‘Sawyer, I’m here,’ I pushed out to him. ‘Can you hear me?’
I paced the small grove tucked just inside the thick wall of bushes, but no response came.
Sage had been moved to a medical ward in the hospital. Marmal was still stalking a fey jogger.
When Sawyer didn’t say anything after a long moment, I snapped my attention back to Sage. They had her strapped to a medical bed, and she bucked against the restraints as a fey doctor walked in wearing a white lab coat. The room was on the bottom floor, and Sage’s bed was right in front of a window with pale yellow curtains. The room was actually nice, clean and modern. I was surprised.
“She was found swimming in the river, talking crazy,” a young male assistant said to the doctor, handing her a clipboard.
Sage snapped her head to the female doctor fey, who had long flowing red hair like hers. “The flies are in the universe to my pots and pans!” Sage said urgently.
The doctor frowned. “She may have recently had a stroke. This sounds like word salad.”
Word salad? Was that a medical term?
“Let’s sedate her for transport to 3rd Street Psych.” The doctor signed something on the clipboard and handed it back. Then she held out her hand and the assistant plopped a long syringe into her palm, the needle reflecting the light from the ceiling.
Fear spiked through Sage and I knew it was now or never with my wolf.
‘I won’t leave this place without you. I would die before that happened, you have to believe me,’ I told Sage.
‘I trust you,’ she whimpered.
My wolf leapt free of Sage’s chest then, but at the same time, she went invisible, activating whatever power Pearl also used, old magic.
“Don’t make the sleep come. Lizards are peonies,” Sage whimpered to the doctor, keeping up the act.
The doctor frowned. “Poor girl. I thought the wolves all died in the war or went underground or something?” she asked her assistant, a black-haired male fey with freckles.
He shrugged. “Maybe she’s a refugee.”
The doctor put the needle to Sage’s arm and I felt my bestie’s panic shoot through our pack bond. My wolf was hiding in the corner, waiting to see what would happen to Sage before she started trying to find Sawyer. If they were going to hurt her, we were out of here, and I’d have to find another way to get my man out.
“I like the wolves. They were once our strongest ally before Prime Minister Locke ruined that,” the doctor stated.
I nearly sagged with relief. They wouldn’t hurt Sage.
‘You’ll be okay. I’ll come right back for you,’ I told Sage.
‘Okay…’ was all she muttered, and then the doctor plunged the needle into her arm and the heaviness of drugged sleep took her quickly.
My wolf stayed, watching the doctor and waiting. She wouldn’t leave this room without knowing what was going to happen to my bestie, and I was grateful for that. I felt confident they wouldn’t hurt her after overhearing their conversation, but she wanted to wait one more minute.
Someone knocked on the door and peeked their head in. “Transfer called. They can’t get here until six p.m. for the wolf.”
The doctor nodded. “She can sleep it off in here until they come. I can give her another dose at five if she wakes and is still delusional.”
Five.
I looked at the clock. It was already three-fifteen. I had less than two hours to get Sawyer out of here and come back for Sage before they drugged her again. As the doctor and nurse left, they locked the room and I took one last look at Sage’s sleeping form before my wolf slipped through the wall and into the hallway.
She scanned the hallway, looking for a stairwell, and then started in the direction of a glowing exit sign. I could sense her thoughts. She was thinking that she couldn’t get into a crowded area, because although she was invisible, someone with the right magic might see her. And fey had the right magic. They were even more elusive than the trolls. God only knew what they were truly capable of.
I felt Marmal tug at my consciousness and I pulled away from my wolf, trusting her to know how to get to the eightieth floor. When I opened my eyes, Marmal was running toward me, holding her side as blood soaked her shirt. I rushed forward in panic.
‘We need to get on Pearl and take to the skies,’ she told me. ‘I’m being chased, but I got the blade.’ She held up a bright silver fey blade and I nodded.
When she reached me, I stared down at her stomach.
‘How bad is it?’ It didn’t look like it was actively bleeding anymore, so that was a good sign.
“I’m fine. Let’s go!” she whisper-screamed, just as I heard shouts come from the main walking trail.
“I was attacked!” a woman screamed.
Shit.
We both ran straight for where Pearl was resting, and she lowered her shield so that we could step inside. We’d barely made it into the shield that rendered us invisible when a female fey and two armed security guards stepped into the meadow.
“I smell blood,” the woman seethed. Without another word, we slipped onto Pearl’s back and she kicked off the ground, beating her wings, which caused the bushes and tall grass around us to flatten.
