Page 6

6

VANESSA

T he sound of glass shattering reverberated through the night mere seconds before chaos broke out. Chris and I sprinted toward the manor while Esperanza shrieked in the air above us. It was a primordial battle cry I wasn’t even sure she knew she was making.

Chris and I burst through the door, and all my worries that someone had heard Esperanza’s cries vanished. The catering team and some of the staff members barreled past us, looking for a place to hide or a way out. Good. That was fine with me. It meant fewer people would get hurt.

Esperanza dived overhead, a smoke bomb in each of her claws, and we raced after her.

“I can’t go into the main area,” I said, gasping for breath. “I don’t have a gas mask.”

“Why don’t you head to the kitchen then?” Chris said. Like me, he was out of breath. It made me feel better about my own lack of athleticism. I could ride my bike for hours with no problem, but running took a lot out of me. “You can always pretend to be staff if anyone questions you, but that way you can help get the escapees and the injured to safety. You know, cover their tracks with a bomb if you need.”

Now, that was a good idea.

“Okay, I’ll do that. You’re sure the smoke won’t affect you?”

“It shouldn’t. I may not be able to shift, but I’ve still got a lot of the perks regular shifters have. My body will metabolize it way too fast for it to have any effect on me.”

“All right, then. Stay safe.”

“You, too. Do us proud.”

I intended to. When we reached the next junction, I peeled off down a servants’ corridor that opened into the pantry connected to the kitchen. Honestly, helping innocent bystanders get out felt like the right thing to do rather than running and getting myself to safety. Leo would probably disagree with me, and I would have to deal with the consequences of breaking my own word, but that could wait until everyone was safe and sound and another brother was dead.

Priorities and all that.

As I entered the pantry, I immediately had to duck a skillet that was aiming straight for my head. I rolled forward, crossing my arms over my head for protection.

“It’s just me!”

Thankfully, no second hit came, and I recognized a girl from the catering team. I couldn’t quite recall her name, but I knew she was a college kid who had absolutely no idea what was going on.

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry. I thought you were...” Her voice broke, and she let out a sob. I scrambled to my feet and pulled her into a hug. Perhaps it was an overly familiar thing to do with a complete stranger, but she clung to me and began to weep into my shoulder. “I was serving champagne to the guests when a bunch of animals started jumping through the windows! And then some of the guests turned into animals, too, and our clients started flying!”

Flying? Oh, right. Chadwicke had used that trick. I still had a lot to learn about warlocks, but it seemed they could do anything if they could come up with a spell for it.

“Hey, it’s going to be okay. You’re away from the fight now. Let me help you get out of here. We’ll go through the back entrance.” Although I kept my tone steady, that small voice inside me screamed at me to run. To hide. That I was just a silly girl playing a game with monsters, and there was no way I could win.

Except I’d already learned what came from giving in to cowardice. As long as I was able to help, I would.

For my mother’s sake.

For my sake.

For all our sakes.

“W-w-what if one of them finds us?”

“They won’t,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel. “And if they do”—I pulled out one of the smoke bombs from my apron and brandished it in the air—“I’ll cover us. You’ll have to hold your breath for as long as you can while you run away, okay?”

“What is that? Why do you even have it?”

“Don’t worry about it. Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

I didn’t give her much of a choice. I grabbed her hand and pulled her along with me. I paused at the door to the kitchen, cracking it open an inch and peeking inside.

It looked like a bomb had gone off. Food littered the countertops and floor. The fancy setup I’d helped with that morning was in shambles. The back of house employees must have knocked it all over when they’d fled. They’d gotten away right when everything had gone down, but those who had been in the main room, like the girl I was helping, had only had a chance to run for safety rather than fully escape.

“You see that door?” I said, opening the door wider so she could see past me. “You get through that, then run diagonally left until you reach a line of trees. The path there will take you to a bridge that leads to main road. Use your cell phone to light your way if you need, but get there fast.”

“What about you?”

It was sweet that she would ask in her panicked state.

“I’ll watch your back. I need to see if there’s anyone else who needs help, too.”

“Why?”

Okay, that was a little less sweet, but everyone handled crises differently, and the girl had just had monsters scare the shit out of her.

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” I said before hauling her out of the pantry and shoving her toward the door.

Just like I’d hoped, she bolted for it without a backward glance. Good. One person down, who knew how many to go?

I knew a thing or two about blind panic and hiding in unsafe places, so I headed to the walk-in fridge. Sure enough, I found two people there—someone from the catering team and a staff member I’d seen on the grounds earlier. They were huddled under a couple of tablecloths. Kind of smart, but not smart enough.

Much like the other girl, they screamed when I entered, but quickly calmed down when they saw I was human. They didn’t argue with me when I told them to follow me and gave them the same directions I had given my first rescue. A moment later, my count was up to three.

