Page 45

CHAPTER FORTY

logan

F uck!

Emma’s scent had led us to a one-bedroom cabin in the woods.

A half-destroyed, empty, abandoned cabin in the woods that led nowhere.

And Emma wasn’t here. When I got my hands on the mage, I would kill him. Gleefully.

I cursed the sun peeking over the horizon, fighting the hollowing out in my chest. My toes struck a large chunk of rotting log, and I hefted it over my head, launching it across the overgrowth. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

Torbin lumbered around the cabin, nosing the underbrush, grumbling and mumbling as the bells in his fur tinkled pleasantly in direct opposition to the tension pulsing through us all. Flynn, still in his wolf form, trailed after Torbin.

When Jasper appeared, he shook his head. “Ye’re sure the lass is here? ”

“She must be.”

She’d led me here, and the smell of her filtered up, as though she were all around us. Had she been… Surely, we weren’t too late.

“Do any of you smell blood in the dirt or in the trees?” I asked.

They all shook their heads.

Relief swelled in my chest. At least I wasn’t completely out of my mind with worry, and I hadn’t missed an obvious clue.

I circled the cabin, not caring what the others were doing.

All I needed was Emma. The farther away from the cabin I searched, the less of Emma I sensed.

I peered at the broken building somewhere in the wilds of Louisiana.

I had no idea where we were. No cell phones had come with us. What good would they do?

I kicked at the leaves on the ground to uncover a bare spot and send any venomous snakes on their way.

Then I settled in the dirt, shoving my hands into the soil on either side of me.

My eyes slid closed, and the shadowed forest pressed close as I drew on the senses of my wolf.

Rustling in the distance meant raccoons or armadillos or opossums.

Emma, where are you?

A ripping worked through me, forming an opening in my mind, and I could taste the tartness of her mouth, the sensation of her tongue pressed to mine. So close…

“Logan!” Olivia shrieked. “Come on! There’s a hidden door.”

I scrambled to my feet and bolted to the cabin and through the door, knocking the front door off its frame as I burst through into the room where Olivia stood, pointing down at a wooden square at her feet.

A wrought-iron pull handle waited, partially covered by leaves and overgrowth.

The hatch had been pieced together using large wooden slats.

Dropping to my knees, I mentally called to my mate, encouraging her to hang on. The metal burned my hand when my fingers closed around it, but I didn’t let go. I couldn’t. Emma was down there. She had to be.

The others gathered behind us as I hefted the hatch to the side. A ladder led down, but I couldn’t make out the bottom. Inky darkness waited, and Emma was on the other side.

“Logan, don’t?—”

I didn’t wait. I tucked my arms in and leaped down, consequences be damned. I landed two stories down in a shallow puddle, and pain shot through my legs.

“Oof,” I grunted.

I shifted immediately to my wolf and back to human to heal whatever I’d broken. Still, my ankles ached, and the puddle soaked into the bottoms of my feet, weakening my legs. The liquid was a poison brew.

First one down, first one dead? Not today, Acheron. Not today.

A gust of wind circled me, and colors danced around me as I held tightly to the shifter magic I would need to get through this, to save her. To live beyond today.

“Don’t step in any water,” I yelled back up at the others. “The liquid is some kind of poison. No puddle jumping. Lucky for you, looks like I’ve soaked up the liquid at the bottom of the ladder.”

“Logan,” Olivia snapped. “Don’t you move another step until we get down there.”

“Unlikely,” I answered.

My vision rapidly adjusted to the limited light, provided by two torches on either side of an earthen corridor, supported by wooden beams. Water dripped from the ceiling and ran down the sides, soaking back into the ground.

The tunnel ran either direction from the ladder, like an abandoned, out-of-place mining shaft, and that was when I heard it… heard her .

Emma screamed my name, and I cried out at the sweet, sweet sound of her alive .

Images of Acheron dying in my hands filled my mind, and I scrambled away to the left, toward her, ignoring the throbbing in my lower legs. My shift should have fixed it, so it had to be a spell left behind by Acheron.

Olivia hurried down the ladder with the Jasper close behind. “Logan!”

But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.

I shifted back to my wolf, my ears swiveling one way and then the other. Acheron chanted words I couldn’t make out, and a warrior’s drum echoed through the cut through the dirt. Throughout the shaft, torches had been fixed to the walls.

Not drums. My pulse thundered through me, the beats of my heart for hers.

She screamed again, and another woman echoed her agony. Who else was down here? Who else had Acheron kidnapped?

Something sharp stabbed my tail, and I whirled to find fox Flynn biting my tail, leaning back to keep me from getting any farther down the tunnel.

Jasper stood behind him, shaking his head, with human Olivia beside him.

“Logan,” she whispered. “We can’t run in there like that. Acheron must have defenses, traps, plans inside of plans.”

As if to give proof to her caution, a rumble rolled up from the depths of the earth, and a fire burst out of the nearest torch and slammed into Jasper, igniting his beard and hair.

“Motherfecker,” he gasped, dropping to the ground and rolling back and forth in a liquid-free spot.

Olivia dropped to the ground beside him, patting out the flames. “Fucking pyro asshole!”

When the flames disappeared, Jasper climbed to his feet, his beard half-burned. “Guess ye’ll get to see me without this when we get back.”

My legs threatened to buckle and give out, but I willed every drop of strength into them. I snorted and yanked my tail out of Flynn’s mouth before turning back to my human form.

“We don’t have time for you two to keep flirting,” I at Jasper and Olivia. “Save it for the wedding.”