“What was that!?” the woman shrieked, staring at the windstorm Pearl had created. The guards raised their weapons and I flinched, hoping they wouldn’t shoot randomly into the air. Pearl climbed higher until they were just a speck in the distance, then I relaxed a little.
“Let me see.” I peeled Marmal’s hand back and inspected a clean one-inch cut along her ribcage.
“That will need stitches, but it doesn’t seem to have hit any major organs,” I told her, the guilt of her injury weighing heavily on me. “Let me get the med-kit.”
She shooed my hand away. “I’m fine. I’ve had worse. How’s Sage? What’s going on inside?”
She handed the fey blade to me and I took it with gratitude. “Thanks for getting that.” I then quickly brought her up to speed about how things had gone with Sage as I dug around my pack for the med-kit to tend to her injury best I could while riding on a freaking flying dragon. After cleaning and bandaging her wound as Pearl circled the park area, I tuned into my wolf next.
She was on the forty-fourth floor, panting from going up all the stairs. She couldn’t use vampire speed because I had the cuffs on, and I was worried about taking them off. Somehow we were still connected, and even though she could go invisible, she couldn’t use some of our other powers. Me wearing the cuffs was draining her it seemed like…
She was worried to try to sneak into an elevator and get stuck going down, or have someone notice her. The stairwell was relatively unmanned but for one janitor she’d passed on floor twenty-six.
It was nearly four p.m. She had fifteen minutes to get to the eightieth floor, but I didn’t tell her that. Workout hour was until five, but I needed to get Sage before they came in and gave her another dose of that medication. This was all going to hinge on me being able to actually break through this protection spell and into one of these windows.
Breathe, just breathe.
I reached into Sage’s pack and pulled out the sleek black phone she kept there. If anyone could tell me how to break through a fey magic protection, it would be my other bestie. I dialed Raven’s number by heart and prayed that her cell phone still worked. Technically, we were somewhere in Idaho hidden in the Magic Lands, and cell towers definitely worked in Idaho…
“Hello?” she answered tentatively.
“Thank God you still have a phone,” I told her.
“Holy shit, Demi,” Raven breathed. “I almost didn’t pick up. I’m surprised this thing is still connected after a year underground.”
I grinned. “It’s good to hear from you. I have a problem that needs a magical solution.”
“I’m here with Star. Putting you on speaker,” Raven announced.
That was good, I would need all hands on deck.
“The Magic City Prison is surrounded by some … bluish electrocuting protection spell. It smells fey in origin. I need to bring it down so I can get close enough to break a window to get the guys out.”
“Fey protections are very complex. What do you have to work with?” Star sounded skeptical and it made me nervous.
“Well we got a fey blade,” I told her.
“That’s great!” she and Raven said at the same time.
“And I have a dragon.”
The phone went silent and I pulled it back to make sure it hadn’t died. Nope, still running.
“Hello?” I called out.
“Did you say you have a dragon?” Raven shrieked.
“Alive or dead?” Star whispered.
Wow.
“Alive, flying on her back at this moment. Can she help?”
“Can she help?” Star sounded offended by my suggestion. “Dragons are the mothers of magic. Holy shit. Can I meet her? Like once this is all over?” I could hear the excitement in Star’s voice.
“Focus,” Raven chastised her.
“Sorry. Right. Will she let you peel off one of her scales? If so, I can give you an incantation to coat the fey blade in and it will cut through the protection magic like butter,” Star told me.
I looked to Marmal, who was listening intently as I’d also put the phone on speaker. My troll friend was quiet a moment before nodding. “She said you may have one scale so long as the magic it’s used for does not hurt another,” Marmal translated.
“Ohhh, you have someone who can communicate with her!” Star screeched in exhilaration.
I nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see me. “My troll fr—pack member,” I amended and Marmal smiled.
“Okay, here’s what you need to do.” Star then proceeded to tell me the incantation that would break the spell, and after thanking her and Raven, I hung up.
I checked in with my wolf then. She was on the seventy-sixth floor and had stopped, panting against the brick wall. She was tired, thirsty, and ready for a nap. It was all made that much harder by the fact that we weren’t together. We drew strength from one another.
‘You got this,’ I told her, trying to give her the encouragement she needed to run up those last three floors.
‘Demi? I feel you near!’ Sawyer’s voice boomed through our bond and the sudden joy of it knocked into my chest.