A terrifying shriek tore through the manor, making the hair at the back of my neck stand on end.

I took off toward the sound. Was it insanely stupid? Yes, but I couldn’t ignore someone who was clearly in distress. I threw open the door that led to the last prep room before the main event area, smoke bomb already in hand.

I hadn’t been expecting anything good, but even so, I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. A woman dressed in body jewelry and a barely-there negligee clung to the door handle for dear life. Something that looked like a half-bear, half-man had its jaws clamped around the woman’s calf and was trying to yank her back into the grand hall.

For the briefest of moments, my mind short-circuited, rapidly trying to absorb every detail it could. I could see out into the ballroom, where smoke hung thick in the air, adding an otherworldly quality to the scene.

Blinking, I shook my head and whipped my arm back, pressing the button on the smoke bomb and throwing it at the bear-man’s face.

It wouldn’t put him to sleep, but it would distract him. That distraction was all I needed. I rushed him, then put all the force I could muster in to a kick. Pain coursed through my leg, but the double whammy of the smoke bomb and the kick was enough for him to let go. When smoke seeped into the small vestibule, I used that opportunity to grab the girl and get her to her feet.

“What…? I…?” She frowned as if she were drugged, and that solidified my impression that she was likely one of the magical folk we were saving. I didn’t know if she was a shifter or not, so I pushed her in front of me and into the kitchen. “Hold your breath and run! Out the back door!” I wasn’t exactly thrilled she was alone—coming out of such deep enthrallment would probably be incredibly traumatic and confusing—but maybe whoever had helped save her had gotten caught up.

Fortunately, she was coherent enough to understand my command. She ran out the door, hitting her hip against one of the counters. I was a step behind her, pausing to close the door behind me, but I was a smidge too slow. Suddenly, a hand gripped my ponytail and yanked me backward into the smoke.

Shit.

Unlike the shifter who was attacking me—I was sure he was enthralled—the smoke would affect me, and fast. I took the deepest breath I could and clamped my lips closed even as my back hit the floor with far too much force. I had no time to react before the bear shifter was on top of me, his face rapidly losing all trace of human features.

Fuck, I was in so much trouble.

I fought to get out from under him, but he was getting heavier, and heavier, and heavier. Not to mention his claws were growing longer and sharper to match his muzzle, which was sporting more and more teeth with every passing second.

Damn, so this was how I went out. At least I wouldn’t be alive long enough for Leo to lecture me. Silver linings and all that.

For all my rather dry thoughts about the whole situation, energy surged and roiled within me. I supposed it simply wasn’t in my nature to give up, because suddenly, I desperately wanted to live.

My lungs burned from the lack of oxygen, but I kept holding my breath as I reached down into my apron and grabbed another smoke bomb. As the bear opened its jaws wide to either eat me or bellow right in my ear, I shoved it right into his spread maw.

The shifter reared back, and an even thicker cloud of smoke filled the space. Scrambling to my feet, I sprinted to the door, my straining lungs screaming in protest.

As soon as I was through the door, I sucked in air, and only then did I realize I hadn’t gone through the door to the kitchen. In my fall and our tussling, I must have gotten turned around, because I was in the middle of the grand hallway that led to the ballroom. The ballroom which, from the sound of it, was a full-on battlefield now.

Whoopsie.

I needed to hide before the bear shifter recovered. Because he would recover. Sure, his tongue and gums would burn like hell for maybe five minutes, but that was about it.

I took maybe a handful of steps before a shape came crashing through the wall to my left and slamming into the opposite one. Shrieking, I jumped back, then frowned when I recognized the shape as one of the two mountain lion shifters America had connected us with. They called themselves Klandagi.

I was about to rush to his side and try to help him when a man floated casually though the hole in the wall.

I didn’t need to be a magical being to sense the strange energy crackling around his raised hand. Quickly, I thrust my hand into my apron pocket and pulled out another smoke bomb. I only had two more after this, but what was the point in saving them when someone needed my help right then and there?

“Hey, fuckwad!” I cried as I lobbed the bomb, grateful for the couple of summers I’d spent at softball camp.

The man—I was certain it was one of the brothers because he was freaking floating—turned his head to the side just in time to get beaned right in the forehead.

Yeah, that was satisfying.

It fell to the floor, and smoke started to erupt around him, but he flicked his wrist, and the next thing I knew, the smoke became a living creature, coalescing in a wild and fearsome form…

And it was coming straight for me.

There was nowhere to run. A bear shifter behind me, the chaotic and dangerous ballroom to my right, and one of the brothers who had destroyed so many lives front of me.

Well… those weren’t exactly great options, were they?

So, I did the only thing I could do. I braced myself and pulled my shirt up over my mouth, as if that would help.

