Chapter 31 Vanessa #2
I needed to hide before the bear shifter recovered. Because he would recover. Sure, his tongue and gums would burn like hell for maybe five minutes, but that was about it.
I took maybe a handful of steps before a shape came crashing through the wall to my left and slamming into the opposite one. Shrieking, I jumped back, then frowned when I recognized the shape as one of the two mountain lion shifters America had connected us with. They called themselves Klandagi.
I was about to rush to his side and try to help him when a man floated casually though the hole in the wall.
I didn’t need to be a magical being to sense the strange energy crackling around his raised hand. Quickly, I thrust my hand into my apron pocket and pulled out another smoke bomb. I only had two more after this, but what was the point in saving them when someone needed my help right then and there?
“Hey, fuckwad!” I cried as I lobbed the bomb, grateful for the couple of summers I’d spent at softball camp.
The man—I was certain it was one of the brothers because he was freaking floating—turned his head to the side just in time to get beaned right in the forehead.
Yeah, that was satisfying.
It fell to the floor, and smoke started to erupt around him, but he flicked his wrist, and the next thing I knew, the smoke became a living creature, coalescing in a wild and fearsome form…
And it was coming straight for me.
There was nowhere to run. A bear shifter behind me, the chaotic and dangerous ballroom to my right, and one of the brothers who had destroyed so many lives front of me.
Well… those weren’t exactly great options, were they?
So, I did the only thing I could do. I braced myself and pulled my shirt up over my mouth, as if that would help.
The smoke hit me with a physical force, pushing me backward so hard that my feet actually skidded along the carpet. I’ve barely been able to draw in a full breath before it did, but I did my best not to breathe now.
But my best could only be my best, after all, and I was only human. My lungs were already burning when the smoke circled around me like a tornado, completely enveloping me. When it began to pick me up, I knew there was no hope for me.
Under any other circumstances, having magic lift me off the ground would have been fun, but this was most decidedly not fun.
Far sooner than I would have liked to admit, my self-preservation instincts forced me to open my mouth, and I dragged in a deep breath of the smoke. It smelled surprisingly pleasant.
I thought the sedation effects would be pretty instantaneous, that my eyelids would grow heavy, and I would pass out fairly quickly, but I felt as alert as ever. I felt even more alert when the swirling vortex of smoke around me began to haul me toward my enemy.
Wood shattered behind me, and I crashed to the floor.
I shook my head and rubbed my eyes clear just in time to see two wolves had burst through the wall, the larger one landing squarely on the floating man’s back, his teeth sinking into the luminescent purple shield that had suddenly appeared around the warlock’s head, and the other going straight for his crotch.
Yeowch.
Between the two of them and the mountain lion shifter who had managed to get up, they overpowered him.
One minute, he was screaming curses, his hands glowing with pent-up energy that didn’t know where to go, the next, the purple shield protecting him vanished, allowing the wolf—which I now realized was Leo—to snap his jaws closed through the warlock’s skull.
I shuddered. Holy shit, it was bloody. Gory. I’d seen a lot since Leo had entered my life, but nothing could have prepared me for the rush of blood and brain matter that dripped from my lover’s mouth. My stomach lurched, and I turned away in case I really did throw up. That would be embarrassing.
“Ven!”
I turned back toward the gruesome scene to see that Leo was back in his human form. I swallowed hard. He was completely soaked with blood from his chin down to his legs, so seeing him wasn’t as comforting as it would have been.
“What are you doing here? You were supposed to get to safety.”
I grimaced. Not exactly the best timing. It would suck if I died and got chewed out by Leo. It was really supposed to be an either-or situation.
“I…” I wasn’t really sure what to say, and it turned out I didn’t need to say anything, because a surge of energy suddenly sliced through the air, knocking us all to our asses.
“But didn’t you just kill the brother?” I asked, more confused than ever.
Everything had happened so suddenly, I’d hardly had time to process any of it, but I was pretty sure those were the guy’s brain staining the carpet that probably cost more than I made in a year.
If not, then I was doing some serious hallucinating.
“There’s more than one of them here,” Leo hissed, already getting to his feet. “Get out of here! You promised.”
Hmm. I had, hadn’t I?
