“I do,” that was Sophie, pushing her way through the pack.“Get out of my way!”she told them.
“Take your turn,” Lee, with his voice halfway to wolf-speak, told her.
“Yeah, you can have what’s left,” Noah growled.
“Out,” Cyrus said.“All of you.”
He didn’t raise his voice or even turn to look at them, because he didn’t have to.As pack leader, his word was law.And they obeyed immediately—well, most of them.
“But I can smell it, too,” Sophie said, struggling as the boys bore her away.“And I have to talk to Lia!”
The boys ignored her and dragged her into the hall.I half expected her alter-ego to come bounding back in as Sophie wasn’t any better at following orders than a common housecat, but it didn’t.Maybe it was off somewhere, licking its wounds.I would have liked to do the same, but I was still splayed out against the wall.
“Explain,” Hargroves said, his voice clipped.
“I can’t,” I said impatiently.“I already told you what I know—”
“Your nose isn’t that sharp,” Cyrus said, because normally, it wasn’t.But nothing had been normal lately, and right now, I could smell everything.
“Didn’t use to be,” I corrected him, and he frowned some more.
Hargroves hadn’t let me go, but he paused to run anexpiscorspell over himself, which came back green.He ran it again, just to be sure, before skewering me with that gaze again.He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to.
Expiscorsdidn’t fail unless there was nothing to find.
“Let me down,” I said, and somehow it came out sounding like an order.Damn it, I told my wolf.Stop helping me!
A gray eyebrow raised, and I went nowhere.
“Let her go,” Cyrus said, and again, there was no change in inflection.But there didn’t need to be.Hargroves knew exactly who Cyrus was, and being sandwiched between two wolves, one of whom had transformed into a monster just that day, and the other who was protecting his mate...
He let me down.But he also did something else, because a moment later, howls went up from outside and the sounds of a scuffle tore through my house—literally.I thought I heard one of my newly painted walls give way, but hoped I was hallucinating it.And then two huge war mages rushed into my small bedroom and—shit!
The boys were right on their tails, and the next second, they Changed.And six wolves, three war mages, and a pissed-off pack leader were not fitting in my small bedroom.Not without ripping it to shreds, and I’d just gotten this place fixed up, damn it!
“Get out!”I yelled, the wolf-speak harshing my voice.“All of you!”
“I beg your pardon?”Hargroves said, oddly politely.
“Not you!”I pointed at the boys and Sophie, who had taken the opportunity to come back in.“Out!”
“I need to talk to you!”she said, while the war mages took up positions on either side of Hargroves.Like the bastard didn’t have glass shields when he wanted.If he’d been there earlier today, I wouldn’t have needed to scream myself hoarse just to keep from ripping Caleb’s throat out!
And now I was furious all over again.
I warded my hand, grabbed the curse on Hargroves, andjerked.And there it came, the bastard, and itwasa bastard.It was a very big bastard, I thought, as it started trying to eat its way up my arm.
And suddenly the war mages were grabbing the boss and trying to fall back, only there was nowhere to go, and Hargroves was swearing at them, and the pack was howling and held back only by Cyrus from eating my boss, because they thought he’d cursed me, and—
“Die!”I screamed, so angry I couldn’t see straight for reasons I didn’t totally understand, except that I’d had aday, and my wolf was agitated as all hell and the damned spell was still trying toeat meand—
“Die!Die!Die!”
I threw the thing onto the floor and stomped on it, warding my foot to the point that it might as well have been encased in solid steel.Only no, steel wouldn’t have held up under the assault that bastard of a thing gave me, which was a vicious fight that I shouldn’t have won, at least not so quickly.But my other half was furious, too, and lent me strength, and after a stunned second, so did my boss.And where he led, the others followed.
And not much holds up to a combined assault from four angry war mages.
But damn if it didn’t try.