The smoke hit me with a physical force, pushing me backward so hard that my feet actually skidded along the carpet. I’ve barely been able to draw in a full breath before it did, but I did my best not to breathe now.

But my best could only be my best, after all, and I was only human. My lungs were already burning when the smoke circled around me like a tornado, completely enveloping me. When it began to pick me up, I knew there was no hope for me.

Under any other circumstances, having magic lift me off the ground would have been fun, but this was most decidedly not fun . Far sooner than I would have liked to admit, my self-preservation instincts forced me to open my mouth, and I dragged in a deep breath of the smoke. It smelled surprisingly pleasant.

I thought the sedation effects would be pretty instantaneous, that my eyelids would grow heavy, and I would pass out fairly quickly, but I felt as alert as ever. I felt even more alert when the swirling vortex of smoke around me began to haul me toward my enemy.

Wood shattered behind me, and I crashed to the floor. I shook my head and rubbed my eyes clear just in time to see two wolves had burst through the wall, the larger one landing squarely on the floating man’s back, his teeth sinking into the luminescent purple shield that had suddenly appeared around the warlock’s head, and the other going straight for his crotch.

Yeowch.

Between the two of them and the mountain lion shifter who had managed to get up, they overpowered him. One minute, he was screaming curses, his hands glowing with pent-up energy that didn’t know where to go, the next, the purple shield protecting him vanished, allowing the wolf—which I now realized was Leo—to snap his jaws closed through the warlock’s skull.

I shuddered. Holy shit, it was bloody. Gory. I’d seen a lot since Leo had entered my life, but nothing could have prepared me for the rush of blood and brain matter that dripped from my lover’s mouth. My stomach lurched, and I turned away in case I really did throw up. That would be embarrassing.

“Ven!”

I turned back toward the gruesome scene to see that Leo was back in his human form. I swallowed hard. He was completely soaked with blood from his chin down to his legs, so seeing him wasn’t as comforting as it would have been.

“What are you doing here? You were supposed to get to safety.”

I grimaced. Not exactly the best timing. It would suck if I died and got chewed out by Leo. It was really supposed to be an either-or situation.

“I…” I wasn’t really sure what to say, and it turned out I didn’t need to say anything, because a surge of energy suddenly sliced through the air, knocking us all to our asses.

“But didn’t you just kill the brother?” I asked, more confused than ever. Everything had happened so suddenly, I’d hardly had time to process any of it, but I was pretty sure those were the guy’s brain staining the carpet that probably cost more than I made in a year. If not, then I was doing some serious hallucinating.

“There’s more than one of them here,” Leo hissed, already getting to his feet. “Get out of here! You promised.”

Hmm. I had, hadn’t I?

Maybe I was naturally a coward, because running seemed like a fucking good idea. Before I could so much as turn on my heel, six security guards barreled through the hole in the wall. Some were still in their uniforms while some were shifted, and maybe I was wrong, but it didn’t look like they were all enthralled.

Huh, I guessed everyone had a price. Even shifters.

Leo shifted back into his wolf form so fast that the steam he produced was physically hot. By the time it had evaporated, he’d dealt with two of the security guards, and the wolf with him had another one down.

“Leo!” I cried out. “I know that some have to die, but not all our enemies have a choice. Please, don’t kill them all unless you really have to.”

He didn’t respond—he couldn’t in his wolf form—but I could have sworn he lessened the pressure of his teeth on his opponent’s shoulder. Instead of tearing through the half-shifted man’s muscles, Leo simply shook him a few times until the shifter’s eyes rolled back and he went still

Was it impractical to have asked that in the middle of a battle? Perhaps. But there were slaves amongst the brother’s battle fodder, so if we could afford to be careful, why wouldn’t we? Besides, I was sure Leo would be able to tell when lethal force was necessary and when it wasn’t.

At least, I hoped so.

But I’d promised him I would trust him, and if there was ever a time to put that trust to the test, we were in it.

A groan sounded from down the hall, and I tore my eyes away from my lover to see the Klandagi shifter had lost her animal form and was struggling to her feet. She had an open wound on her side. It was so deep I could see her intestines. If she weren’t a shifter, she’d be dead already. If her enhanced healing was going to save her from what would have killed a human, she needed time, and time wasn’t exactly easy to come by in the middle of the battle.

It looked like I’d have to delay my escape a wee bit longer.

“I got you,” I murmured as I rushed over to her, ignoring the stinging in my eyes from the thick smoke around us. I wasn’t sure if that was my fault or the warlock’s, but I’d worry about where to pin the blame later. “I need you to take a deep breath because this is gonna sting, okay?”

The woman managed a very weak nod. If she said anything I didn’t hear it over the din of battle. I pulled a small bottle out of my apron pocket. When it became clear that patching up shifters would become a common occurrence in my life, I’d mixed an elixir I could use on the go. It wasn’t anything too special: distilled water, witch hazel, willow bark, vitamin E oil, calendula, aloe, and a little echinacea. I’d added tea tree oil to the first batch, but strangely, it had irritated Ricky’s skin instead of soothing it, and I didn’t want that to happen to anyone else.

