“Can’t you see them?”I crane my neck to look.“It’s Raquel!”
“Mr Fengari!”comes a faint cry in my head.“Are you h-here?”
“Yes! Above the dome! Aurelia has us invisible!”
Raquel looks up, eyes trying to find us.“You n-need to see what they’re d-doing here. I think I can g-get you in.”
“How?”I cry back to them. How are they even here?
My chompy and Ghoul are still talking on the roof, and I’m not sure if they’ve seen the spirit of the wolf anim yet. Why are they not in their body! This explains why we haven’t seen them wake up yet.Wild Mother,this is so bad. Xander and Scythe must have shifted their sight because now they’re tracking the anim’s movements toward the middle warehouse. Lyle and the Devi pack won’t be able to see them because they’re felines, andLyle grumbles unhappily about it behind me. Raquel disappears into the warehouse on the left.
“To the ground!”I command Xander, whacking my heels into his scales like he’s a horse.
Xander dives for the ground, and Minnie lets out a little yelp. Next minute, I see three blobs levitating themselves to the shadows of the woods that surround the place like a Christmas wreath. Looks like dragon G-force isn’t for them, and I think that’s fair.
But now I have a problem: there’s nowhere for Xander to land, so why is he speeding towards the ground like this?
“Lyle!”I shout into his head.
“I’ve got you, wolf,”Lyle growls, before I feel myself lift off Xander’s back. Xander shrinks rapidly beneath us, and in seconds, he’s not under me at all, and we’re all flying down in human form into the trees like a bunch of baby birds who can’t use their wings. Luckily, Lyle is a good mother hen and captures me and Scythe in the love of his power and glides us down.
When my bare feet touch down onto firm soil, I jump up to standing with excitement. Scythe brushes his silver hair off his face and is already walking towards the blue glow of the dome. The Devi pack is already there, and Lyle and Xander jog towards them. I’m the last bloody one!
A mighty roar splits the air just as I reach them. Two massive basilisks rear up on the middle warehouse just as the blue dome fizzles out.
“Mr Fengari!”Raquel shouts in my head.
Chapter 70
Aurelia
It’s an effort to keep both Xander and the Devi pack concealed when Xander rudely dropped to the ground like that. I’m sure Savage has seen Raquel by this point, but I can’t give them any more attention as the battle for my life is about to take place.
I cock my head at the enemy basilisk. “You promised me you would return Raquel.”
“And so I have,” he says, shrugging. “You are here, they are here. Hence, the wolf is returned.” He takes a heavy, meaningful step towards me. “Are you buying time, snakelet?”
I also take a step forward, showing him I am not afraid. “Do you know me at all?” He freezes then, and I get the impression of a flash of fury through his shadows. “You think watching me all that time means that youknowme?” I hiss. “You watched me from the darkness like a coward. Like a worm wheedling through soil.”
He bares his fangs at that. “I am here to kill you,” he says, and I cannot hear an ounce of emotion in his voice. Just like mine. I wonder how long he has hidden his emotions behind the darkness.
“And I am here to stop you,” I say. “Shall we do this, shadow man?” I raise a hand, and a wisp of black coils around it. Lazy like smoke, black as midnight. “Oh, would you look at that?” I give him no warning as I explode outwards. Growing huge, growing scales and terrible eyes. Eyes like death itself burn through my skull. I’ve only done this form once before, and at that time, I’d been wholly unprepared for the way the blue lasers shot through my eyes. It happens again now.
Ghoul goes flying backwards from the force of it. Twin beams of heat score the concrete, chasing him, and a sound like electric humming fills the air. The concrete smokes. I taste an acrid burning on my tongue, and Ghoul shifts into his basilisk form before he hits the ground.“You need to cover your eyes,”he hisses into my mind.“Unless you want to kill every soul here.”
Oh, right.
My new shadows seem to want to play, but they are an extension of me, and move to my command in the same way a tail would. They are a new muscle, but I’m used to learning about new muscles. I pull the shadows up, plastering them over my eyes like a blindfold. My world becomes dark.
“Not too thick,”Ghoul says,“or you won’t be able to see.”
“Thank you,”I say, removing thin layers of the shadow until it lets light in like a pair of sunglasses.
“You’re welcome.”Suddenly, he’s in front of me, rearing that big head backward before he strikes. This body might be new to me, but I had beenraisedto be a cobra. Dodging the attack comes naturally to me, and I swing left before rounding on him, striking his thick hide. Thick basilisk fangs tear into his cool scales, and the regina in me screams to see us hurting our mate. Venom surges through my fangs, blood fills my mouth, and flesh submits to me. He roars to the sky.
“You never told me how you found yourself in Halfeather House,”I say, releasing him and launching myself off the roof ofthe warehouse.“I’ve become very familiar with your spine. If I win, you have to tell me.”
Ghoul says nothing as I turn and see him staring down at me from the rooftop, his tongue slipping out to taste the air. From the side of my eye, the blue dome disappears, and my mates sprint towards the warehouses.
