Chapter 26 #3
Behind him, the hallway filled with more wolves—Arsenal, eyes wild and teeth flashing; Big Papa, his bulk blocking the entire passage; Doc, glasses gone, eyes glowing like embers.
They barely registered Adramal. He held up his hands, stepping aside.
Finn hauled me into his arms, tears in his eyes. “Sorry it took so long.”
I kissed him. “I’m just glad you’re here. I knew you’d come. Please tell me you have some kind of a weapon for me.”
“If I had my way I’d carry you, but I knew that would be too much to ask.
” He said while he reached behind his back and pulled out the compact 9mm with a double-stack mag I practice with at the ranch, and handed it to me.
“I only have two extra mags in my pocket, and that’s it so aim well, Maverick. ”
"I'll do my best cowboy. Now please get me out of here."
He grabbed my hand, and we headed for the stairs with me glued to his back. On the first landing, the ceiling above started to collapse. Chunks of rock and molten metal rained down, burning holes in the floor.
He barely flinched as he put his arm around me and pulled me along.
At the top, the world was chaos.
I’d always thought rescue would feel like freedom. Instead, it felt like a sprint through the world’s goriest funhouse, with every step a gamble and every breath a brush with dying.
I noticed Finn was holding his side as we ran. His shirt was shredded and bloody. Someone had clawed him up pretty good, but he hadn’t let go of me. Not for a second.
The staircase out of the dungeon was a choke point, and the demons made the most of it.
They were packed in so tight it was hard to see where one body ended and another began—claws, fangs, and eyes like hot coals.
Lucky for me, it was pretty much like shooting demons caught in the world’s worst cattle chute.
They hit the walls and the floor and didn’t get back up.
I was just thankful Maltraz hadn’t taken my boots off as we walked over their corpses.
Behind us, Menace and Wrecker kept the pressure on. Every time I looked back, it was a blur of teeth and claws, blood splattering the rock in arcs that would haunt my dreams if I lived long enough to have any.
Lucia was everywhere at once—sometimes behind, sometimes ahead, moving so fast she was just a smear of hair and knives. Kazimir followed, cool and collected, his gaze alone enough to snap a demon’s neck or fling it into the abyss that had opened up below the stairs.
At the top of the stairs, we broke out into a half-destroyed chamber. Bronc was in the thick of it, his wolf half out, muscles bunching under a shirt that was more blood than fabric. He was fighting three demons at once and winning, but just barely.
Finn stopped when we hit the main room at the top of the stairs.
“Stay here,” he said, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to be alone. I grabbed his hand and didn’t let go.
“I don’t think so, cowboy.
Maltraz waited at the far end of the room, in front of the only visible exit. He was less human now, more a fusion of every nightmare I’d ever had—horns curling out like antlers, eyes burning with hate, body radiating power so thick it made the air shiver.
He saw us and howled, “None of you are leaving! The girl is mine!”
He turned to Adramal and Nazek, who’d followed us up the stairs, and bellowed, “Defend your king! Now!”
Adramal looked at me, then at Finn, and just… stepped aside.
Nazek did the same. They both melted into the shadows, unwilling to die for a lost cause.
Maltraz’s face went from furious to desperate in a heartbeat.
He hurled a lance of black fire at Finn, but it fizzled out before it reached him.
I looked over and saw Aspen at the far side of the chamber, hands raised, her hair floating around her face like she was underwater.
Oscar perched on her shoulder, squeaking out a prairie dog war cry.
The next volley from Maltraz—spinning daggers made of pure magic—hit an invisible shield. Aspen caught them with her hands and spun them right back, three at once, hitting Maltraz in the chest and knocking him back a good ten feet.
He screamed, clawing at the wounds, but they didn’t bleed. Instead, blue smoke poured out, the essence of his power burning away with every breath.
Lucia was at his side in an instant, her blade at his throat.
But instead of begging, Maltraz smiled.
“You think you’ve won,” he spat. “I haven’t even begun to lose.”
He twisted out of Lucia’s grip, burning himself in the process, and tumbled backward into the darkness beyond the chamber. There was a hiss, then silence.
Kazimir stepped up, eyes still fixed on the place Maltraz had vanished. “He’ll run,” he said. “He always does.”
Finn looked at me, his face wild and beautiful and alive. “You okay?”
I nodded, tears leaking out despite everything. “You came for me,” I said, voice shaky.
He pulled me in tight against his chest, and kissed my hair. “Always,” he whispered. “Always, Maverick.”
Behind us, the world started collapsing again. Chunks of ceiling dropped, setting off cascades of debris that drove us toward the exit.
Bronc shouted, “Move! Now!” We did, the whole crew—wolves, witches, vampires, and one prairie dog—pouring into the narrow corridor that led to the surface.