The woman hissed as I poured half the bottle over her wound, but the graying flesh began to pink up within seconds. I found the rapid healing of shifters fascinating, but now was not the time to marvel at how her insides rearranged themselves and her skin stitched itself together. If we all lived through the battle, I’d give her some immune-boosting supplements to make sure she had no infections or contaminants inside her.

“Come on, let me help you out of here,” I said once her breathing wasn’t as shaky. “Esperanza can get you to safety once we’re outside.”

“Yeah,” she rasped, holding her arm up to me. I was impressed that she was even able to do that and quickly crouched next to her to drape it over my shoulders. “How are you still up?”

“Pardon?” I asked as I stood carefully so as not to jostle her.

“The gas,” she said simply.

Oh, right. That. A thick cloud of gas still surrounded us, and considering I’d inhaled a fair amount of it, I really should have been snoring on the floor, like all the non-shifters in the ballroom.

“Maybe the smoke bombs I threw were duds,” I said, focusing on getting out. Thankfully, the bear shifter I had barely escaped from wasn’t anywhere to be seen. That did make me worry that we were going to run into him under even more inopportune circumstances, but there wasn’t much else I could do about it.

“Just one step at a time,” I murmured under my breath. It wasn’t exactly the quickest escape, but luckily she had a pretty small frame. She was several inches shorter than me and at least fifty pounds lighter.

Once I had her outside, I didn’t have to wait long before I heard a bird cry and Esperanza landed beside me.

“I’ve got her,” Esperanza said. “Chris already got a whole chunk of the prisoners out, but he went back in and said there were more.”

More? How many magical beings had the brothers taken?

“There were two of the brothers in there,” I murmured, not quite sure what else to say.

“Holy shit, two? Do you know which ones?”

I shook my head. Technically, the only brother whose name I knew was Chadwicke, and he was dead as a doornail.

“Get her to safety, I’m going back in.”

“Okay. But be safe, now. I kind of like you,” Esperanza said.

“Ah, the approval of a teenager. Exactly what I’ve always needed in my life.” I knew sarcasm was hit or miss with some people, but she grinned at me.

“Don’t take it for granted.”

We chuckled for a few seconds, then I was running back into danger. What was that, three times in one day? It looked like it was becoming a habit.

Leo would be upset with me, but it wasn’t like I was running directly into battle. Not at all. The closest I had gotten was the hallway next to it, and that was only because the werecat and Leo had brought it to me.

I doubted Leo would agree with my logic, but I couldn’t leave Chris all alone. He’d risked his life to go back and save more of the captives, so why shouldn’t I? The two of us were a lot more likely to survive together than on our own. Besides, with one brother down, the majority of the forces would be focused on protecting the other brother—and I hoped to God those efforts would be in vain. It was a huge stroke of luck that we had the opportunity to take down a pair of the warlocks instead of just one.

When I entered the kitchen again, it was somehow even more of a wreck than it had been. I slipped down the hallway to the door at the end that led to the prisoners downstairs.

When the door burst open, I screamed in surprise. A hulking, roaring man blocked my path, and my mind started firing on all cylinders. If he was standing in the doorway, then Chris and all the other prisoners were pretty much trapped downstairs somewhere.

I needed to get him away from the door.

But how? He had at least a foot on me, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he was pushing four hundred pounds of muscle, because his fists were nearly the size of my head. Was he some sort of gorilla shifter in the middle of transforming? Did gorilla shifters even exist? I had no idea.

Doing the first thing that came to mind, I roared and charged at him. Apparently, the element of surprise added a whole bunch of bonus damage to my attack, because the giant man stumbled back into the staircase, and I managed to swing the door shut.

Normally, I would have locked the door and trusted that the behemoth would take the time to break it down, but unfortunately I’d sabotaged the lock. I glanced around frantically, trying to come up with an idea. My gaze landed on the heavy statue next to the door. I braced myself against it, then pushed with all the strength I could muster until the statue was in front of the door.

Normally, this would be an awful idea, as it would trap the prisoners and Chris with whatever that giant man was, but I had no doubt he would move my obstacle out of the way in no time. Hopefully, it would be give me enough time to get to the end of the hall.

Because I actually had a plan.

Internally chanting a whole bunch of prayers for luck, I sprinted down the hall as fast as I could, which wasn’t really all that fast. I was built for endurance, not speed. When I was about halfway down the hall, I heard thumping on the door behind me, and sure enough, I’d only barely skidded to a stop at the corner when the statue went flying into the wall, and the door half-broke off its hinges.

Well, that worked out better than expected.

