I lower my head as I reach the edge of the roof and turn around, predatory and intent as I stop before my tigress. My human voice is dragon-rough. “And that’s the least of me.”
Minnie’s eyes fill with angry tears as she nods. “Yes. We’ll get them back, Lia. I know it.”
I snarl into the air, smoke dissipating in a cloud around me. “I need them back. I need to feel that crocodile’s hide in my mouth. I need to drink her blood.”
It’s Marduk who says carefully, “My lady, this will be…challenging.”
I turn to hiss at him, baring my teeth. “I’m familiar withchallenging, Marduk. Nothing in my life has ever come easy.” My huff is sardonic. “Not even my mates came to me easily.”
“How the hell did she even achieve this?” Minnie says, exasperated, staring at the sky. “I’ve never seen any magic like it.And what was that powder the hyena matriarch was sprinkling around?”
“I didn’t even think it was possible,” Yeti says darkly. “To change reginas so easily. Surely it can’t hold?”
I turn towards the front of the school, looking out at the Hunting Games field. “Bone,” I say softly. “What you smelled on the wind was my bone, Minnie.”
Minnie chokes in horror.
“I fear they had the correct ingredient,” Marduk sighs. “There’s no more powerful a substance they could’ve gotten their hands on.”
She’d used my own bone against me. Foul, terrible creature.
A growl rumbles through my being. I don’t know how long The Collector had planned for this, but my bet was on a long time. She’d always had a jealous eye on Scythe. Had always run her eyes down my mates like they were meat to be consumed. “There has to be a way out. All spells can be broken.” I’ve studied serpent magic since infancy. Even blood covenants can be broken as Savage reminded us all with the amputation of his finger. “I’m not as familiar with hyena witchcraft.” The admission cools me a little. “But we know some who are.”
Marduk’s eyes are alight in the dark, like shiny marbles of mystery. “I shall call our Dabu pack friends, my lady. They will be keen to help.” He gets out his phone and strides into the stairwell, his feet silent on the stone.
“Come inside, Lia,” Minnie says gently. “Are you hungry?”
I clench my teeth. How could I be hungry for human food after everything that’s happened? Minnie must see my struggle, and she shakes herself. “Let’s at least get off the roof, please?”
My eyes cast themselves back out into the dark of night once again, reluctant to leave the open air. As if we might see our loved ones driving up the road to the academy. As if Savagewould be leaning out the window with the wind in his hair, waving at me. I tear my eyes away. Stupid.Stupid.
They’re not going to come back to me.
I’m going to have to tear them from her clutches. The entire world is about to find out what happens when you fuck with the Boneweaver pack.
Chapter 2
Xander
No Light, No Light – Florence and the Machine
She’d been ready for us.
The Collector stands, shoulders tense, a darting rifle resting on one shoulder. It’s currently aimed at Savage, who’s mindlessly fighting ten on one with two darts already in each thigh. If I were a nice and helpful person, I would tell them to bring out the bear-strength darts. But my helpful days are over.
Instead, I swipe a joint right from the fingers of a nearby guard. He protests for a single second before my glare cuts him short. I choose a patch of grass against the wheel of the Jeep closest to me, stretching out my legs and crossing them at the ankles, Savage’s mad growls the backing track to my music.
There is something distracting me from the bedlam. Something that burns like dark fire on the side of my neck. A mark of a new kind.
After Lia flew away with the Devi pack, Katerina Crocodylus commanded us back to her. Without a clear goal to occupy our minds, it took all of five seconds foritto begin.
My brothers have descended into their beasts. Deeply. No doubt the only way their minds can cope with the violation that’s just occurred.
Theswappingof our regina.
Nothing could be worse than my own crimes, but this is a new sort of low for The Collector. She’d done her research and came ready with the equipment, and the hyena queen in tow.
The old witch, for her part, is perched at the edge of the passenger seat of the first vehicle, both hands resting on her cane with an expression of shrewd amusement as she watches Savage, with his jowls around one of the guard’s shoulders, get shot again, this time in his neck.
