracking wood. Maybe that had nothing to do with support beams. Maybe Duncan was ripping things to pieces.

He was farther from me than Radomir and Abrams, and the smoke made it hard to see him well, but he stood on two legs, not four, as he hurled things about. Maybe he hadn’t changed. Or maybe…

The realization struck me even before the smoke cleared enough to see him clearly. He’d become the in-between, the bipedfuris. He’d warned me that he could, but I hadn’t entirely processed that.

On two sturdy legs, he was covered in salt-and-pepper fur. It wasn’t as thick a pelt as when he became a wolf, but there was no mistaking that this was Duncan.

His muscled torso had broadened, his neck had thickened, his legs and arms had grown more powerful, and he was taller, his head higher than the doorway. His face had elongated to form a fanged snout, but it wasn’t as pronounced as a wolf’s snout. It was deadly, though, and his strong jaws snapped with the same strength as those of a wolf. Instead of paws, he had furry hands, but great sharp claws extended from his fingers, and he used them to rake at his foes, tearing into those flak vests as if they were T-shirts. He was terrifying.

But, since he was attacking our enemies, I didn’t worry too much about him. Oh, I didn’t want to risk running in front of him, but I understood that he was buying me the time I needed.

I grabbed the wolf case off the desk, wincing as it zapped me, and thrust it into my jacket pocket, hoping the padding would keep its magic from repeatedly knocking me on my ass. I thought about taking some of the other artifacts, but then I would be the thief. All I wanted was— Damn, where had the medallion gone? Had it fallen off the desk when the floor shook?

On hands and knees, I padded around, wincing when a bloody man flew out a nearby window. Glass shattered, pelting me.

“He’s going to kill them all,” Radomir snapped. “Can’t you control him?”

“Maybe,” Abrams said.

I sure hoped not. The older men were still by the big safe. I wished Duncan would attack them , but at the moment, the security guards were the bigger threat.

I peered under the desk, still patting around, broken glass biting into my hand. Where was the medallion?

I tried to sense it with my werewolf instincts. It was… by the filing cabinet?

The kid. I’d forgotten about him. Whose idea had it been to let him come in here anyway?

He’d opened a window near the cabinet and looked like he was thinking of climbing out. His eyes were wide as he watched Duncan hurling people around— killing people.

The medallion dangled on its chain from the boy’s fingers. At his age, he might have taken it because he wanted its power, or he could have taken it because it was glowy and cool.

“Hey, kid,” I called softly, trying to be heard over the noise of battle but not wanting the masterminds in the other corner to notice me.

The boy looked at me with bright, curious eyes. If the battle scared him, he didn’t show it.

“Definitely a werewolf,” I muttered.

He held up the medallion as if to confirm.

“That’s my mom’s, okay? I need it back.”

He shook his head, and he opened the window farther. He was planning to climb out.

“Wait, kid.” I moved toward him, debating if I could catch him before he scrambled over the sill. I lifted a stilling hand, as if he were a wild animal I might tame. “I’ll trade for it.” I patted my pockets. They weren’t as loaded as Duncan’s had been, but I did have my stash. “Chocolate with sea salt and cacao nibs.”

I didn’t mention the part where it was dark chocolate. Kids usually sneered at its lack of sweetness.

And, judging by his puzzled pause, the boy might not have encountered cacao nibs before.

Duncan, still in his bipedal form, roared again. The booming noise echoed off the walls. He sounded like an enraged lion, and the boy looked at him with wide eyes and reached for the windowsill.

“It’s kind of like a Nestle Crunch,” I blurted, waving the bar while silently apologizing to the makers of the fine chocolate for the comparison, especially since the only similarity was the crunch.

“Oh.” Face bright, the boy focused on me again. No, on the chocolate bar. He held his hand out.

I pointed firmly at the medallion. “Trade.”

Something flew between us, smacking wetly on the wall before sliding down it. My gorge rose. A severed hand.

That disturbed the kid less than the roaring werewolf. He skittered forward, holding out the medallion and pointing at the chocolate. We made the trade, and he shimmied out the window faster than I could consider if I should grab him and try to protect him.

More guns fired, bullets slamming into the wall above me. Ducking low, I stuffed the medallion into my pocket. The case kept spitting magical sparks at me through the fabric of the other one.

Duncan roared again, and a man screamed. Not wanting to see more flying body parts, I didn’t look. Even for a female werewolf, the carnage was enough to make me queasy.

