Chapter 7
Maverick
If the vampire was right, the storm mage had used the demon attack as a distraction so he could kidnap my mate.
He might have a bond with her, but that wouldn’t save him. If the fucker hurt one hair on her beautiful head, I’d tear him to pieces.
I groaned. Every part of me ached.
The moment the paralysis enchantment wore off, I had endured several painful minutes as my body shifted back to my human form. Being frozen mid-shift could have killed a lesser shifter, but the spell the mage used wasn’t strong enough to hold me for long.
Dried blood coated Zane’s cheek, but he seemed unfazed by the head wound.
The vampire wasn’t in great shape either. He reeked of dark magic, oily and pungent.
“Where the fuck is she?” Zane grabbed the vampire by his shirt and threw him against the wall. Or tried, at least. “You said that necklace you gifted her has a tracker, so fucking use it!”
Damn it, I’d forgotten about the necklace Raven kept hidden. Thank fuck the incubus was thinking straight for once.
Rasmus shoved Zane back, straightened his shirt, and glared. “Kindly stop manhandling me, incubus, and I’ll tell you.”
The sound of a demon roaring from the street beyond the alley had me on edge. None of us were in any fit state to fight a horde of demons, and the more time we wasted here, the more danger Raven was in.
At least the mages had gone.
Zane huffed and scanned the alleyway while the vampire cocked his head to one side, red eyes glowing.
“The storm mage took her to the Vane estate,” he announced. “But I’m not sure he acted willingly.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Some kind of compulsion controlled him. Probably a dark magic coercion spell. Highly illegal, but effective once triggered. Tiberius has used them before.” From the tension in the vampire’s shoulders, he had personal experience with Tiberius Vane’s dark magic proclivities.
“Yeah, yeah. I don’t give a fuck,” Zane snapped. “He hurt my pet, so he dies. Now let’s go before we draw demons this way. I’m not in the mood for killing any more hellhounds.” The incubus grabbed my arm and blinked us away.
Sharp thorns shredded my legs when we dematerialized outside the high wall surrounding the Vane estate. I swore under my breath and thanked the goddess for shifter healing. Being naked in subzero temperatures would have hampered a non-shifter, but it had no effect on me.
The incubus smirked before I shoved him into a pile of snow.
“Focus!” I growled. “We don’t have time for your bullshit!”
He shook snow from his hair before glaring at the ten-foot wall. “Stupid fucking mage asshole. Anyone would think he was trying to keep people like me out.”
“Shut the fuck up while I figure out where the guards are.” For once in his goddess-damned life he actually listened. I closed my eyes and let my shifter senses reach out. There were at least four guards not too far away. Likely armed.
Without backup, this was a suicide mission, but if I died tonight, then at least I would die with honor.
A bear must be willing to give his life for his mate.
My father had drilled that into me from a young age. He’d once fought a pack of rabid wolves to protect my mother while they were fishing in a remote lake. Ten wolves died that day.
I half smiled. My mom had loved retelling the story, embellishing it with gory details.
Sadness washed over me before I buried my emotions. There wasn’t time to grieve, not with my mate in danger.
“I’ll handle the four guards to the left,” I told the incubus. “You and the vampire jump over the wall and head for the house while they’re distracted.”
“That plan makes no fucking sense,” Zane grumbled. “Brenda and I need to work off some of our anger, so how about I murder the guards and you and fangs hit the house?”
I fought hard to stop irritation from clouding my judgment. As an alpha bear, I wasn’t used to pushback from my inferiors. But I should have fucking known the incubus would want to do things his way. The idiot had no sense of danger.
“None of us can cross the wards,” the vampire pointed out with an eye roll, his arms folded across his chest. “Can’t you hear the hum of magic?”
Fuck, he was right. I’d been so busy trying to work out where the guards were that I’d missed it. Fuck my life. If we climbed the wall, the wards would fry our asses like BBQ chicken tenders.
“Oops, yeah, I forgot about the wards.” I threw Zane a glare, but the asshole shrugged, unrepentant. “Last time I was here, the kitsune got us in.”
In that case, we were fucked. My little mate’s familiar wasn’t here, and since none of us had a mental link with the obnoxious creature, we couldn’t call him.
“Maybe we should just throw the bear over the wall and see what happens?” Zane suggested to Rasmus, but before I could punch him, the kitsune and the merman blinked into view.
“Let’s go, my furry friend,” Zane told my mate’s familiar after some mysterious gestures back and forth. I probably should have been concerned that the idiot now thought he could talk to animals, but I had bigger problems on my plate.
“Oh, if we bump into an ugly mage with boils on his face,” Zane added, “I should probably warn you, he has mage lice. Like, a really nasty case of the little critters. So steer well clear of him unless you want to take a flea dip when we return to Starfall.”
Once again, I had no fucking clue what he was yammering on about, so I ignored him and instead followed the kitsune to a tall tree that overlooked the wall.
But before we could climb up, armed mages fired a volley of attack spells from inside the perimeter.
“Don’t kill the incubus!” one of them yelled. “The boss wants him alive.”
Zane cackled while dodging a mini-explosion. “Ooh, I must have a bounty on my head. How thrilling!” He turned to the kitsune as the creature’s eyes glowed brightly. “Are we safe now?” Kenji barked once and vanished.
I assumed that meant the wards had fallen, and unwilling to wait a moment longer, I shifted back into my bear and sprang up the wall.