“Hmm. About that.” Max glanced at the seat near them and saw the gun lying there. He grabbed it, unloaded the magazine, and ejected a round.
Max hissed and dropped it to the table. Then he used a napkin to lift it for further study. “Silver round with flecks of yellow. Think the stuff we drank is embedded in these bullets?” He carefully eased the round back in the magazine and reloaded, setting the pistol on safe.
“I sure the hell hope so.”
A magical pop erupted, and a cloying, familiar miasma settled over the area.
“Outside,” she said to Max, and they hustled out of the bar to see the sorcerer standing in the middle of the bazaar’s open area, where seating had been cleared. No one was shopping or eating.
The bazaar that had seemed full earlier was now empty.
“Does he own the entire market now?” Max asked.
A good question. Because if he didn’t, who else might be pulling his strings? Did they have another enemy, someone beyond a self-important sorcerer with delusions of grandeur?
And then she saw him. Julian Wildridge, watching from a distance. He saw her and Max and waved.
“That prick.” Max flipped him off, which only made Julian laugh.
Sebastian pushed the cowl of his robe back, treating them once more to his terribly good looks, masking a horrible person inside. “Riley Foster. I told you before you’d do best to work with me. But now there’s no saving you. Julian wanted a berserker of his line. Thought even about using his son if you refused to let Julian plant one on you. But it’s beyond any of them at this point.”
He smiled and snapped his fingers. The ground beneath a large blood circle, one big enough to fit a school bus in diameter, rumbled. In the center of the circle, the cement floor cracked and crumbled then opened to reveal a fiery hell from which a large, lycan-shaped beast exploded.
It landed outside the circle, and she saw Sebastian pull the artifact from underneath his robe.
To Riley’s surprise, she felt it call to her. A howl from Hirpus, a plea to come home.
The beast turned to regard the statue and cocked its head.
“It can hear that too?” Max whispered.
It turned to spy Max and bared its teeth in challenge.
Riley and her cousin stared.
The creature was the size of a semi, its fur course and red, spattered with burst of black in spiral patterns that mesmerized if stared at too closely. It had huge fangs, the size of her arm, with powerful legs and a thick torso. It looked a lot like a giant, hellish lycan. Its eyes were a bright, gleaming yellow. Like looking at the sun, the brightness hurt.
“I’m feeling the toxin, Riley.” Max shook his head. “I’m going to shift. Maybe that’ll help. Use me. Use us. We have to work together.” He gave her a hug and kiss on the cheek. “I love you.”
She had a terrible feeling she and Max might not survive this. And instead of the enjoyment from a battle she knew was coming, she felt loss. That Max would not live to see his time as alpha, to have children, to help the world defeat the coming evil. It hurt to know her beginning with Kraft was already ending, and the grief stabbed particularly hard.
“I should have told him goodbye.”
Max knew who she meant. “He’ll understand.”
“How? I don’t.” She laughed, and the hell-beast roared as it stared at her, sniffing and expressing interest. “I think I could have mated a vampire, Max.”
He sighed. “You did. I don’t know how he hid it from you, but you guys mated. I could smell the bond on the cat.”
“What?” She took her eyes off the creature and stared at her cousin.
A mistake.
It attacked.
And it didn’t seem to care what its creator yelled at it as it bit into her side and flung her up in the air more than twenty feet.
She shifted on the way down. And boy, that landinghurt.
