CHAPTER SEVENTEEN || HUNTER #2
One of them—the one that had been feeding on Jensen—was running.
Daniel dimmed his light spell enough that it was just south of painful to look at.
“Lee, go!” I shouted, blinking against the brightness. “I’ve got the other one!”
Lee nodded sharply and vaulted through the broken window without hesitation, hitting the ground running, the blessed iron blade clutched in his fist. The Mara that had fled through the bedroom window was a flickering gray shape streaking across the backyard, heading for the tree line.
The other creature used our momentary distraction to launch itself at me.
The collision drove me backward, out the door, and into the hallway wall.
Plaster cracked and dust rained down from the ceiling.
The Mara was on me instantly, its spindly limbs wrapping around my body with impossible strength, its open torso pressing toward my chest. The tentacles snaked out, suckers seeking contact with my skin.
Black smoke was pouring off its flesh, and I fought not to gag as I tried to fend off its attack.
It was strong, its grip on me like iron, pinning me in place.
Then I felt the tentacles make contact with my skin, striking without warning.
It was like having all the warmth ripped out of my body at high speed through a straw.
My vision dimmed. My strength bled away from my muscles.
And for one sickening instant of absolute clarity, I understood what Jensen had been experiencing before we’d interrupted the Mara.
It had been draining him dry, just like it was doing to me now.
Then Daniel’s voice rang out—a few words in Welsh—and a cone of vivid green light slammed into the creature from behind.
The Mara convulsed, its grip on me loosening, a metallic shriek tearing from its faceless head. The tentacles retracted, curling back into the cavity of its torso.
I gasped, sucking in air, the world snapping back into focus.
The creature rounded on Daniel. My mate’s eyes widened and he took a step backward, incanting his light spell again.
The Mara tore across the room, going right for him.
I launched myself after it, just as it grabbed Daniel and slammed him into the wall, knocking the breath out of him.
Those horrible tentacles slithered out from it again, snaking up my mate’s body.
Raw, blinding fury gripped me. No way in hell I was letting it do that to my mate.
I drove the blessed iron blade through the creature’s back with everything I had.
The creature went rigid. Then its skin began to crack, the way mud cracks in the summer as it dries up.
Fissures of light spread from the wound, spiderwebbing across its body like the fracturing of thin ice.
The metallic shrieking filled the room again, reaching a frenzied pitch that made my eardrums feel like ice picks were being jammed into them.
And then the Mara exploded into fragments of grayish light that dissolved before they even hit the ground. Where the creature had been, there was nothing left at all, apart from the acrid smell of burnt flesh filling the air.
“Are you okay?” I demanded, my gaze raking over him for any sign of injury.
“I’m good,” he said. “Go help Lee. I’m right behind you.”
I nodded at him, then tore across the room—dimly aware that Jensen was now sitting up in bed, his eyes wide and disbelieving—and launched myself through the broken window.
The backyard was lit by moonlight and the headlights of Reed’s truck, which had just pulled up at the curb. The rest of the pack was spilling out. Reed and Harris out of the cab. Lacey, Oliver, and Sarah out of the truck’s bed.
And Lee was in the middle of the yard, facing the second Mara.
Alone.
My twin wasn’t in wolf form. He was human, his shirt hanging open and in tatters.
He held the blessed iron blade in a reverse grip, his bare skin ghostly pale in the headlights.
The Mara circled him, as if testing for an opening.
Its torso was already split open, tentacles writhing, preparing to strike him.
Lee didn’t move, even when the creature stepped behind him. He stood in the center of the yard, perfectly still, the blade at his side, his gaze unfocused.
Then, without warning, Lee moved, dropping to the ground, the instant before the creature lunged at him.
He rolled onto his back and slashed upward with the blade in his hand.
One of the tentacles dropped off the creature, exploding into grayish smoke.
The creature shrieked again.
I darted forward, grabbed the Mara with both hands—my stomach clenching with revulsion because it was cold, clammy, and distinctly squid-like—and heaved it to the ground.
Lee rolled up onto his feet—we’d seen that in an old Jackie Chan movie once and had spent an embarrassing amount of time perfecting the move after we’d become wolves.
Lee and I barreled toward the creature, our movements perfectly synchronized.
The Mara phased out of reality, moving impossibly fast.
Lee froze, his eyes going wide. “Hunter!”
Then the monster’s hands gripped my shoulders from behind, and I felt the awful sucking hunger of those tentacles on me yet again. They were on the back of my neck and my solar plexus.
I felt an absolute refusal—a total revulsion, tinged with fury. It couldn’t have me. I wouldn’t allow it.
A golden dome sprang to life around me. And the sucking hunger was abruptly gone.
I wheeled around to face it. Black smoke rose from the Mara’s flesh where the light of my shield had touched it. Some of it got into my mouth and I fought the urge to gag.
The Mara wheeled backward to get away from me.
And directly into Lee’s waiting blade. It pierced the creature through the heart from behind.
The back door of the house flew open and Daniel was there, his hands already glowing vivid green, but then he paused, his eyes widening in surprise at the sight before him.
The backyard filled with the sickening sound of squealing metal as the creature’s agonized shriek split the night.
The pack raced across the lawn just in time to see fissures of light spread from the creature’s wound, splitting the gray flesh. The creature’s shriek climbed in pitch until it was almost beyond hearing, causing me to clap both hands to my ears.
Lee held the blade steady, both hands on the hilt, his jaw set and absolute murder in his expression as he watched the creature come apart around the iron buried in its back.
Then, just like the first one, the Mara shattered into gray light and black smoke.
The yard went completely silent after that.
Lee stood there for a long moment, breathing hard, his blade still extended out in front of him, the last fragments of gray light dissolving at his feet.
I let out a sigh of relief and my shield faded away to nothing.
It was over.
* * *
Daniel came to join us, his expression tight with worry, as his gaze raked over Lee and then me.
He relaxed visibly when he saw that we were unharmed.
“Well, that was something you don’t see every day,” Harris commented mildly.
“Unless you’re us,” Lacey muttered.
“Well done,” Reed said, looking from Lee to Daniel and back to me. “Is Jensen still alive?”
As if on cue and before any of us could reply, Jensen staggered out of his back door, pale as a sheet, his gun in hand.
He stood there for a long moment, staring at us with wide, terrified eyes—the people who had just saved his life—then his knees buckled and he collapsed to the porch.
“What the hell was that?” a new voice asked from behind us.
I turned to find Shirley Green, an elderly Black woman dressed in a nightgown and a bonnet, on her back porch. She was holding a shotgun. Her husband, Daryl Green, was next to her, holding his pistol. They were both staring at us, frozen with sheer disbelief.
Reed shot Daniel a meaningful look.