Locke’s fighting was wild, his claws slashing through any outlier that neared, and when a space had cleared around him, he launched into the air, his wings flapping as he rose above the rooftops. Pain bloomed in my chest signaling that Raine was in danger and she’d been hurt, and I howled in frustration. Snarling and snapping, I fought through the mass of outliers, leaping over the creatures and running to the building where I’d last seen her.
Traces of coconut and steel led into the house, and I smashed through the door, stepping over the splintered wood as I followed her scent. My nostrils flared as I breathed in, and I snarled as I also picked up the scents of three other wolf shifters. Grunts came behind me, and I turned my head to see Asher and Darian had fought their way to the building and were coming after me. Baring my teeth, I sprinted through the house, flying past the furniture as I let my nose guide me. Asher and Darian ran close at my heels, and the growls of the outliers faded away when they didn’t follow us.
Deep down, I knew it was a bad sign the outliers weren’t pursuing us, but I pushed onward, my powerful body carrying me through building after building and up multiple streets as I raced after my Mahare. Locke followed from the air, but I knew if he’d spotted her, he would have come down by now.Fuck.
Veering around the corner of a building, I stopped abruptly when Raine’s scent trail ended in the middle of a narrow alley. A splash of red blood colored the cobblestones, and another guttural growl rumbled from my chest. I paced the area, hoping to pick up her scent again, or even the scents of her kidnappers, but it was as if the group of them had vanished into thin air.
Asher cursed as he came up behind me, and he brushed a bloodied hand over his horns. “Where is she?”
Darian’s chest heaved, and his sharp blue gaze darted around the alley.
Locke, who had been circling the skies above us, landed a few paces away, and his face was the picture of wrath. “I can’t find Raine from above, but those outliers only respond to one master. This is Warrick’s doing.”
The pain in my chest was constant, but it hadn’t become more intense, indicating that she wasn’t too badly harmed. We still had time to save her.
“We should go back and follow the outliers. Surely they’ll lead back to Daddy,” Asher suggested.
“We need weapons,” Darian pointed out. “We won’t be any good to our lovely Raine if we’re dead.”
“You’ll need more than that,” a female voice purred, and all four of us tensed, ready for a fight, as a female figure dropped from a nearby rooftop. Lyr walked slowly, her hips swaying as she approached us, and two of her mates flanked her. I eyed Nic’s ghostly face and Soren’s crimson wings, the soft red feathers ruffling in the breeze.
I should have detected them, but Lyr and her mates were known for their stealth, and I was much too riled up about Raine’s disappearance to beat myself up about it now.
“What do you know?” Locke asked, his body deathly still.
Lyr’s pale gaze assessed the four of us in turn before she answered, “She’s been taken to one of Warrick’s new locations.” She tilted her head toward Soren. “He spotted Zacal and his wolves taking her into one of the mansions Warrick’s recently acquired.”
Locke bared his fangs. “You saw them take her?”
“You four might be suicidal, but I intend on keeping my head,” Soren replied, lifting his hands in a placating gesture. The male with red wings had once been one of Queen Izla’s personal guards, and while I knew he was a formidable fighter, it had been a while since I’d seen him engaged in combat. In any case, whywouldhe try to save Raine? Aside from Lyr showing some interest in her, I couldn’t see any reason for Soren to risk his life.
Locke still looked like he wanted to tear Soren’s head off for not doing anything, but Lyr planted her hands on her hips. “If you’re going to be an ass, we’ll leave, but if you want our help in saving your mate, then you might want to put your fangs away.”
None of us commented on the fact that Lyr had called Raine our mate. We had yet to mark our red-haired goddess, sealing her as ours, but I’d long since accepted she was our mate. And when she was willing to accept it too, I’d be all ready to make her mine in every sense of the word. But first, I had to save her.
Darian crossed his arms and frowned. “Why would you help us?”
Lyr turned her attention to him. “You’re not the only ones interested in her well-being. While you were all away doing whatever the hell it was you hoped to achieve in the fae realm, the rest of us were here fighting. Zacal has been spreading rumors about how you all sided with the fae, so I hope it was worth it. Warrick and his outliers all but run the city now, but the old vampire seems to have forgotten we’re all monsters just as he is.”
I shifted back into my human form, my bones cracking and ears popping. “What does this have to do with Raine?” I growled.
“Whatever monster she’s turning into,” Lyr began, “I believe she’s the key to defeating Warrick and this curse, and there are others who agree. She’s the only one who wasn’t turned by the curse within a matter of hours or days, and her magic is already more powerful than any other monster in Katakin.”
My brothers and I kept silent, weighing our limited options. None of us tried to deny Lyr’s claims.
“We’ve been watching Warrick’s for nights and know where he’s keeping her,” Lyr added. “Trust me, you need us. And we need her.”
I didn’t want Raine mixed up in whatever rebellion was brewing among the monsters, and allowing Lyr to help us would leave us in her debt, but I couldn’t deny we needed the information. Not to mention the extra muscle would be useful when we retrieved Raine from Warrick’s clutches.
I shared a look with my brothers, but it was Locke who spoke next. “Tell us where she is.”
I crouched low beside Asher and Darian in my wolf form, my ears folded back and my senses on high alert. We were in a small city house that Lyr had discreetly acquired nights ago, and I peered through the glass window, surveying the massive building across the street. According to the tiger shifter and her mates, Warrick had claimed four abandoned mansions since we’d been away in the fae realm, and the one across the street was the one Warrick visited the least. Located in the far west of the city, the old mansion stood three stories high, the building still standing despite the crumbling brick and smashed glass windows. A wide stretch of dead grass surrounded the mansion, and a tall iron gate wrapped around the entirety of the estate.
Two outliers guarded the angled ash-gray roof, the large creatures scampering along the tiles in random quick bursts. The color of their skin was a shade of gray identical to that of the tiles, making it hard to spot them unless they moved. I thought of Locke, who would soon be swooping down from above, and hoped for his sake that there weren’t more outliers up there than we realized.
Another dozen outliers, similar to the ones we’d encountered not long ago in the city, guarded the entrances and exits of the house and stalked the perimeter of the estate. But it wasn’t the outliers that had me baring my teeth.
Zacal’s wolves prowled the grounds, moving between the outliers and helping guard the mansion. A low growl slipped out of me at the sight of the wolf shifters of the House of Worzel working alongside Warrick. There was a time when the wolves had honor and integrity. A time when the members of the House of Worzel would never have turned their backs on their own kind.
