I abruptly found myself face down in the dirt, as the Weres jumped the mages, the mages sent more repelling spells surging outward, and this time, they weren’t holding back.Big bodies went flying, some Changing halfway through the movement and landing and skidding on all fours.Others ducked and avoided the spells, coming in low, with clawed hands scrabbling at the shield over top of me, which did nothing except to piss off the mage.
He threw something at a Were that made it howl, then yelled into his lapel.“Send backup!We have a situation!”
Which I thought was a pretty mild way of describing it, as Weres were now spilling out of RVs, trailers, and trucks, and deluging us in a snarling, snapping, furious cloud of fur.None of which was getting through the mages’ shields, which had just joined up to form a little shell over top of us, one I couldn’t even see out of anymore.Only writhing furry bodies, straining muscles, and fangs.
I just wanted to talk to Sienna, I thought dizzily.I wasn’t armed, wasn’t prepared, didn’t even fully understand what was going on.And I wasn’t at full strength or anything close to it—and neither are you!I added to the woman who had gotten us into this.
And who, as usual, wasn’t listening to me.
She was staring at the crowd, looking for something.Or someone, because she was nothing if not single-minded.But I didn’t see Rand’s chieftain anywhere.
“Give her to us!”the first Were snarled, his face pressed close against the ward, to the point that it must have been shocking him.But he didn’t look like he cared.“We’ll deal with Sebastian’s bitch ourselves!”
“The master wants her as a hostage—”
“Fuck your master!Give us the woman!”
I stared at them, feeling off kilter, because a bunch of my own people were attacking me while a group of my enemies were protecting, and I was pretty sure I knew why.And it had nothing to do with my value as a hostage.And then more mages appeared, spewing out of a door in one of the towering columns of stone and forcing a wedge into the fury, providing a shielded corridor for us to walk down.
Or to be dragged down, in my case.The mage on my right, who appeared to be leading this squad, grabbed me by one arm and pulled me after him.And took all of the care of a guy towing a suitcase with a wonky wheel through an airport, trying to make a flight.
I didn’t complain.I was too busy staring at the shield behind me, which the new mages had added to, forming a tunnel entirely covered by writhing fur of different shades.That was even true on top, where some Weres had jumped up to see if it was thinner there.
It wasn’t, or I would have been torn apart already, by my own people who wanted to kill me for reasons I didn’t fully understand.
Why were a bunch of Weres aligning themselves with dark magic users who had nothing but contempt for them?Who had kidnapped and experimented on their people, who were happy to use them as fodder in their war, and who couldn’t care less if they lived or died?Yet it was me whose blood they wanted, and were baying for like a bunch of psychos!
But at least the mages weren’t taking any chances.I was dragged through the door in the stalagmite-looking formation and up an inner staircase.And onto a platform under one of the sails, where someone who, if not a friend, almost looked like one at the moment, was sitting at a small cafe-type table.
The dark mage I’d fought twice now rose when he saw me.He pulled my head up and brushed the hair out of my face to check that it was really me.And looked like Christmas had come early when he decided it was, because he wanted something, and he wanted it badly.
Too bad it didn’t exist anymore.
“Close the wards,” he told the man who’d dragged me in.“Do it now!”
“Sir, there’s no one else out there, and she didn’t have any communication devices—”
“Are you arguing with me?”
“No, sir.”The mage turned and left, and the other one who had been helping to carry me earlier spoke up.“We gave her a paralytic, but it’s starting to wear off.Do you want—”
“Get out.”
“Sir?”
“I said, get out!All of you!”
And I guessed he really was a council member, because they got out.Leaving me alone with a guy whose neck I could have snapped in an instant, if not for the fact that I could barely move.And for the baying mob below, who’d have me in shreds the moment I stepped foot out of this tower.
The mage picked me up and dumped me in a chair, just as the sun winked out overhead.Gloom descended like night falling, as the dome of the Black Circle’s protection closed out the light, except for strange, purple electricity swirling across the ward and jumping from rock peak to rock peak like something out of an old horror movie.I half-expected to hear someone yell, “It’s alive!”at any second, only the opposite was far more likely.
The opposite was certain if I didn’t think of something right goddamned now.
But that was a little hard with Weres leaping three stories high, trying to get at me.Which, since we were maybe all of five floors off the ground, did not leave me reassured.Some tried to grab hold of protuberances in the rock and push off to propel themselves the rest of the way, but got the shit shocked out of them instead as the column was warded, too.
So they started backing up and running from a distance to build up steam.And attempted to launch themselves onto the platform that way.But I suddenly didn’t care about that, and not only because some mages below had started shooting repel blasts at them, knocking them off course.
But because I’d just seen something that was more important—and way more worrying