My wolf pushed off the wall, inspired by hearing our mate. His voice coursed through her, giving her the final momentum she needed. When I tried too hard to think of her, or I, or us, it hurt my brain. We were one and she felt what I felt, and I felt what she felt. We both wanted Sawyer, and we wanted to see him right now!
Bursting up the stairs, her legs shook with fatigue and I thought she might collapse as she panted and her lungs burned. Two more floors left.
‘My wolf is on the seventy-eighth floor. Get ready,’ I told Sawyer, peering at the map I’d spread out before me as Marmal pulled the scale from Pearl’s flank. It was one that seemed already loose and Pearl didn’t flinch, so I felt less bad about taking it.
I instructed Pearl which window to fly over to, which I hoped was the workout room based on what the maps said.
‘I’m walking into the gym room now,’ Sawyer told me. ‘Walsh is here. How many of us can you get out? I can’t leave without my crew.’
His crew?
‘How many are in your crew?’
‘There are five of us, including me and Walsh.’
Well, that wasn’t fucking planned. ‘And this vampire friend is one of them?’ I asked sourly.
‘Yes, Luka is family to me. I know it’s hard for you to understand, Demi, but—’
I didn’t want to argue right now. ‘It’s fine. We can take all five.’
Pearl said she could carry twenty grown men. We’d have to make it work.
My wolf walked up the last step and her back legs started to shake. She was so fatigued, so tired, and yet she pushed on. Using what little magic she had left, she pushed through the wall and into the eightieth floor cellblock.
And holy shit was it intimidating. The walls were lined with barred cells, men paced inside, two to a cell. She passed a fey, a troll, a warlock, wolf, Ithaki. They didn’t discriminate here; every type of creature was present and locked up. My wolf stared at a fey man who stood behind the bars of his cell. His ankles were bound with silver cuffs similar to the ones I grew up with, scars and angry red skin peeking out just above them, showcasing how many times he’d tried to use his power.
Swiveling her head, my wolf looked out into the open space outside of the cells. The room was a long rectangle and the cells ran to the left, right, and back side of the wall. My wolf peered over her shoulder to see a guard sitting at a desk and scrolling through a tablet. My wolf had zero issues walking through the walls here so far, so that was good. She wouldn’t need the handprint of a guard to open the workout room door, but she would need the keys to unlock the cuffs from the guys or they’d all be crispy fried bacon when they tried to leave.
My wolf padded over to the tall, lithe fey guard sitting hunched over his tablet, his ankles crossed, finger poised over the screen as he scrolled through some website. My wolf scanned his body, looking for a set of clunky keys that would hang from his belt like in the movies. There was no such set of keys.
‘Sawyer,’ my wolf whispered through the bond. ‘What do the cuff keys look like?’
My cuffs had always been magically taken off, but that wouldn’t work here with so many inmates and the prison run by mostly fey, not witches. They’d need an easier way to remove them when they were damaged and needed to be replaced or whatever.
Sawyer’s response was immediate. ‘It’s a square magnet that hangs from a black cord on their necks. The clasp only releases if the guard touches it. It’s some kind of new smart technology that matches their fingerprint.’
Okay, that sounded complicated, especially for my wolf to manage without hands…
“Wolf!” The guard looked up from his tablet suddenly and hissed. His eyes locked right on my wolf and she froze.
Shit. He saw me. Her. Us.
Some fey had that magic, and of course it had to be this guard! One second my wolf was transparent and the next she solidified, lunging at his neck. His arms came up immediately and latched on to her neck as a shock ran through my wolf. She quivered as his magic rushed through her, trying to weaken her.
No.
Back on Pearl, in my human body, I ripped off the cuffs, power surging from me to my wolf. She yanked out of the guard’s grasp with surprising force, dropping to the ground. He reached for a red button on the desk, and that’s when she lunged for his crotch, sinking her teeth into the meat between his legs. An inhuman wail cut through the space and the men in the caged cells started to cheer and beat on the bars as they watched it all go down.
The fey dropped to the ground, and a shockwave burst from his body, but my wolf was ready. She saw the change in the air, and as it came for her she used her vampire-like speed and strength to push through it. With the cuffs off of me now, it was no holds barred. No limit to our power.
His protective force field snapped against her skin with the strength of a bullet and I knew that was going to hurt tomorrow. Wasting no time, she lunged again for his neck, pouncing first on his chest to pin him down. Power pulsed through me to her and she wasted no time lunging at his jugular with her teeth.