The mammoth of the man stepped out, his head swiveling this way and that as if he was looking for something.

Something like me.

“Over here!” I called before booking it down a path I’d only been through once before.

I didn’t wait to see if he would follow me, mostly because I knew he would. I ran with all I had, breath rasping in my chest, until I made it to that hidden bathroom the maid had showed me earlier. Hoping I’d put enough distance between myself and the giant and that he didn’t have the same extreme sense of smell that shifters did, I opened the hidden entryway and quickly went inside, closing it behind me. I wasn’t willing to leave anything up to chance, however, so I grabbed the lid of the toilet tank and waited beside the door.

And waited.

And waited.

It seemed to take an age before I heard heavy footsteps approaching me, but instead of the thundering storm of someone chasing down their prey, the steps were slow.

I frowned in confusion. Had I lost him already? I’d expected this to be more difficult. Not that I was complaining, of course, but I was a little surprised. It seemed my battle instincts were pretty all right for being a college dropout and grocery store clerk.

Just when it felt like I might be stuck in the tiny space forever, another crash sounded from somewhere far away, and I heard the heavy footsteps take off. Could it really be so easy? Somehow, it seemed like I’d wiggled out of danger again. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought I had someone watching out for me. I hadn’t had such good luck in my entire life. In fact, I would say having bad fortune was my norm. Sort of like a cosmic punishment for causing my mother’s death.

Cautiously, I left the bathroom and made my way back to the door, but once again, I didn’t make it to my destination. Right as I rounded a corner, the entire wall exploded.

The force of it threw me back against the wall, knocking the breath out of me. Even my vision went gray. For a moment, everything was a faint echo, and all I heard was the sound of my blood rushing in my ears. My whole body throbbed with an unpleasant sensation, the blow having rattled my entire being.

It felt like it took forever for the ringing to stop and my vision to return, but when it did, I found myself looking through a sizable hole that led all the way to the ballroom.

Well, if there was such a thing as a security deposit for mansions, the brothers definitely weren’t getting that back.

Strangely, the walls didn’t look like they’d been burned or blasted through in my direction. It was like something had been ripped away from the walls and into the ballroom.

Frowning, I got to my feet and took a shaky step forward before I stopped myself. Now was not the time to investigate. It was time to get the hell out of dodge.

I should have known better, however, because just like every other instance where I had the opportunity to flee, something happened to make me stay. A coyote shifter flew through the air, a long piece of rebar protruding through their hip. The metal slammed into the post, trapping the coyote shifter.

Naturally, I had to help.

Someone needed to study my complete lack of self-preservation. I was only a human, for God’s sake. Why did I feel this incessant need to help magical beings? All I could do now was hope I survived this battle like I’d survived the one at Chadwicke’s estate. I knew I was being reckless, but I liked to think it was worth it. And it wasn’t like I was being too stupid about it… other than throwing a smoke bomb at a powerful warlock’s head. Not exactly my finest moment, but it had worked.

I raced forward toward the injured shifter, but I stopped short when I was finally close enough to see the full scope of everything going on in the ballroom.

Oh, my God .

It was so much worse than I could have imagined. There were bodies everywhere. Some of them slept peacefully, some of them were wounded, and some were very obviously dead. There was so much blood, I could smell it in the air and practically taste it on the back of my tongue.

Servants. Party guests. Shifters. Enemies. Allies. All of them mixed together in various states of consciousness. In the corners, the enthralled security fought against my friends, but those were barely skirmishes compared to what was happening in the center of the giant room.

It was the other brother. Alric. What a stupid name. But unlike his dead sibling, he wasn’t floating. No, he stood on a platform of writhing metal. It looked like the very pipes had been ripped from the floor and turned into snakes beneath his feet. When I saw the strange fissures all across what had once been polished marble, I realized that was exactly what he’d done.

Did the warlock have some sort of metal power like Magneto from the X - Men ? I didn’t know that that was even a type of magic. I had so much to learn.

Pure, undiluted terror coursed through my veins as the realization set in. Not only had the warlock quite literally ripped all the metal from the walls, but he had used it to ensnare at least a dozen of my allies around him, and he was squeezing the life out of them.

Including Leo.

This time it wasn’t a blast of magic that made my vision go fuzzy and my ears ring, but rather Leo’s choked-off howl and the sound of cracking bones.

No!

No, no, no, no, no!

“Stop it!” I screamed, rushing toward him as if that would do anything. Now I really was being stupid, but what other option did I have? Run away and let this asshole murder all my friends? Maybe I could distract Alric long enough for someone stronger to do something. I’d lost my childhood because I was a coward. I refused to lose the first true love I’d felt in years because I chose to run away. “Let go of him!”

My blood rushed furiously through my veins once more, and every step I took sounded like a clap of thunder to my ears. I wasn’t even halfway to Leo when Alric looked at me, seeming more curious than threatened.

