CHAPTER FOURTEEN || REED #2
I caught it, my teeth closing around its arm. The flesh was cold and wrong, like biting into rotten meat. The taste made me want to gag.
The Algea thrashed, its free hand coming up, claws extended, aiming for my eyes.
Lindsey hit it from the side, her wolf form a blur of brown fur. The impact knocked it loose from my grip and sent the creature tumbling across the clearing.
The creature rounded on me, infuriated. It crossed the distance again in the blink of an eye, preparing to strike me with its claws.
Gunfire erupted from behind me. Three shots, rapid-fire. Two hit the Algea in the chest, the wounds burning like fire. The third went wide, lodging itself in the bark of a tree.
The Algea shrieked, clutching its chest. Then its black eyes locked onto Harris, fury burning in them.
It was going to go after him now, I realized.
Using its momentary distraction, I tore around the creature, circling behind it, and leapt again, driving it down to the ground.
This time, my jaws closed on the solid flesh of its throat, and I felt the tissue give under my teeth. Cold blood that tasted like bile filled my mouth, but I clamped on.
Bone snapped like a brittle twig under the strength of my jaws, and the monster went limp.
I’d broken its neck. Virtually no creature can survive that.
I released it, letting out a savage snarl of triumph.
Seconds later, the Algea rose off the ground, its head hanging at a strange, unnatural angle. Then it righted itself and its head snapped back into place.
No. Impossible. I’d felt its bones break.
“Hold it steady!” Daniel shouted from behind us. He was standing just outside the witches’ circle, his hands moving in complex patterns, eerie green light gathering between his palms. “I need about three more seconds!”
The Algea rounded on him. Then, without warning, it sailed forward.
Daniel’s eyes widened with horror, but he didn’t stop his spell.
Lee and Hunter closed in from opposite sides, darting into a defensive formation in front of Daniel, putting themselves bodily between the monster and the warlock.
But the paralytic venom was affecting Hunter badly. He was moving more stiffly than Lee, but he seemed just as determined to protect the warlock as his brother, even at the cost of his own life.
Lindsey circled behind the creature, her wolf form moving silently, a deadly gleam in her eyes.
I launched forward, allowing my form to shift so that I was now more beast than man but still standing upright, my shirt and pants splitting at the seams—a classical werewolf from books and movies.
I stepped in front of the Algea to buy time for Lindsey to ambush it, for the twins to pin it. And for Daniel to finish his spell.
The Algea’s gaze locked on mine and I saw the burning hatred there.
I let out a rasping snarl—my signal to the others to attack.
Lindsey, Lee, and Hunter all sprang into motion as one, a coordinated strike from three sides as I tore forward at the same time, distracting it from the front.
My claws buried into its torso and I tackled it to the ground, riding it down.
The twins grabbed either arm with their powerful jaws, pinning its claws to the ground.
Lindsey leaped forward, her teeth locking around its neck. For a moment, with it pinned down, I thought we had won.
Then Hunter suddenly collapsed onto his side with a yelp, his legs kicking once before freezing. The Algea’s venom had fully taken hold.
“No!” Daniel shouted, throwing his spell as the Algea chucked Lee off it, sending him sailing ten feet through the air.
Lindsey barely scrambled away in time to avoid being snared by Daniel’s enchantment.
A net of green light shot across the clearing and wrapped around the creature like a spider’s web.
I wasn’t sure what the spell did beyond containment, but the Algea screamed—a sound so high and sharp it felt like needles in my ears. It thrashed against the bindings, its form flickering rapidly between solid and translucent, but it wasn’t able to phase away.
“Hunter!” Daniel gasped. He ran to the wolf’s side and grabbed him around the torso, trying to drag him away from the Algea, which was still tearing at his spell. He lost his grip with an anguished grunt and staggered back.
“I’m coming!” Sarah cried as she raced forward to help him with Hunter.
“Shit,” Lacey said succinctly. She shoved her axe into Nathaniel’s hands—he was standing next to her—and moved into position to help Daniel and Sarah drag Hunter to safety.
“It’s not going to hold long!” Daniel shouted.
He was right. The vivid green threads of his spell were already starting to fray as the Algea thrashed against them. The warlock glared up at Nathaniel. “Use the axe! Cut its head off!”
Nathaniel nodded, blurring forward with the impossible speed vampires are capable of, moving to the Algea’s side. He raised the axe over his head.
That’s when I heard Harris shout.
“Sally!”