His arms came up to yank her off, but it was too late. His throat came out in one swift jerk; muscle and tendons tore away cleanly. She spit the meat onto the ground as he went limp underneath her. The men in the cells went wild, yelling and banging loudly.
‘Guards coming to see what that noise is all about,’ Sawyer told my wolf and me.
Shit.
Pouncing off of the dead guard, my wolf went ghostly as she reached over and pulled his wrist gently into her mouth. She stepped awkwardly over his chest and tried to maneuver his limp hand in a way that would press his finger to the clasp around the necklace at his now mangled throat.
Gross.
Using her muzzle, she dug under his neck, rolling his head to the side while his hand was still firmly clenched in her mouth.
‘We’re going to need therapy after this,’ I told my wolf as his blood splashed over her muzzle. I was pleased to see that even invisible, she could still maneuver him.
“HEY!” a guard yelled behind her and my wolf froze. “What’s all that racket?” he shouted. My wolf’s gaze flicked to the side to see two fey guards had just come out into the main room and were facing the prisoners, who were banging wildly on their cell bars with cups and fists. The guards hadn’t looked my way yet, they were too preoccupied with the wild prisoners.
But they would soon.
One of them turned toward my wolf, and a wolf prisoner in the nearest cell shouted, “I’m bleeding!” He clutched his stomach and fell over.
The two fey guards ran to his cell and it dawned on me that he was buying me time.
Thanks, dude.
My wolf resumed the acrobatic nuzzling, trying to get the dead fey guard’s finger up to the clasp at the back of his neck. Finally she succeeded and the necklace fell away with a click.
Yes!
Without a moment to waste, she picked the necklace up into her mouth and bolted away from the lifeless guard.
Her eyes scanned doors, grateful that the dude in the cell was having some fake fit to distract the new guards.
Bathroom.
Utility closet.
Gym.
Gotcha.
Walking through the door that said “Gym,” my wolf stopped dead at the sight of Sawyer, and all the breath whooshed out of my human form sitting on Pearl.
Holy hot felon.
My sweet preppy billionaire husband had changed. He now had a full beard and was standing shirtless under the bar where he was doing chin-ups. The muscles in his arms popped as my wolf’s gaze ran over the biggest change to Sawyer.
His body was covered in tattoos.
RIP Dad was written in cursive above an anatomical heart on his forearm. Alpha was written above an image of a howling wolf on his bicep. Hudson was in huge block letters across his abs, and then my wolf’s gaze flicked to his chest. Right over his heart was my name in a beautiful cursive script.
Demi.
A whine caught in my wolf’s throat, and Sawyer’s eyes snapped to her.
He’d always been able to see me no matter if I was invisible to others or not. He stilled, and I suddenly became aware of all the other people in the room who couldn’t see me: eight guards and ten scary-ass looking supernaturals. I almost yipped in joy when I saw Walsh standing behind a male vampire who was punching a speedbag. The vampire’s hair was dark black, slicked back with sweat, and holy yum I hated to admit it but he was insanely hot. All of these dudes were. They were ripped as hell, covered in tattoos and beards and sweating testosterone like it was air. My wolf shook herself to clear her thoughts and padded slowly over to Sawyer. He hadn’t moved, just stood frozen as he stared at me.
Sawyer coughed twice, really short, and it must have been some signal, because Walsh, the hot vampire dude, and some fey prisoner all started to move in unison over to Sawyer.
“Hudson! Walsh! Bennett! No congregating,” a guard called. My wolf had reached Sawyer, and when he bent down to tie his shoe, she spit the necklace onto the ground at his feet. He grabbed it with shaking fingers just as the vampire—it must be Luka, Sawyer’s roommate— started to heckle the guard.
“I pulled my back, man,” Luka said as Walsh started to inspect Luka’s back.
“Let me see,” the fey called out, moving closer as they covered the fact that Sawyer was uncuffing himself.
“I fucking missed you so much,” Sawyer whispered as he looked right into the eyes of my wolf and unclicked the remaining cuff, putting the glowing blue set, which now stood open, behind a floormat to hide them. Sawyer ran his fingers through my wolf’s fur and I whimpered again. It felt so good to be touched by him, to see him, smell him.
Back on Pearl, I instructed Marmal with a half sob of joy. “It’s time.”
Back in the room, Sawyer handed the key to Walsh next and started to inspect Luka’s back. “Oh shit, is that a bone sticking out?” Sawyer yelled loudly, looking at Luka’s perfect, muscled back, covered with tattoos and zero bones sticking out.
