“I can’t see him, but I’m fairly certain that they’re waiting for me. If that’s true, they know I’m coming for Alex.” My gaze scanned the crowd. No one had moved so much as an inch. They were still in.
Their loyalty made my throat tighten, but I did my best to push the emotion aside. I needed to save all my feelings so I could perform some freaking amazing battle magic.
“I don’t know what’s past the line of shifters. It could be more adversaries. Be prepared for that.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Simone cracked her knuckles. “Let’s just do the damn thing.”
“Shifters should be cake,” Francis added and shot a sly glance at our shifters, who wisely chose not to react to his taunt.
For the first time, I was thankful for the vampires’ huge egos. At least someone thought this would be easy.
“We’re ready, Odie,” Eva pressed.
I gave a single nod. “Okay. The witches will go first and put up a shield. We’ll try to protect everyone with it for as long as we can.”
Shields bloomed from the hands of my peers, and as soon as the other magicals were behind us, we broke around the corner and sprinted for the shifters.
The moment our opponents noticed us, their eyes flashed crimson, making my stomach drop.They have demon stones on them.Right away, half shifted, and tigers, bears, wolves, and even a wolverine appeared.
“Careful! They have demon stones! We should attack them first,” I yelled. Fighting off a bear-shifter whose hide was imbued with protective magic and bolstered by a demon stone’s power would be a major feat. We needed the advantage of first move.
Hunter took a shot and hit a shifter who was mid-transformation. The limbo state made him vulnerable, and the lion-shifter collapsed to the ground.
Magic flew from all the witches’ hands as our opponents charged toward us. Four other shifters went down fast. But those still in human form remained still, too far away for us to attack, while the others in animal aspect were coming ever closer as they dodged our attacks.
We were within twenty feet of the beasts, and I was preparing to blast them with battle magic, when the vampires flew by our front line.
What the hell?
My breath hitched as each vampire, moving so fast they were a blur, flung themselves onto an animal and sank their fangs into their necks.
The bitten shifters let out a piercing wail, and then, to my surprise, exploded in a cloud of black smoke.
Well, I’ll be damned. I—
My heart lodged into my throat, and I nearly stopped running. The next round of shifters transformed and rushed forward to fight, leaving a large gap in the center of their line. The person they’d been protecting was now visible.
My breath hitched as I saw Alex lying prone on the ground. David Chena stood over him, watching the fight with the Realm Slicer in his hand.
The shield in front of me faltered and then dropped altogether as fear and fury took over. My vision tunneled, and I sprinted forward, attacking and defending myself on autopilot. I fought my way through the shifters, punching, hurling magic, and stabbing them with my demon dagger—all with one common goal.
To get to Alex.
Bam!
A huge body slammed into me from the side, and a screech ripped up my throat as I fell to the ground. A second later a bear appeared above me, his paws on both sides of my arms and his stinky breath flowing straight into my nostrils. The bear swiped a massive paw.
I rolled out of the way just in time to hear the scrape of claws on cobblestone. Reacting quickly, I hurled my power at him. With only inches between us, it should have at least stunned the beast, but he didn’t even blink.
Shit, shit, shit!
I rolled to the other side and tried to shimmy out from under his chest, but the bear’s massive paw slapped me so that I was forced squarely beneath him again. His teeth were inches from my face.
I’m a goner, I—
Suddenly, where the bear had been, there was only a massive cloud of black smoke.
I coughed, trying to clear my lungs.