Nathaniel hesitated for a moment, his gaze flicking to Harris.
My head snapped around. My mate stood in front of the portal, frozen with indecision, staring into the Otherworld.
She was on the ground maybe twenty feet beyond the rift, her body crumpled in a heap. Her skin was deathly pale, her clothes torn and stained with blood. But her chest was moving. Shallow, labored breaths.
She was alive.
I understood what was going to happen next with nightmarish clarity. But I was helpless to stop it.
My mate started moving.
“No!” I gasped, my voice barely human anymore. “Harris, wait—”
He didn’t even slow down. He ran straight for the portal, his gun still in his hand, and dove through the rift into the Otherworld.
Horror bolted through me and I tore after him, my back to the Algea.
The Algea let out a triumphant screech—which meant Daniel’s spell had given way. It bolted forward, past me, going after Harris.
Of course it was. It needed to stop him from stealing its meal. And possibly get another in the bargain.
I fully shifted in mid-run, my paws hitting the ground hard as I launched myself forward, the last of my clothing shredded away by my shift.
I slammed into the Algea just as it reached the edge of the portal, the momentum carrying us both sideways.
We hit the ground in a tangle of fur and claws and horrible, corpse-like flesh.
The Algea twisted beneath me, impossibly flexible, and its claws found my sides, plunging into my flesh like razor blades, slicing inches deep. Pain exploded through me. Then ice burning through my veins as the paralytic venom entered my body.
The wounds were far deeper than last time, and much closer to my heart.
It wouldn’t be long until I couldn’t move.
The monster cackled, a peal of high-pitched inhuman laughter.
I went for its neck again, but my balance was already off and my muscles felt suddenly clumsy. My jaws locked around its shoulder instead, my teeth sinking deep. I tasted something bitter and foul—more bile than blood—but I held on, pinning it to the ground with every ounce of strength I had left.
My limbs were already starting to go numb. The venom was spreading fast.
With my jaws still clamped on it, my gaze flicked up to the portal. Through the shimmering tear in reality, I could see Harris.
He’d reached Sally. He crouched beside her, checking her pulse, his face tight with worry. He tucked his gun into his waistband, then scooped her up in a fireman’s carry.
He straightened with her over his shoulder, impressively strong for a human, and started back toward the rift, a determined expression on his face.
The Algea saw him too.
It let out a sound I’d never heard before, somewhere between a wail and a roar—raw and furious. It bucked beneath me, and with my muscles failing, I couldn’t hold it any longer.
The creature dug its talons deeper, then threw me off like I weighed nothing.
I sailed through the air and hit a tree hard enough to blur my vision.
When I tried to scramble upright, my legs wouldn’t respond.
The venom had me now, locking down my muscles one by one.
I could only watch, helpless, as the Algea turned toward the portal.
Harris and Sally were almost through.
Lee and Nathaniel both seemed to understand what was about to happen at the same time—they began to race for the portal.
The Algea flickered out of reality and reappeared behind Harris. Its claws came up, gleaming black in the otherworldly light.
“Harris!” I tried to scream, but it came out as a broken whimper.
Helplessly, I watched as the creature’s claws slashed across Harris’s back.
I felt it through the bond: a white-hot spike of agony that made my own pain seem like nothing.
Harris gasped and staggered, his grip on Sally nearly faltering. But he didn’t stop and he didn’t drop her.
Seconds later, he made it through the portal.
He collapsed the moment he crossed the threshold, Sally tumbling from his arms. He hit the ground face-first and didn’t move, his lower half still on the Otherworld side.
Lee shifted to human form the same moment Nathaniel reached him. They each grabbed an arm and pulled him through.
The Algea tried to follow.
“Now!” Tatiana screamed.
As one, the remaining three witches released the spell.
The portal collapsed with a sound like a crack of thunder. The rift sealed itself, the golden threads of magic unraveling and snapping back to their casters.
The Algea let out one final wail of fury—cut off mid-sound—and then it was gone, trapped on the other side of the portal.
Silence fell over the clearing.
For a moment, no one moved. We were all frozen, staring at the space where the portal had been. The air still shimmered faintly, residual magic dancing in the wake of the spell.
Then Simone moved, dropping to her knees beside Harris.
“You are not dying today,” she muttered, her gaze locked on his back. His shirt was shredded, the fabric dark with blood. Four deep gashes ran from his left shoulder blade to his right hip, the edges already turning black.
The same venom that had paralyzed me. But Harris was human. Fragile. Breakable.