“He’s a vampire. He’ll heal. Break it up!” A fey guard pushed off the wall and walked over to Sawyer, gun raised.
Back on Pearl, I shook myself. Shit was going to go down and we needed to do this, now.
“Fly me as close as you can to that window and be ready to scram the second I get them out!” I yelled to Marmal, who sat in front of me.
She nodded, and directed Pearl over to the far window on the very top floor. There was a tiny ledge, maybe six inches in depth. Nothing I could stand on. The closer Pearl flew to the window, the more I could sense the magic at work in the protective shields. It was like a rainbow sheen of oil or bubbles suspended in the air.
“She can’t get any closer or her wing will hit the shield!” Marmal shouted.
Frick. I was a good ten feet away from the shimmering shield. But it was now or never. I was so close to getting Sawyer out and I still had Sage to worry about.
“When I start to fall, catch me!” I shouted. “I’m going to jump and bring down the shield.”
I held up the fey blade and Marmal’s eyes widened. She was quiet a moment, but then nodded.
I looked down, barely able to see the river as we were over eight hundred feet into the air.
Please don’t let this be how I die, I sent up a silent prayer to whomever might be listening, and then I plunged the fey blade into my palm. A slice of burning pain radiated along my hand as a thick line of crimson blood pooled into my palm and saturated the knife.
I mumbled the incantation that Star had told me, and the knife glowed with a sickly green hue.
Well, that was something at least. I was fully just going to have to trust that this spell worked, and the second I drove the blade into the protective shield … it would break.
“Old magic. I have old magic and that’s good, it’s going to work,” I ranted out loud, trying to psych myself up for this jump.
My wolf pulled on my attention and I snapped my focus to her just in time to see Luka headbutt a security guard in the face, and then Sawyer roundhouse kick another.
Oh shit.
Okay.
Here goes nothing.
“One.” I stood on Pearl’s back, teetering in the air as she flapped her wings to try to keep me steady. “Two.” I gripped the blade tighter in my fist. “Three!” I shouted.
And then I leapt. Out into the air, stabbing with my blade hand into the protective shield, sending a ripple of pain up my elbow. There was a cracking noise … and then I was falling.
Oh fuck.
Freefalling from eight hundred feet is probably the most terrifying thing I could ever imagine, and I’d been through some scary shit. Even knowing Pearl would try her best to catch me did nothing to quell my nerves.
‘Demi!’ Sawyer screamed. He must have picked up on my emotions and felt my terror. I ignored him, just focusing on breathing and not passing out when Pearl materialized just beneath me.
“Here!” Marmal shouted and I reached for her. With surprising force, I slammed onto Pearl’s back, sending her jerking to the left. Marmal latched onto me, planting both arms onto my shoulders to steady me. We nearly both fell off, but then Pearl was able to right herself.
Reaching out, I stroked her scales. “I’m so sorry if that hurt.”
Marmal looked at me with a halfcocked grin. “She said it felt like a deep tissue massage.”
I frowned. How the hell did an ancient dragon know what a deep tissue massage was? Shaking my head, I forced myself to focus. “Get me back up there. We might only have minutes before they get the shield back up.”
“You got it!” Marmal instructed her and then Pearl flapped her wings maddingly as she careened closer to the building now that the protective shield was gone. As we drew closer and closer, I readied myself for what was likely to be the most painful part of this process. Smashing the window open with my body. From what Sawyer said there was nothing heavy or dangerous inside that could be used as a weapon. No free weights or anything. That left me, hurling through the air like a ball—
“Do you want Pearl to smash the window with her tail?” Marmal suddenly asked, breaking my thoughts.
I looked back at Pearl’s tail. At the tip were six knobby horns of various sizes.
Oh … that was a better option. I wanted to facepalm myself but refrained. There was a crazy prison fight going on inside and I needed to help.
“Yes please!” I shouted, and seconds later the sound of shattering glass rang through the air.
Sawyer!
I sensed him before I saw him. Looking up from Pearl’s back, I pivoted and there he was, standing in front of the broken window, fingers curled deep into my wolf’s fur as she stood at his feet. Blood trickled down his neck from a wound at his ear and his chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath. But even still, he gave me a full panty-dropping grin, complete with dimple.
Holy fuck, I’d missed that smile.
“Demi!” he screamed, opening his arms.