It was pure chaos. Every corridor seemed to want to collapse, the one was jammed with more bodies, every corner a trap. But with the pack at my side, I felt invincible.
At the very end, where the air turned from hot and toxic to cool and real, Archon was waiting, his robes as white and perfect as ever, wings rising open slightly.
His hands were still raised.
“Go,” he said, voice echoing in my bones. “I’ll hold the breach until all are clear.”
Finn and I were the first through, then Aspen and Lucia, then the rest. I saw Adramal and Nazek trailing behind, neither looking back.
As soon as we cleared the tunnel, we rounded the corner to find a clear spot. The moon and the stars illuminated the entire area around us. I collapsed onto Finn’s lap, and for a second, I couldn’t breathe.
His hands were everywhere as though he were making sure I was real. He kept muttering, “You’re safe, you’re safe, you’re safe.”
I tried to answer, but my throat closed up and all I could do was sob.
Other people continued to stumble out, one by one, and collapsed on the surrounding rocks. Bronc slumped down, bleeding from a dozen wounds. Wrecker and Menace were both missing pieces of shirt and probably a few pints of blood.
Aspen and Big Papa staggered over together. She knelt beside me and pressed her cool hands to my face. “We did it,” she said, voice choked. “We got you out.”
Oscar hopped onto my shoulder, patted my cheek with a tiny paw, and squeaked something that sounded suspiciously like “Foolishness.”
I laughed, the sound high and broken, but real.
Finn wiped the tears from my face, his own eyes red and wet.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he said. “I thought…”
I put a finger to his lips. “You didn’t. I’m here.”
He kissed me, dirty faces, mouths, and it was everything.
For the first time in my life, I felt it—not just the mate bond, not just the adrenaline rush, but real belonging. A place. A purpose. A home.
And as the moon rose higher over the canyon, painting everything silver and perfect, I realized I wasn’t just rescued.
I was found.
After a few moments, we heard a commotion. Kazimir was gliding towards us carrying someone in his arms, with a large trail of blood pouring behind him.
It was clearly one of us who’d been injured, but who? Then I heard the voice—deep, raw, and unmistakable.
“Shit, shit, shit! They got him!”
Wrecker, his voice breaking on every word.
Kazimir carried Doc in his arms, bridal style, but there was nothing romantic about it. Doc’s leg was pumping blood with every heartbeat, a dark, arterial spray that painted the sand behind them.
The group was stunned for a second—then everyone snapped into action.
Aspen screamed, “Set him down here, right here!” and Kazimir laid Doc out on a flat boulder. His face was ghost-pale, sweat soaking his hair, glasses gone and eyes rolling in their sockets.
I saw the wound just above the back of his knee. The muscle had been torn open, and blood was pouring out in surges, pooling under him, soaking into the stone.
Finn grabbed at his own shirt, ripping it off in one motion trying to fashion it into a tourniquet, but the blood just soaked through, hot and fast.
Wrecker dropped next to Doc’s head, cupping his face. “Stay with me, man. You hear me? Stay with me.”
Doc managed a smile. “Wouldn’t dream of missing the afterparty.”
His words slurred, eyes drifting.
Aspen was already working her magic, muttering spells, hands glowing green as she tried to slow the bleeding. But it wasn’t enough. Nothing was.
“Where’s Archon?” I shouted, scanning the crowd. “He can heal—he has to—”
But Archon was still at the breach, holding it open. I saw his outline in the glow, huge and impossibly bright, arms upraised and wings spread wide, his whole body straining to keep the gate open.
“He can’t come!” Bronc yelled, voice tight. “Not until everyone’s out. It’s Dominion Law—he breaks the line, the rest are lost.”
I looked back at Doc. His pulse was fading under Finn’s fingers. His lips had turned blue.
I wanted to scream, but all I could do was stare.
“No, no, no!”
The world, which had seemed so bright and beautiful just minutes before, narrowed to the spot of blood growing larger and larger on the ground.
Aspen was crying now, her voice shaking as she whispered the spells. “Don’t you dare go. Don’t you fucking dare. We need you!”
Kazimir tried to help, but even his hands shook. “The artery is gone,” he muttered, voice flat. “He cannot last.”
Doc looked up at me, his eyes oddly clear for a second.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You made it. That’s what matters.”
And then he was gone—eyes rolling back, body going slack.
The silence that followed was the worst thing I’d ever heard.
Wrecker let out a howl, part wolf and part human, so full of grief it tore holes in the world.
Finn let go of the wound and wrapped me in his arms, but I barely felt it.
I just kept staring at Doc, at the blood, at the place where hope had been.
We’d made it out.
But not all of us would make it home.