Chapter 13
Chapter thirteen
Mai
He was magnificent. Terrifying. Mine.
Relief crashed through me so hard I nearly sobbed. My wolf surged up, desperate for his scent—sandalwood and pine, sharp and clean against the sour stink of our enemies. Glenn and Sian flinched back instinctively. They saw a monster. I saw my mate.
Derek ghosted in behind Ryan, and Sofia flowed after him, neither of them hesitating as they spread out to flank Ryan. Esme slipped through the doorway like smoke, her hands already glowing with a strange, otherworldly light I’d seen before. Jem was right beside her.
His eyes found mine. “Mai!”
“Protect Esme! I got this.”
Then Ryan crashed into Glenn—pure mass and momentum. The impact shook the whole room, the dresser toppling with a bang. Glenn swung blind and fast—one blow caught Ryan’s jaw. He didn’t even register it. He drove a brutal shot into Glenn’s ribs, and I heard the bones breaking.
Vera raised her hands, eyes intent on Ryan. Sparks crackled purple. But Esme darted forward, getting in her line of sight.
“Your magic is twisted,” Esme whispered, cocking her head. “All shadows and hunger and dark sticky stuff. Let me show you what true magic looks like.”
Light spilled from Esme’s palms, and the air filled with drifting motes, gold as pollen in a beam. It hit Vera full-on. The half-witch reeled, her face warping with shock.
“Impossible,” Vera breathed.
Jem moved to flank Esme, but she waved him back, her grin sharp. “Not really. I just don’t need to be tippy-toe careful anymore.”
Esme slapped her palm against the bedroom wall. Wallpaper blistered and rippled. The room changed smell—crushed ivy, damp loam, sap. Then the wall bulged outward as thick green vines burst through the plaster. They grew with impossible speed, twisting and coiling toward Vera.
“What—?” Vera threw her hands up, purple magic zipping toward the vines, leaves blackening where they struck, but new growth kept surging—roots probing under the baseboard, tendrils nosing from the ceiling crack, a braid tearing out of the toppled dresser’s back.
The floorboards groaned as something thick rooted beneath them.
A cable-thick coil looped around Vera’s waist and cinched. Bark scraped, sap beaded. It wrenched her back flat to the wall and held her in place.
Behind them, Derek and Sofia moved as one toward Jonas.
“He’s mine,” Derek said.
“Ours,” Sofia corrected with a grin, twirling her knives.
Jonas lunged to split them. Sofia blurred past his guard as Derek stepped in and hooked Jonas’s ankle from inside, tipping his weight sideways. Her blade skimmed his knuckles, but Jonas twisted, caught Sofia’s wrist, and wrenched until the knife clattered on the floor. He smirked.
“Cute,” he said.
“Keep it,” Sofia breathed—and drove her head forward. Her skull smashed into his nose. Jonas reeled, blood streaming down his face.
“You’re slow,” she said, dancing out of reach. “Want pointers?”
He roared and charged her. Derek shouldered through him mid-stride, a brutal check that slammed Jonas into the wall hard enough to shake dust from the frame.
“We’ve waited centuries for this,” Glenn spat, blood dripping down his elbow. “You think you can keep them from us? You’re just a stopgap, Shaw. Just another body to burn through. These pups will never be yours. “
Ryan’s answering growl shook the air. “Watch me keep them. Watch me end you.”
Pain tore through me—low, deep, and then everywhere. It ran a line of fire up my spine, locked my thighs, cinched my belly until breath wouldn’t come. I folded, one hand at my lower back, the other bracing my stomach, sweat stinging my eyes.
It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
Worse than being beaten by Seth, worse than any fight I’d survived.
This was primal, unstoppable, my body doing something I had no control over.
For a terrifying moment, I felt completely helpless, reduced to nothing but burning sensation and the desperate need to survive it.
Through the haze, movement flickered in the window’s black-mirror pane—a white flash. Gremlin. She was fighting something, someone, claws flashing, her tail puffed twice her size.
Come on, Mai. Breathe. Count. One… two… three…
Slowly, too slowly, the band of pain began to ebb. The fire in my spine cooled to a dull ache, my muscles unclenched, and I could straighten up again. My shirt was soaked with sweat, my hands trembling, but I could think clearly again.
That’s when I saw Sian grabbing Gremlin by the neck and hurling her across the room. My heart lurched. But Gremlin tumbled, skidded, then came up hissing, one ear bleeding, tail bottle-brushed, ready to go again.
Sian spun to me, scratches across her face and arms, her hair in disarray. “I’m sorry, Mai. Truly. I would do the same in your place. But there is nothing you can do. We will take them.”
Time slowed. I saw Derek pivot toward me. I felt Ryan’s alarm spike through our bond. Somewhere, Sofia shouted my name.
But none of them were close enough.
Sian was three feet away. Two feet. One.
Another contraction was coming; I could feel my body respond. But something deeper and fiercer than any physical sensation surged through me—pure, maternal rage. These were my pups. My children. And no one, not some cursed centuries-old bitch, not anyone, was going to take them.
I steadied my trembling legs and put everything I had—my Alpha strength, my fury at anyone who dared threaten my children, and every bit of protective instinct I possessed—into my punch.
My fist connected with Sian’s face. Her head snapped back, her body following, and she collapsed like a marionette with cut strings.
For a single beat, there was silence. Even the night outside seemed to hold its breath. Then the room exhaled—Vera’s shriek muffled by Esme’s vines now wrapping round her entire body, Glenn roaring from the floor, cut short when Ryan stomped on him.
The next contraction hit like a hammer. I bent double, clutching my belly, vision tunneling to sparks.
“Ryan!” My voice was raw, desperate.
His head snapped to me, eyes blazing.
“The babies,” I gasped, sweat burning my eyes. “They’re coming. Now.”