I wasted no time. Standing on Pearl’s back, I jumped from the dragon in one leap, trying to keep all my shit together so I didn’t break down into sobs. It had been so long since I held him, smelled him, tasted him. We had a fucking baby together and he didn’t even know until recently. The second I crashed into his chest, his arms came around me like a vise.
“Holy hell, woman,” he rasped as I wrapped my legs around his waist, trying to get closer to him. His breath shuddered against me as I released the sobs I’d been keeping in. He squeezed me so hard it hurt, but I didn’t care because on some level it felt good. Being held so tightly against his shirtless body was the best damn feeling I’d had in a long time.
Pulling back from him a little, I looked up into his searing blue eyes and allowed our imprint to fully enmesh once more. I opened myself to him, every emotion, every experience I’d had since we had been apart. Having Creek, becoming Paladin alpha, surviving the Dark Woods, missing him. All of it. He just looked into my eyes and nodded. Then I felt him open. He’d kept so much from me. There was so much darkness in him now, I wasn’t prepared for it. He’d contemplated suicide so many times in our absence together. He was beaten daily by guards and other rival prison gangs. He’d been starved, electrocuted thousands of time, near death. My chest felt like a five-hundred-pound weight sat on it as he pushed his emotions into me, sharing all he’d been through. He almost lost his mind not knowing what had become of me. The only thing that kept him together and going was his new pack of friends and the hope that I was alive. A tear slipped down my cheek knowing he’d been through so much pain. Leaning forward, he kissed the tear, melting it into his mouth.
“I love you so much,” I croaked.
His lips landed on mine and I couldn’t breathe for a moment, couldn’t move. Was this actually real? Were we finally together? I moaned as his warm wet tongue slipped into my mouth and I tasted him for the first time in forever.
“Hey, lovebirds, a little help!” Walsh suddenly cried.
Shaken from our reunion, Sawyer pulled back from our kiss and set me down, then we both spun.
Crap.
I noticed Luka, Walsh, and two other guys. I was assuming they were the rest of his “crew.” One was fey and the other troll. They were all locked into a vicious fight with five guards. Fists pounded, blood flew, bodies cracked, all in an effort to wrestle the guns away from them. The other men in the workout room were in the corner pulling weapons off of the dead fey guards and arming themselves.
Great.
Luka, the vampire, had uncuffed himself, and now tossed a guard across the room as if he were made of paper. The guard hit the wall with a thud just as another fey guard lunged for Luka, blade drawn. Sawyer jumped into the fight and I felt my power surge within me. We needed to get the hell out of here—and we needed to get Sage. That shield could go back up any minute, trapping us all inside of it. I surged forward with vampire speed and slammed into the fey guard about to stab Luka. His body crashed against the wall and I took his head into my hands and twisted. The sickening crunch of his neck breaking rang throughout the room and I dropped him on the floor and turned. Two remaining guards were rushing toward me.
“Demi!” Sawyer screamed, panic in his face. The guards had guns raised.
A pulse of power flared to life under my skin and I flung my arms out, sending a shield of magic at them akin to a bomb blast. It looked like a wave of blue light, and when it slammed into their bodies, they turned to ash.
“Holy shit,” Sawyer breathed, looking at the two piles of ash.
Okay that was freaky. I’d never done that before.
I swallowed hard, a bit shaken, and glanced around the room. The other guards had been killed or subdued.
“Damn, where can I find a woman like that?” Luka appraised me with pride. My gaze ran over his tattoos. Five Crew was printed in big block letters across his collarbone. I looked at Sawyer’s collarbone. Then Walsh. Then the fey and troll. They all had the same thing. This was Sawyer’s pack.
I’d accepted Marmal and Sage as my pack. And this was how Sawyer got through the last year. I wasn’t going to be a prick just because I hated vampires.
Sawyer grinned. “I told you she was amazing.”
Luka bowed before me, taking my hand into his and lightly kissing the top. “My lady Alpha, I am forever in your debt.”
Whoa. Was it hot in here or…? This charmer was nothing like the cold vampires I had met. I squirmed under his gaze and nodded as he released my hand.
“A friend of Sawyer’s is a friend of mine,” I told him.
He chuckled. “I know you hate my kind. That’s okay. My family is a bunch of douchebags.”
“Family?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.
Sawyer cleared his throat. “We should get out of here.”
Right.
“I’m Talon,” the troll dude said. He was a giant guy, standing well over six feet tall and looked like he was cut out of stone.
