Chapter 4
TAKE OUT THE EYES
Ziara
The instant my feet hit the ground, Rust and I took off like rockets. Loud cracking noises came from behind us—an incentive to sprint if I’d ever heard one. Something shattered. I glanced over my shoulder and could no longer make out the shimmery outline of the magical dome covering the estate.
“What the fuck was that?” Rust asked.
“Their shield is down.”
“What?” He looked over his shoulder, his speed waning.
“Run faster!” I shouted.
He grunted, but we both kicked it into high gear, racing through the trees to the motorcycles we’d stashed beside a service road about a mile away. We hadn’t gotten far when a hair-raising roar sounded behind us.
“You let him live?” Rust sounded as surprised as I felt.
“I tried to kill him. Less talking. More running.”
My orders had been clear: kill anything that came between me and getting the artifact home.
I’d heard the beating of his heart and knew exactly where to stab, but my hands hadn’t cooperated.
Two blades through the heart would have disabled him, making it easy to lop off his head with his massive sword.
Many magical creatures could live through dagger wounds, but nothing survived decapitation.
Well, except cockroaches. But without a head, even they eventually starved to death. And last I checked, cockroaches weren’t tall, hot, and absolutely freaking terrifying.
The guy should have been my first kill. He’d given me the perfect opening.
My pesky inner voice wanted to evaluate why I’d repositioned my hands and spared his life at the last minute, but I refused to give my conscience the time of day.
The why didn’t matter now. I’d made my decision, and the current priority was getting us home alive with the artifact.
“I smell blood,” Rust said.
“It’s mostly his,” I assured the old wolf.
My attacker had sliced into my left biceps before I stabbed him, but the cut wasn’t deep enough to do anything but annoy me as the blood clotted and stuck my sleeve to my arm.
Rust and I made it to the bikes without incident, vaulted onto them, gunned our engines, and drove like our asses were on fire.
The gravel service road leading back to the highway was overgrown and treacherous, demanding my full attention, but unlike our approach to the manor, speed was more important than stealth.
We raced along, kicking up rocks and creating an unavoidable dust trail that the blind could follow.
As soon as we turned onto the highway, I opened the throttle until the speedometer needle bounced, narrowly avoiding crater-sized potholes and encroaching roots.
Rust stayed hot on my tail, not slowing even when a foreboding shadow passed above. The pungent aroma of fur and feathers wafting off the creature wasn’t something I’d ever smelled before. Not even on the castle grounds we’d just fled.
The beast swooped closer, and the wind of its passing buffeted my bike hard enough to make it wobble. I panicked, nearly crashing as I pulled over to draw my daggers.
Rust screeched to a stop beside me, tugging his shotgun from its holster on his bike as he identified our pursuer. “Just a griffin.”
My jaw dropped. “Just a griffin?”
The overgrown eagle-headed lion circling above us released a hair-raising roar that ended in a screech, making me want to run for cover like a field mouse.
“What do we do?” I asked.
Rust grinned maniacally, letting the wolf seep into his eyes as he stared up at the approaching beast. “Two against one. I doubt it’ll attack, but we’ll show it our claws and fangs all the same.”
I clamped my mouth shut against the urge to point out that the massive griffin could likely swallow us whole and therefore had the advantage here.
That was just fear talking. My people were nowhere near the bottom of the food chain.
We shifted into three forms: a human with enhanced strength and speed, a wolf that could chase prey for days, and a werewolf with blade-like claws and teeth that could rend flesh.
At least they shifted.
I compensated.
Rust and I spread out, raising our arms to appear larger and more formidable as we watched the griffin, waiting for it to strike. This time, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill.
“Weak spots?” I asked.
“Heart’s in the center of its chest. I’ll go for that. You take out the eyes. Watch out for the beak.”
I gaped at my mentor. “Stab the eyes, he says. Like that’s so goddamn easy.”
Rust chuckled. “Don’t be a pussy, pup.”
“Wasn’t plannin’ on it, old man.”
Thankfully, I didn’t have to be brave either.