A few seconds passed before I could safely reach the window and look out to make sure the kid hadn’t fallen and broken bones. A pile of clothing lay on the pavers down there. A small wolf with a narrow build loped to the wrought-iron gate with my chocolate bar in its mouth. It— he —glanced toward the window, briefly meeting my eyes, then slipped out between the bars. He barely fit, but he escaped. Good. At least someone had.

I pushed the window open enough that Duncan and I could slip out through it, then turned to call to him. In that form, would he understand me?

“She’s getting away,” Radomir barked.

They’d slid the safe aside to reveal a hidden doorway, but they hadn’t left yet. Radomir and Abrams were looking straight at me. Radomir looked like he wanted to run over and grab me, but the gunfire hadn’t stopped yet. Nor had the roars.

The handful of remaining men seemed too dumb—or too altered by magic—to stop fighting Duncan. They either fired at him or tried to club him with makeshift weapons because they’d lost their guns. Judging by the broken and warped metal on the floor, Duncan had torn some of those guns to pieces. A few of the wiser men were running, but they had to navigate around a huge hole in the hallway floor, with the entire railing blown out into the lobby.

“She’s of no concern to my plans,” Abrams said calmly.

Radomir glanced at the desk. “She grabbed the artifacts.”

Abrams’s eyes narrowed, and he lifted something in his hand. The magical artifact I’d sensed earlier? I pushed the window open wider, planning to flee after the kid—the drop from the second story wasn’t that far, and he’d survived it—but I couldn’t leave without Duncan.

Abrams didn’t point the device at me. He pointed it at Duncan.

“No,” I blurted, lunging in his direction, certain that the item had more power than the guns that could barely slow down a werewolf in Duncan’s state.

Energy hummed in the air, crackling over my skin, and a narrow orange beam shot toward Duncan’s head. A laser?

Duncan halted his attack, and I was terrified the beam was a weapon that would blow his brains out. It struck precisely at the scar near his eye, seeming to connect to it.

His back stiffened so much that his head jerked back, but that didn’t break the link. The beam shifted, tracking his movements, staying connected.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t a laser. But it did hurt him. Duncan grabbed his forehead, his face contorting, as if a dagger had been driven into it.

Heat flushed me, and magical energy coursed through my veins. A feeling of protectiveness for Duncan called to the wolf in me, enticing it to come forth again tonight. With the change threatening, I didn’t have time to remove all my clothes. All I managed was the jacket, afraid those artifacts might disappear if I changed with it on. I tossed it away to ensure it didn’t change with me, but, in my haste, I flung it out the window. Hell.

Fur sprouted from my arms, and my bones and body transformed, the wolf overtaking me.

Radomir must have recognized the new danger, because he backed into a dark tunnel beyond the hidden door. Abrams glanced at me, but he kept his device pointed at Duncan. I crouched, intending to rush him and tear whatever it was from his grip.

Duncan lowered his furred head and stared at Abrams, as if transfixed. The beam still ran from the magical device to his scar.

The two remaining guards in the office, both injured and down, used the distraction to crawl out the door.

As I finished changing, my front paws dropping to the floor, Abrams spoke firmly to Duncan in another language, then pointed at me.

Now fully a wolf, I surged toward Abrams. Surprisingly spry for an older man, he jumped back into the tunnel and hit a switch on the wall. The safe slid back into place.

I snapped my jaws in frustration as I tried to lunge around it to stop it from covering the door, but it was heavy and inexorable and only bumped me to the side.

Frustrated, and thinking like an animal now instead of a woman, I bit at the plaster wall, some notion that I might be able to get through it coming to mind. That man had hurt Duncan. I wanted to kill him.

An ominous snarl came from behind me.

I backed up enough to turn to face Duncan, a conflagration of emotions sweeping through me. An ancient part of me recognized the bipedfuris as a superior form, a form even more powerful than that of the pure wolf. My instincts told me to lower my head before this being, to accept him as the alpha. But I recognized his magic, his aura. He was the one who’d fought and hunted by my side. He was the one I wanted to mate with.

Duncan threw his furred head back and roared, the muscles in his entire body flexing with dangerous power. Blood dripped from his wounds—from bullet holes—but the injuries did nothing to diminish him, nothing to make him less terrifying.

His eyes, the same brown hue as always but wild and animalistic—and entirely devoid of recognition—locked onto me. They weren’t the eyes of an ally, a mate.

The beam had disappeared with Abrams, but the scar on his forehead throbbed with magic and glowed orange.

His eyes dark with the promise of my death, Duncan advanced toward me with his jaws parted, his sharp fangs gleaming.