“Bennett.” The fey male saluted me. “Thanks for the save.”
All of the men in Sawyer’s little crew were extremely good looking and I knew Marmal and Sage would have no qualms about spending the next few days with them.
I nodded. “Well met.” We walked over to the busted-out window just as an alarm rang throughout the prison.
Sage.
They had finally figured out there was a prison break going on.
“Lockdown procedures commence now. We have an active infiltration,” a robotic female voice said over the loudspeaker.
“Go!” I shouted just as Pearl appeared in front of the window in all her glory.
“Holy fuck,” Luka breathed beside me. Bennett and Talon wasted no time leaping onto Pearl’s back, with Marmal’s help to steady them, as I bent down to my wolf.
“You have to make sure they don’t give Sage another injection. It will be easier to get her out if she’s not unconscious. Chew through the binds on her hands and feet and we’ll fly down right now and get you both out.”
She nodded and then took off, going ghostly as she plowed through the wall.
“Babe!” Sawyer called to me, and I looked up. We were the only two left. He reached out his hand to me. I slipped my cuffs back on and took his outstretched arm.
“Hey, take us with you!” a male snapped behind me. I craned my head to see the rest of the guys who’d been working out when the whole fight began. The one who had spoken was a tall vampire and he was holding a sleek handgun he’d stolen from the guard. His cuffs were still on, which let me know Sawyer hadn’t shared the key with them.
‘These pricks have been trying to kill me since the day I got here,’ Sawyer growled into my head.
I grabbed Sawyer’s offered hand. “Sure thing. Let me just check in with my friend,” I told him, and stood.
He lifted the gun, and then Sawyer’s arms came around my waist, yanking me backward as he jumped. I sailed through the air, landing on top of Sawyer as we both hit Pearl’s gigantic back, hard. Marmal and Sawyer’s crew held us in place just as the gun clicked. I steeled myself, ready to catch bullets or whatever magical shit I would need to, but then nothing happened.
“Needs the guard’s fingerprint, you asshole,” Luka called out.
Sawyer grinned viciously. “Enjoy the next fifty years knowing we got out.”
Walsh just flipped the dudes the bird. Then the wind picked up behind us as Pearl started to descend.
Wow, these guys must have had a lot of beef together—stories for another time.
I needed to focus on my bestie.
“Take me to the bottom floor, back side of the building where they are keeping Sage!” I yelled to Marmal.
Everything was happening so fast I couldn’t process it properly.
‘I snuck in an elevator, overheard them say they were taking the dead guard down to medical on the first floor,’ my wolf said.
Thank God.
“Sage is here?” Walsh’s voice broke.
I looked back at him and noticed the pained expression that crossed his face. I nodded. “She got my wolf inside, but they’re holding her on the bottom floor, so we need to get her.”
As Pearl flew down the eighty floors to the bottom, I watched the flickering lights inside. Red and white flashes pulsed as the siren wailed and the robot voice played out over a loudspeaker: “Prison break. Lockdown procedures active. Shield down. Remain in your cells.”
My wolf pulled my attention and I focused on her just in time to see her enter Sage’s room. She was still lying motionless in the bed with cloth straps around her feet and arms. The cloth bands were connected with silver chains, but my wolf had already started to chew at the band on her right arm, sawing it with her back teeth.
Sage moaned.
‘Sage, wake up!’ I used our pack bond to rouse her. ‘I got the guys. Walsh and Sawyer are safe. We need to get you out of there.’
I felt her consciousness stir. ‘Demi?’ she rasped through our bond.
My wolf looked up at her just as she opened her eyes and the cuff fell away from her right hand. She slowly brought her hand up to pet my wolf’s head, and then nodded as if coming out of a deep sleep.
‘I’m so groggy,’ she said.
‘It’s okay. Just try to help undo your binds. I’m almost to you.’
Sage lazily reached over and started to unclip the left arm binding as my wolf chewed on the left leg loop. Once she got her hands free, she sat up, looking more alert, and helped get out of the binds at her feet just as voices could be heard shouting down the hallway.
‘Open the blinds of the window behind you. I can’t tell which one is yours,’ I instructed her as Pearl flew low to the ground between the building and the thirty-foot-high security wall. We were trapped here if they got the protection back up. We needed out of here.
Stat.
The blinds of the window to my left ripped open then and Sage and my wolf peered at us from inside. Relief exploded in my chest at the sight of my bestie.
