Page 88 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

I levelled a look on her that said it was far worse than not good. I doubted our situation could get much worse.

The piles of bones behind the lich began twitching and moving, reforming into skeletons.

Or perhaps it could.

I shoved to my feet and pushed Saphira behind me as several of the skeletons launched at us, sweeping my hand out before us to form my own barrier. They slammed into it, bones scattering across the sand, each impact weakening the barrier. It would not hold long.

I handed Saphira the pack and she placed An’sidwain into it and then readied her dagger, her eyes darting over the skeletons as they reformed, their bones tumbling back together.

“Take the heart.” I pressed my hand to the barrier the lich had cast, sensing it, studying it, picking it apart as I kept my eyes on the skeletons. “When I break this spell, you run.”

She locked up tight. “No. What about you? You’re coming with me. You’re coming with me, Kael.”

I glanced over my shoulder at her and she growled that demanding little growl of hers that called me a bastard and ordered me to do what she wanted.

“I’m not leaving without you,” she snapped.

It was my turn to growl at her. “You are leaving. You run and you do not look back.”

The skeletons slammed into the barrier before me again, and it fractured, crumbling to pieces. One made it through, launching at me, and Saphira swung the pack and struck it in the chest, the blow so fierce it broke apart.

And then she was yanking off her corset and kicking off her boots.

“What in the Great Mother’s name are you doing?” I snapped at her as she stripped.

“I’m faster as a wolf.” She loosened her pants and pulled her blouse over her head, flashing her breasts, and then she was a wolf hurtling towards the skeletons, a snarling blur of white fur as she tackled them to the ground and snapped their bones with her teeth.

Those she broke did not get back up again.

I followed her lead, slicing through the skeletons with my blade, making sure to cut clean through their bones to incapacitate them.

Several of the skeletons jumbled together, forming a new beast from the whole bones, a gnarled monster that lumbered after Saphira as she leaped between the humanoid skeletons.

Blue fire blazed in their palms and grew, stretching long before them into swords or spears.

They swung at Saphira and she kicked left, narrowly avoiding being struck.

Orbs of cerulean fire shot at her, keeping her on her toes, and I gritted my teeth and raised my hand, pulling up a wall of shadows to block them for her as she skirted around the edge of the skeletons, coming back towards me.

Too fast.

She was going too fast.

“Saphira!” A grunt burst from my lips as I tried to keep up with her as she moved back to me, as I pulled my limited magic to me and pushed through the pain.

She yelped as she reached the end of the shadows before I could finish summoning them to shield her and an orb struck her hindquarters, taking them out from under her. The scent of singed fur seared my nostrils and her gasping pants sounded in my ears.

A growl of rage tore from my lips as I turned on the lich.

The fiend raised his fiery blue staff and orbs shot from it, forming a ring around the crystal at the tip of it.

And they all shot towards Saphira, a blazing shower of shooting stars that had me hurling myself into their path to shield her, agony ripping through me as I summoned my magic and cast the spell before me.

The air there hardened, forming a barrier between her and the spell, and bright light exploded across my eyes as the stars hit it.

Saphira came around behind me, snarling as she sailed through the air and tackled a skeleton that had been coming at me in my blind spot.

She savaged it, breaking bones and scattering them across the sand.

When it was no longer a threat to me, she whined and licked her side, cleaning the darkened fur and burned skin.

Darkness overcame me.

I surrendered to it, letting it stain my fingertips black and sharpen my fangs, and drench the world in crimson.

On a vicious snarl, I tore through the air, sweeping around behind the lich who had hurt my little wolf, nothing more than mist and stars.

The lich moved with me, trying to keep me in his sight, but I was faster, and grinned as I materialised behind him, shoving my inch-long claws into his back.

Jagged vines tore at my leather armour as I plunged my hand deep into his robe to grip rotten flesh and bone, and the unearthly howl that tore from his teeth as I pulled sent satisfaction rolling down my spine.

He turned, bringing the staff around with him, and slammed the bottom of the shaft into the side of my head. Pain splintered across my skull but I did not relinquish my hold.

I pulled harder, ripping at his putrid organs.

Saphira snarled and I looked at her, freezing right down to my marrow.