A reasonable enough reaction, since I was an unarmed human sprinting straight toward a powerful warlock. What possible threat could I present to him?

“And who is this?” he asked.

I wasn’t quite prepared for how melodic his voice was. I didn’t bother to answer as I kept running toward Leo, but then I suddenly pitched forward as something wrapped around my ankle. I hit the floor hard as the twisting metal wrapped around my leg and yanked me down to the cracked marble. Thank God I hadn’t been pushed into one of the crevices. I didn’t even want to think what that would feel like. Perhaps it wouldn’t feel like anything at all, because I would be dead after being impaled on something sharp and pointy.

Not that I was in all that much better a situation at the moment. I was no longer being dragged backward, but rather hauled up into the air. Pain shot up my right leg as all the blood rushed to my head. I really wasn’t a fan of viewing the world from this upside-down angle.

“Looks like a human, smells like a human, but doesn’t feel like a human.” Feel like a human? What the hell did that mean? “Not a shifter, either, but also not one of our thralls.”

Perhaps it was a bit egotistical of me, but I couldn’t help but notice that, at least for a moment, Alric had stopped squeezing his multiple victims. I had no idea what he was going on about, but, hey, if it helped my companions, I was all for it.

“What was it you were saying?”

It was so strange how the man was talking to me like this was our meet-cute. His smile was charming, his tone pleasant, and there was even a cheery glint to his bright, blue eyes. It was such a strange juxtaposition that I didn’t answer him until he gave me a good hard shake that made my knee pop.

“Let them go,” I rasped, hoping I was indeed providing the perfect distraction for someone to come in from the wings and save us all. Because I had to admit, I was doing way better at holding Alric’s attention than I had expected.

“Ah, see, I thought that’s what you said, but then I was sure you had to have some compelling argument. You may have taken down my brother, but Nikolas was a spoiled baby. The years our mother spent coddling him and telling him he was her most special prince were bound to have consequences.”

Wow. I hadn’t expected him to sound so callous about his brother’s death. This family clearly had drama. But also, his reaction made me think he didn’t quite know who we were. That was probably a good thing, but maybe I could use it to further rattle him? It was a gamble, that was for sure.

“It wasn’t just your precious Nicky,” I said, my lips curling back from my teeth. “It was Chadwicke, too. And…” I reached deep into my memory for the names I’d only heard a couple of times in passing. “Kirklin and Finneus. Your whole family is falling one at a time. This is your chance to head for the hills before we take you down, too. Consider it a rare mercy.”

I didn’t know where I got my chutzpah , but Alric’s magic wavered, and the bond around my leg loosened a bit. Unfortunately, that meant I suddenly dropped a few inches, which sent a bolt of fiery pain jolting up from my ankle to my hip, but the metal bindings tightened before I could bash skull-first into the floor. As I’d hoped, that momentary lapse in power was enough for Leo and two others to burst free from their bindings and charge at Alric.

For a brief moment, I allowed myself to think Leo was going to leap onto the man and end yet another evil warlock.

I should have known better.

Alric was so much more experienced than anyone we’d fought before. He paid full attention to all of his surroundings instead of focusing on one target. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was the eldest and everyone else we’d gone up against so far had been easy mode.

That hypothesis flashed through my mind and was almost instantaneously proven true when more metal pipes burst from the floor and shot up to impale the limbs of the three shifters rushing toward him. A look of unbridled fury crossed over Alric’s handsome features.

“T-that’s impossible! We…” he trailed off, and his writhing mass of living metal carried him over to where Leo was hoisted, spiked through his left foreleg. “It’s you! But how? We cursed you!”

As if to prove his point, metal tendrils like the tentacles of an octopus reached out from the mass of material at the brother’s feet and pried Leo off the spike. I watched in horror as they wrapped around each of his limbs and began to pull in separate directions. It was like he was being drawn and quartered right in front of me.

A raw, animalistic sound tore out of my throat, but my screams were cut short when a wad of metal wrapped around my head, sliding between my teeth like a gag.

Alric turned his attention from me to Leo, squeezing and shaking him harder. I tried to protest, to beg, but all that came out of my mouth were muffled noises.

Leo’s wolf form slipped from his grasp as he turned into a battered and bleeding human. My heart lurched in my chest, but no matter how much I struggled against my bonds, I couldn’t escape.

“I don’t know how you did it, but I’m going to end this right here and now,” the warlock seethed, his pleasant expression having shifted into an unhinged snarl. “No more of this drawn-out nonsense. I’m going to rip you limb from limb and burn every piece, then use the ash to fertilize my mother’s gardens.”