‘Now get back away from the window! We’re going to smash it open!’ I told her. She moved back and Sawyer looked at me with fascination as he sat behind me, hands gripped tightly on my hips.
“Are you communicating with her?” he asked suddenly as she and my wolf backed away from the window.
“They’re pack,” was all I said, and then I gave Marmal a curt nod. When I looked back at Sawyer, his face was frozen in shock. Mouth open, eyes wide, I knew the fact that I’d made Sage my pack would hit him hard. She was his cousin after all.
Pack. He mouthed the word in confusion. Sage was his, Marmal was a troll, but I didn’t have time for this conversation right now.
Pearl set herself onto the ground and then retracted her wings so that she could inch closer to the window on foot. Her tail flicked once and then everyone on her back flinched as the window shattered. Talon and Walsh sat side by side, legs tucked under them as they gripped horns like handles. Luka and Bennett did the same behind them. There wasn’t much more room, especially for a long flight home, but we’d make it work.
Back in the room with my wolf, she and Sage huddled together as the shattered glass blew out everywhere. Shards littered the linoleum floor as Sage charged forward to escape. I didn’t need to tell her that time was of the essence. She felt it.
On Pearl, Walsh shifted away from us, and his booted foot extended onto the windowsill to brace himself as he reached out a hand for Sage. My attention snapped back to my body, making sure that with Walsh’s shifting weight I wasn’t going to be thrown off of the giant dragon we all somehow teetered on. Sage leaped onto the windowsill, and then Walsh gripped her by the waist and pulled her into him. She embraced him fully, wrapping her arms and legs around him as his hands came up to wind in her hair and I smiled.
We did it.
Looking over at my wolf who stood deep inside of the room, I patted my chest. “Come on! Jump!”
Why was she so far back?
Oh, the glass! It was everywhere and would tear up her paws. I could sense her figuring out what to do when the door behind her burst off its hinges and then red-hot pain sliced through my wolf’s ribcage. The mother of all electric shocks rocked her body and she fell to the ground shaking as I stood on top of Pearl and screamed.
“NO!”
There, standing just behind my incapacitated wolf, was the fucking vampire queen. She held some kind of Taser device, and when she turned a dial, my body and wolf simultaneously felt like it was consumed by fire. Every nerve ending frayed and the world spun and sweat broke out onto my body. My wolf shook, her teeth chattering as the electricity rocked her small form. My human self lunged forward, placing one foot on the windowsill, and was reaching over with my left arm to remove my right cuff when one of the tall fey guards from the gym room, who was clearly no longer unconscious, burst into the room, gun raised.
It all happened so fast, too fast. The muzzle of the gun flickered with light and then something sharp pinched my stomach. Fresh, hot warmth trickled down into my underwear, and I swayed. I flew backward into someone’s arms and then Sawyer screamed. It was gut-wrenching and inhumane as it turned into a howl.
It took a moment for me to realize he was screaming for me.
“No! You idiot! I need her alive.” The queen’s voice sounded warbled and my body shook. “Cuff the wolf and bring up the protection field,” the queen snapped.
Then Sawyer said the three most horrible words I’d ever heard. “Go! Leave her!”
Without even considering another option, Pearl kicked off the ground and her wings snapped out as she pumped us high into the air. My wolf lay on the ground inside of the room shaking and whimpering from the high-voltage electric current pulsing nonstop into her body.
Everything felt so light, and cold … I was so cold. My teeth chattered as we flew further and further away from my wolf, my other half of my soul, my savior.
“Sawyer don’t … make me … I can’t,” I rasped. There was pressure on my stomach, and I looked down to see a panicked and wide-eyed Walsh trying to plug all of the holes there.
Oh my God. There were so many holes in my body. How was I still conscious?
In that moment, the shock wore off and the woozy heaviness of sleep pressed down on me along with a pain so horrifying I nearly passed out.
This was how I died. I knew it. Felt it deep inside of my soul.
I reached up with bloody fingers and trailed them down Sawyer’s cheek. “I want you to know…” I rasped, as breathing became too hard. “That you were loved. Not for your money, or because of some stupid mating year. I…” Why was breathing so hard? Sawyer’s eyes filled with tears as he shook his head in complete denial of the situation. “I loved you so madly and wildly. I want you to … know … that. Tell Creek that … I loved him too. Unlike any other.” Once the last word slipped from my lips, a deep, heavy blackness, unlike any I’d ever felt before, washed over me and pulled me under, like a tsunami dragging a victim to their grave.