“Well, at least I didnae have to see my brother biting yer bare ass,” he quipped, winking at Olivia. “That’s not something I think any of us wanted. ”

“Would you take this seriously?” I barked.

“Fuck off,” Olivia muttered.

I took two large steps.

My beta caught my arm. “Not yet.”

Torbin lumbered up from the direction of the entrance we’d taken, and he turned to Olivia. “Nothing up there,” he rumbled, “but ravens are cawing, and I don’t believe we’ll be alone here for long.” He shifted back to his polar self, nearly filling the mine shaft.

Ravens. I should have ripped out the throat of the raven alpha when I had had the chance.

“It’s now or never,” I said. “We won’t be able to win against them all.”

Emma’s mind grazed my mind, and the sound of her whimpers lodged in my soul. Never again would I let her hurt like this, and Acheron wouldn’t live longer than tonight.

Emma! I’m coming!

I darted down the tunnel, stopping only when it split in two.

Which way… Which way…

A loud caw echoed in the tunnels, so piercing it made me wince, but my knees weren’t allowed to buckle, and I stayed upright. Behind me, in their animal forms, Torbin and Flynn dropped to the ground, rolling in the dirt.

Olivia pressed her hands over her ears. “They’re here! They must have been close.”

Ducking to the ground, I scooped up a long stick, ready to bash in the head of any traitorous shifter who thought they could keep me from my mate.

An unkindness of at least twenty ravens flooded the tunnels, dive-bombing our heads like bats, and I swung the stick at the birds, knocking at least three to the ground in quick succession.

A burst of wind turned Jasper into a fox, and he joined the fray. Olivia remained her human self, hunting down another piece of scrap wood and wielding it like a bo staff.

Without jumping, massive Torbin bit down, clamping his jaws around two more and crunching them before tossing them aside.

Marcus disappeared into the shadows, his yellow eyes glowing as he hurried down the corridor.

Jasper and Flynn launched into the air, plucking the birds out of the air one by one.

“Get back here, you asshole,” I bellowed.

He didn’t turn back, continuing on toward the chanting noise. His panther scream echoed up and down the corridor.

“Where the hell is he going?” Olivia yelled.

“Looking.” Swing. Miss. “For.” Swing. Miss. “His. Sister.” Swing. Impact. “If I had a guess.”

Another rumble shook the tunnel, nearly knocking me to the ground, my weakened legs barely able to keep me balanced. My allies braced as another rush of ravens poured into the mine. This time, half of them flew past us, shooting down the same tunnel Marcus had taken.

The Emma compass in my brain dragged me toward the left corridor, her scent lingering in the air, and I sprinted, bursting into the final stretch of tunnel.

They were inside a large bunker that Acheron must have been building for a long time.

The abandoned mine shafts had probably never been abandoned at all.

When I burst into the concrete room, I stopped short, and Emma’s name died in my throat. My mate was strapped to a table, weeping.

“I’ll kill you!”

Dozens of ravens circled Acheron, disappearing one by one as the evil glint in his eye grew brighter and brighter. He raised his arms, consuming the shifters as quickly as he could.

Emma’s head swiveled toward me, and her gaze landed on me. “Logan! Oh, god, Logan!” She tugged on the chains that fastened her to the table.

Marcus was nowhere in sight.

Mentally, I reached for Emma, pushing every ounce of strength I had left toward her. “Shift!”

“I’m trying!” she screamed, shaking so hard a cup turned over, spilling a dark red brew over the edge of the table and down the legs. “He’s in my head!”

Olivia leaped into the room and dropped her hand onto my shoulder, and I delved her, dragging her magic into me to share with Emma too. Torbin stopped beside me and pressed his bear nose to my side.

“Use our powers, Emma!” I roared, gritting my teeth to keep from shattering into a million pieces as more and more power funneled through me.

Emma’s eyes widened. Her eyebrows furrowed as she focused on us. A moment later, a tornado exploded in the room, swirling around us, scattering color everywhere, buffeting her hair. She yanked hard on the cuffs, breaking the chains.

She leaped onto the table, shifting to a Kodiak bear in a blink, splintering the table beneath her. Her roar echoed in the chamber, and she charged toward Acheron as the last raven disappeared into him.

Acheron jumped to the side but couldn’t avoid her completely, and she knocked him to the side. He climbed to his feet and pressed a bloody palm toward her.

She changed to a cheetah and leaped onto his back, a cobra and bit his foot, and a black rhino, charging into him and easily tossing Acheron into the farthest wall. The mage landed with a crunch, but he climbed to his feet once more.

He charged toward the metal tube beside the table where he’d bound Emma.

Behind us, a panther’s scream cut through the tumult, and Marcus leaped onto Torbin’s back. I hissed as I prepared to attack the traitor, but Olivia squeezed my shoulder.

“He’s on our side,” she howled.

Marcus’s yellow eyes burned brightly as he added his magic to ours.

Kill him. Kill him .

Our thoughts pulsed together, through me, and into Emma.

“Now, Emma!” I yelled, barely able to maintain the funnel the amount of magic moving through me. I groaned, gritting my teeth, and heat moved through my bones .

Flynn and Jasper darted into the bunker, trailing a horde of Acheron’s shifters behind them. They yapped, the cacophony of panic clear.

“We’re running out of time!” I yelled.

Emma crouched down, pressing her hands to the floor.

Acheron whirled toward me with his hand outstretched, his face a mirror of my own. “No!”

Balefire slammed into my chest, and I dropped to my knees as all the others exploded backward in the bunker, the link between us now broken.

I’m sorry, Emma. I’m not strong enough.