The griffin swooped at us again, and before I could even figure out the best route to its eyes, Rust popped off two shots.
One hit the beast’s shoulder. It shuddered, wobbling in the air a moment before straightening out and veering off with another roar-screech.
It flew away, apparently deciding we weren’t worth the trouble.
“That’s how you deal with those bastards,” Rust said as we scrambled back onto our bikes and got the hell out of there.
We hit the I-5 corridor and headed north on the freeway.
The road was as barren as it had been on our way down, with nothing but abandoned vehicles in our path.
Now that I’d gotten a taste of the crazy creatures residing outside of pack land, the ominous glowing eyes watching us from the shadows lit up my imagination.
I’d always known the rest of the world was wild and dangerous—it was the reason we trained, after all—but tonight’s adventure served as a stark reminder of why wolves needed the pack.
Of why I’d risked my life to steal a strange little rock that I’d deliver to my alpha at all costs.
Remove that artifact from my property, and I will have no choice but to hunt you to the ends of the earth. I will be a curse upon your head, the noose around your neck, a sword driven deep into your side.
A shiver raced up my spine at the memory of the promised price tag, but I shook it off.
The bastard would have to find me first. Then he’d have to deal with the full strength of my people.
Still, I accelerated, desperate to get the stone to safety before gargoyles and who knew what else could threaten the success of this mission.
Rust and I threaded our way through a pair of hills and crossed into the city limits.
Ahead, a giant luminous bubble came into view.
Unlike the ward protecting the castle, this one was designed to be seen.
Anchored into the ground by a glowing blue fracture, it shot east following Highway 90 and ran north alongside I-5, splitting the city in two.
It was the bane of my pack’s existence, the one obstacle keeping us from the revenge we were due.
We had a bone to pick with the Mondeine hiding behind the barrier.
Or three hundred and twenty-three of them, to be exact.
That was how many lives those bastards owed us, and one day we would collect with interest.
The Madison Street exit drew my attention away from the fracture and back to the ravaged city streets. Several overpasses had fallen, and our bikes needed to make a slightly sketchy jump that required concentration. My tires squealed on the wet pavement.
Past the jump, a lone streetlight flickered, illuminating a spray-painted sign that warned trespassers they were now on pack territory and would be killed on sight.
My shoulders relaxed as the familiar sights and scents of home wrapped around me like a warm blanket.
We passed a security camera, and I saluted, knowing that the packmate on duty would alert my father of our return.
We didn’t have a deadly hedge and a magical shield protecting us, but we had technology, weapons, and the might of well-trained soldiers. If Mr. Tall, Hot, and Terrifying showed up to retrieve the artifact, we’d tear him a new asshole.
Navigating my bike around moss-covered shells of buildings, I slowed my speed to avoid blowing a tire on cracks in the uneven pavement and wove around crawling vines bigger around than my ride.
The mages who’d erected the barrier that now separated us from the Mondeine had squeezed the magic out of their territory and directed it into ours, feeding our plants and animals the equivalent of arcane Miracle-Gro.
In the past twenty-five years, the forest had only grown wilder, giving the land on this side of the fracture an overgrown, dystopian vibe.
I cruised to a stop and parked in the covered lot beside the den entrance. My engine idled as I dropped my kickstand and let my victory sink in.
I’d done it. And both Rust and I had made it home.
Needing to reassure myself of the victory, I killed the engine and unzipped the smallest pocket of my backpack, peering in. My entire body shuddered in relief at the sight of the stone.
Rust parked beside me and gave me a quick once-over before nodding at my bag. “Please tell me you got the damn thing.”
We’d been so busy running that we hadn’t even discussed it.
“Of course I did.” I grinned and flashed him the rock before stashing it again and sliding the pack onto my back.
He let out a whoop loud enough to alert the entire pack to our presence. “I knew you could do it, pup.”
Warmth expanded in my chest at my mentor’s words.
I hadn’t been so sure.
Now, I only hoped leaving the icy hot guy alive wouldn’t come back to bite me in the ass.