Skeletons surrounded her, at least a dozen of them, forming a ring with their fiery blue swords, and she snapped at them, trying to drive them back, but they continued to close in on her.

Saphira.

I became shadow, a violent seething mass of it that shot towards the skeletons and wrenched them apart using tendrils of night, and then my bare hands as I materialised.

I shattered the femur bone of one, and shoved it into the eye socket of the one beside it, before pulling it out and bringing it around in a fast arc to knock the head off a third.

Saphira rallied, attacking two more at the same time, nimbly leaping between them to snap their bones.

And then she screamed.

Screamed so loud that my heart stopped.

A blue ghostly blade protruded from her right shoulder, holding her high in the air even as she shifted back, returning to her human form.

Blood spilled down her chest.

The lich hurled her away from him, sending her tumbling across the sand, leaving a trail of blood in her wake.

No.

I launched at the male, all the rage I felt condensing to overwhelm me, to shadow my vision and my mind, and roared as I tore at him, as I weathered his blows and those of his army, uncaring of my own fate.

All that mattered was vengeance. Bloody vengeance.

The darkness caged me in my own body as I ripped at the lich, as I funnelled it all into him, pouring shadows around us to steal the light as the Wastes shook, trembling so fiercely it rattled my bones as they ached, as they hummed with power I could not contain.

And then there were soft hands on my shoulders.

Warm hands.

Trying to pull me off the male.

Trying to stop me from serving him justice, from sending him to his maker, and ensuring he never returned again.

“Kael!”

My name on her lips, yelled so desperately, so fearfully, shattered the hold the darkness had on me and light poured in, pooling within me, so bright it blinded me.

“It’s over. It’s over,” she chanted, her hands gripping my shoulders, holding me tightly, as if she feared I might disappear.

I stared at my hands, more shadow than flesh and bone, talons tipped with razor sharp claws.

And perhaps she had a reason to hold me so tightly to keep me with her.

The shadows slowly shrank, transforming back into my hands, into black-tipped fingers that were bloodied and aching.

Beyond them, the lich was little more than shreds of cloth and scattered pieces of bone.

“It’s over,” she whispered.

I turned and pulled her into my arms, and her gasp ripped at me, a reminder of what had happened to her that threatened to unleash the darkness again. I eased her away from me, gaze falling to her bleeding shoulder.

I had almost lost her. I had been a fool to bring her here. I had almost lost her.

I lifted her in my arms, shadows trailing in my wake as I strode towards the pack and her clothes, the ground still trembling beneath my boots with each step I took. She leaned into me, her gaze on my face, and even when I set her down on the sand, she did not look away from me.

She took the vials I offered, one to heal her and the other to rid her of any necrotic effects, in case the spell that had speared her had been of that kind.

And I carefully dressed her as she drank the elixirs, my hands shaking as I covered her dirty skin, as I replayed that moment she had been speared over and over again.

I had failed to protect her.

I had failed to protect her and she had almost been taken from me.

Killed .

My breaths shortened as my chest squeezed and darkness encroached at the corners of my vision.

“Kael,” she breathed, banishing that darkness and drawing me back to her. “Are those your men?”

I looked at her face, and then over my shoulder, my eyes widening as I spotted what she had.

A wall of men marching towards us through the fog.

Vengeance.

This was the reason Neve had sent me to the Wastes, had seen me here and had believed it vital. My vengeance marched towards me, little more than a scouting party from the Summer Court, but they were heading towards my lands, and should they follow me there, I would be justified in my retaliation.

And decimation of their court.

But as their forms grew clearer, my vengeance slipped through my claws.

Not Summer Court.

They wore the deep blue and silver of the Evening Star Court, whose lands extended north of the Winter Court, separated from it by a broad channel of water.

I looked from the seelie to Saphira, torn between fighting them and retreating. The darkness in me pushed to fight, to eradicate the seelie presence from the unseelie lands, but the strategist in me demanded I fall back.

As did my heart.

I gathered Saphira to me and placed the pack on her lap, and teleported with her, as far from the seelie as I could manage.

And then I teleported again, sacrificing my strength.

My focus on Falkyr.

And getting Saphira as far from danger as I could.