Maybe I was naturally a coward, because running seemed like a fucking good idea.
Before I could so much as turn on my heel, six security guards barreled through the hole in the wall.
Some were still in their uniforms while some were shifted, and maybe I was wrong, but it didn’t look like they were all enthralled.
Huh, I guessed everyone had a price. Even shifters.
Leo shifted back into his wolf form so fast that the steam he produced was physically hot. By the time it had evaporated, he’d dealt with two of the security guards, and the wolf with him had another one down.
“Leo!” I cried out. “I know that some have to die, but not all our enemies have a choice. Please, don’t kill them all unless you really have to.”
He didn’t respond—he couldn’t in his wolf form—but I could have sworn he lessened the pressure of his teeth on his opponent’s shoulder. Instead of tearing through the half-shifted man’s muscles, Leo simply shook him a few times until the shifter’s eyes rolled back and he went still
Was it impractical to have asked that in the middle of a battle? Perhaps. But there were slaves amongst the brother’s battle fodder, so if we could afford to be careful, why wouldn’t we? Besides, I was sure Leo would be able to tell when lethal force was necessary and when it wasn’t.
At least, I hoped so.
But I’d promised him I would trust him, and if there was ever a time to put that trust to the test, we were in it.
A groan sounded from down the hall, and I tore my eyes away from my lover to see the Klandagi shifter had lost her animal form and was struggling to her feet.
She had an open wound on her side. It was so deep I could see her intestines.
If she weren’t a shifter, she’d be dead already.
If her enhanced healing was going to save her from what would have killed a human, she needed time, and time wasn’t exactly easy to come by in the middle of the battle.
It looked like I’d have to delay my escape a wee bit longer.
“I got you,” I murmured as I rushed over to her, ignoring the stinging in my eyes from the thick smoke around us. I wasn’t sure if that was my fault or the warlock’s, but I’d worry about where to pin the blame later. “I need you to take a deep breath because this is gonna sting, okay?”
The woman managed a very weak nod. If she said anything I didn’t hear it over the din of battle.
I pulled a small bottle out of my apron pocket.
When it became clear that patching up shifters would become a common occurrence in my life, I’d mixed an elixir I could use on the go.
It wasn’t anything too special: distilled water, witch hazel, willow bark, vitamin E oil, calendula, aloe, and a little echinacea.
I’d added tea tree oil to the first batch, but strangely, it had irritated Ricky’s skin instead of soothing it, and I didn’t want that to happen to anyone else.
The woman hissed as I poured half the bottle over her wound, but the graying flesh began to pink up within seconds.
I found the rapid healing of shifters fascinating, but now was not the time to marvel at how her insides rearranged themselves and her skin stitched itself together.
If we all lived through the battle, I’d give her some immune-boosting supplements to make sure she had no infections or contaminants inside her.
“Come on, let me help you out of here,” I said once her breathing wasn’t as shaky. “Esperanza can get you to safety once we’re outside.”
“Yeah,” she rasped, holding her arm up to me. I was impressed that she was even able to do that and quickly crouched next to her to drape it over my shoulders. “How are you still up?”
“Pardon?” I asked as I stood carefully so as not to jostle her.
“The gas,” she said simply.
Oh, right. That. A thick cloud of gas still surrounded us, and considering I’d inhaled a fair amount of it, I really should have been snoring on the floor, like all the non-shifters in the ballroom.
“Maybe the smoke bombs I threw were duds,” I said, focusing on getting out.
Thankfully, the bear shifter I had barely escaped from wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
That did make me worry that we were going to run into him under even more inopportune circumstances, but there wasn’t much else I could do about it.
“Just one step at a time,” I murmured under my breath. It wasn’t exactly the quickest escape, but luckily she had a pretty small frame. She was several inches shorter than me and at least fifty pounds lighter.
Once I had her outside, I didn’t have to wait long before I heard a bird cry and Esperanza landed beside me.
“I’ve got her,” Esperanza said. “Chris already got a whole chunk of the prisoners out, but he went back in and said there were more.”
More? How many magical beings had the brothers taken?
“There were two of the brothers in there,” I murmured, not quite sure what else to say.
“Holy shit, two? Do you know which ones?”