Fear surged up within me as I saw the metal coils around Leo tighten, the tension already evident in his limbs. But there was something else... a roiling, undiluted, virulent rage . It was unlike anything I had ever felt before, scalding the back of my throat and coating my tongue in acid. My stomach roiled, and the blood rushing through me turned into an inferno. It felt like I’d run ten miles, but instead of being exhausted, I was pumped full of adrenaline.

And just like that, I was done.

Done with being a victim. Done with having to run around the sideline because everyone was so much stronger than me. Tired of evil people getting away with hurting so many just because they could.

And I was done watching the man I loved get hurt.

Yes, maybe I had been a coward when I was younger. Maybe me running and hiding had resulted in the death of my mother. But my origins were not my prophecy. I could change it if I really wanted to.

And I really, really wanted to.

“Let them all go,” Leo choked out. Deep, red marks marred his skin where his limbs were being stretched, and I had to swallow down the bile that crept up my throat at the sight. “It’s me you want to hurt. It’s me you want revenge against. None of them had anything to do with this.”

Pain laced every syllable in Leo’s words, and it fed the frenzy within me. I felt like I was cooking inside my own skin, something bubbling up from my gut that I couldn’t describe. It was like that wonderful, magical feeling I got when planting a seedling, except it was defensive rather than jubilant. It wasn’t quite bloodlust, but it was an adamant inner demand to protect. To finally get justice for all the terrible harm these warlocks had caused.

“You think you have any room to bargain here? No. I’m going to make them watch you die, and then I’ll kill them all one by one.” Somehow, his gaze took on an even more malicious gleam as his grin widened. “Who knows, maybe I’ll keep a few. Replenish that harem you stole, fill out the ranks of my security again.”

His words continued to fuel the fervor within me. The rage had grown so much it felt like it was pouring out my skin, spilling across the ground and spreading through the earth like actual blood from a wound. It made me burn so hot I was surprised I didn’t combust. At the same time, I felt so connected to the world around me. Like I was hearing it’s heartbeat and truly feeling its lifeblood for the first time.

“You’re disg—” Leo screamed as the metal coils pulled even tighter, and a sickening crack filled the air. That was a dislocation if I ever heard one.

He was going to kill Leo unless someone stopped him.

Suddenly, the rage within me snapped, and the tempest that had churned so fervently beneath my skin exploded out in a shockwave. At least that was how it felt. In reality, nothing happened for several long beats besides Alric continuing to torture Leo. My alpha. My lover.

“Stop!” I shrieked, though it was no use. The metal in my mouth held my tongue down, and all that came out was a garbled cry. With everything in me, I just wanted the warlock to stop .

Then the most peculiar thing happened. A rumble started and grew rapidly. It was enough of a disturbance to give that bastard of a warlock pause, and Leo slumped against the bonds at the sudden lack of tension.

Suddenly, vines erupted through the cracks in the floor.

It was as if I had copied the warlock, except my pipes were made of greenery instead of metal. Other plants joined the fray, bursting up from the floor in waves of verdant emerald.

It was a visual cacophony of green as every plant grew rapidly, some developing spiny points that oozed with a sap I had no doubt was poisonous. Bushes popped up, growing wide and high enough to provide stable footholds for those who were still dangling in the warlock’s grip. Leaves whipped this way and that as if challenging someone to box them.

And the vines … Oh, the vines.

They weren’t like the pipes at all, in that there was only a finite amount of metal things Alric could summon, whereas my vines were growing and reproducing of their own volition, rapidly climbing over everything to reach the warlock.

My vines? Why did that sound so right? It scratched a part of my brain I didn’t even know needed itching. Although, they couldn’t be my vines because I wasn’t magical. I was just a grocery store clerk who was in way over her head. And yet they were mine in every sense of the word. They were feeding off me, but not draining me. No, if anything, they were adding to me.

The vines wrapped around me and righted me, and all the blood rushed away from my head. Once I was in a more stable position, the vines slithered to the coil of metal biting into my skin. I watched in awe as the vines wound themselves throughout the pipes and pried my limbs free.

Alric’s sharp shout of alarm drew my attention back to him.

He had a barrier around him, similar to the ones his brothers had used, but a literal torrent of foliage raised around his protective bubble, like piranhas descending on a carcass. It was beautiful, yet horrifying to watch.

“Ven?” Leo’s weak voice barely registered on the periphery of my senses.

I glanced over at him. The metal bindings had stopped pulling on his joints, but he was still suspended in the air.

That wouldn’t do.

Getting a handle on the energy surging within me felt a bit like trying to hold on to a wet bar of soap that had been soaked in oil, but somehow I managed to get enough of a grip on it to get a large bush to grow under him. Vines shot up from the floor and freed him the same way they had freed me. The vines carefully set Leo down on his new leafy bed.

“Enough!”

The plants had only just let go of Leo when another shockwave burst out of Alric. It was unlike any other I had experienced. It ripped me out of my comfortable arrangement and threw me back so violently that every cell in my body braced for an impact that was going to hurt like hell . My hands automatically cradled the back of my head, because my instincts were telling me the force I was traveling at wouldn’t be survivable if I collided with something hard or pointy.

Thankfully, no such fate awaited me. I collided with something that felt like a net, and it slowed my momentum until I came to a completely safe stop.

Glancing behind me, I saw a lattice of smaller vines had caught me. I was only a foot or so in front of jagged pieces of wood that had been ripped free from the wall. Yeah, that definitely would have hurt.

Not everyone was so lucky. The plants had tried to help several, but many others had been flung to the far corners of the room or even through the windows. Leo’s limp form lay across the doorway, one of his legs hooked up over a chair like he’d had a little too much to drink and was falling over. Thankfully, he wasn’t impaled on anything.

That shimmering rage inside me redoubled. Once again, he’d been hurt after I’d almost gotten him to safety.

The plants sensed that anger, or maybe they fed off it—I couldn’t tell. My brain was so awash with adrenaline, anger, fear, and everything else going on, that it was all a mishmash of input and sensation.

But what I did know was that I was somehow communicating with the foliage—the very much alive foliage. The plants suddenly grew faster, moved faster, were faster.

The next thing I knew, all those thorny growths from before shot through the air straight at Alric. Magic burst from his hands, knocking away the thorns. He was so concentrated on everything coming at him, he forgot to think about things that could come from below .

One moment he waved his hand and caused a volley of thorns to burst into flame, the next, there was an awful screech as the metal below him split in two, and a giant flower suddenly bloomed below him.

It was magnificent, all resplendent golds and corals with yellow dots, almost like a sunrise breaking through the twilight sky. Then it snapped shut like a Venus flytrap around Alric’s lower half.

He screamed in terror. “What is happening?”

I had no idea what I was doing, yet I unequivocally knew it was me who was making everything happen. I felt connected to every single plant around me, not in a solid, definable way like a limb, but that connection was there, nonetheless.

It was almost like a phone call, albeit a phone call with hundreds of different non-sentient entities that didn’t exactly speak English.

Huh, maybe not like a phone call at all.

But I didn’t waste too much more of my mental faculties worrying about the semantics. All the vines in the room surged toward Alric, grabbing his arms and binding them tightly to his side. The vines wrapped around his chest, squeezing so hard I could hear his ribs crack, and then finally, his neck.

His face turned red as he coughed and writhed, but he couldn’t free himself. All the magic stopped, and for a moment, it was calm.

Well, the room was calm. I certainly wasn’t .

There was still the fireworks of something unnamable within me as the vines wound around the rest of Alric’s body, tightening, and tightening, and tightening.

“A drya—” He panted before devolving into a coughing fit, spittle flying from his lips. “You’re not sup?—”

He couldn’t get the words out as new vines, armed with thick, long thorns, joined the fray. Blood seeped out between the verdant green as Alric screamed in agony.

The sound was awful. Coupled with the sight and smell of blood, it sent ice through my veins. The fire inside me went out, the rage dissipated, and suddenly I was looking at a man being tortured to death.

Fuck.

Nausea swept through me, and it took all my control not to throw up. The thing was, I knew Alric was evil. If he died, we’d be saving an innumerable amount of innocent lives. But there was a difference between dispatching a dangerous foe and outright torturing them. And sure, he had done much worse things to other people and most likely deserved whatever I could do to him, but that was the difference between him and me. He wanted to hurt people.

I wanted to save people.

“Stop! That’s enough!” I called to the plants, and the energy within me completely fizzled. I half-expected them to lose all their vigor with that, no longer fueled by the storm inside of me, but they went on as if I hadn’t said anything at all. Still squeezing. Still hurting .

“I said that’s enough! Just end him!”

The plants didn’t listen to me, and when I tried to grab hold of that same energy I’d had before, I simply couldn’t find it. It was frustrating. It was horrifying. And I couldn’t help but feel like a giant hypocrite for chewing out Leo for what happened at Chadwicke’s.

What if the plants kept going after destroying Alric? I clearly didn’t have any control over them. What if in my desperate attempt to save my love, I’d created a force that would kill us all?

“I said stop! Just end it!”

Maybe it was in my own head, but it felt like a ripple of energy went through the plants. A moment later, the vines around Alric’s neck tightened even more, then jerked to the side, and a sickening crack echoed through the room.

It was finally over.

I stood there, trembling, as the reality of everything that had happened rushed through me. I didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to do, could only watch as the plants slowly reverted back to normal and disappeared into the ground. At least my fears about them turning on us turned out to be unfounded.

Still, as I looked around the carnage of the room and at Alric’s mangled, bloody corpse, I couldn’t help but wonder what I had just done.

What the hell was I?