A third finger lifted. “Even if that wasn’t the case, you’ve just confirmed what I sensed the day you secured your quintet bond. You’re an abomination of wolf mixed with witch. You cannot be allowed to survive, so it’s a win-win for me to destroy you.”
All along, the spy had been Jewels, in this city, stalking our steps. And she knew what I was now. Fletcher had kept me a secret for his own gain, but that secret was out.
Kassidy gawped at me, her eyes wide and glassy.Magic,she mouthed, and I swallowed roughly with a brief nod.
I had magic, and I was the heart of this quintet, which meant my entire pack was in danger. Not even dragon genetics could survive the death of the heart of a quintet when we were bonded close enough to mentally communicate.
Jewels was right in saying if she took me out, she’d take them all out.
CHAPTER 43
SLADE
The explosion of magic from the witches had me drawing on my own energy to connect with Talon’s. The joining of our dragons already felt like second nature, even though we’d only had days to practice.
When we stopped fighting the process, the bonding was seamless.
Parts of our minds melded as one, while other parts remained independent. This was different to the first shift when we’d had no cohesiveness and our left and right sides kept trying to move in different directions.
As our enemies rushed toward us, our allies fanned out behind our huge form, instinctively understanding that we offered the best protection from the spells. We moved forward, and I was relieved to feel our essences blending even more seamlessly than they had the last time we’d trained. This unity amplified our strengths, until we were nearly indestructible.
Flames burst from both our heads, blasting back the front line of our enemies. We turned our left head in a wider arc, and the right we moved forward.
This is a waste of our time, Talon growled.Jewels is not here, and we’re being forced to destroy any who might be able to lead us to her.
They’ll never betray her, I reminded him.Better that we relieve her of allies. There are powerful shifters and witches here, and we can’t have them back her up when we do find her.
We blasted through another group, more spells bouncing off us,and while some of them left a mark, it wasn’t enough to slow us down. Off to the side, Hunter had given up on fighting in his human form and had shifted so his beast could tear shifters to pieces.
So far we’d managed to keep this battle from slipping through the bond to Emme. Our quintet was locked down hard, and her beast wasn’t stirring at all. The urge to push into her stasis was strong, just so confirm she was okay, but then I’d lose focus on the battle. Or worse, cause her panic as she felt our fight.
We might have broken our promise to her, but she’d forgive us eventually, provided we all returned unharmed. Hence the need for focus.
Hunter wasn’t the only one battling. Constantine sent out waves of magic, while darting behind our body for cover. He apparently liked to fight dirty, his spells leaving his victims writhing on the ground, bleeding from every visible orifice.
The rest of our Silver City allies used Reeves Industries weapons, and while none of them had shifted, they weren’t without solid fighting skills. A few had already gone down under spells, and it bothered me to see our allies fall, but there was nothing I could do.
If we didn’t give our attention to thinning the numbers, all of us would go down.
More shifters and witches poured into the underground bunker’s large, main chamber. In sheer numbers, they had us beat fifty to one, but in the power scale…
We werealwayson top.
Blaine, for all of his early bravado, remained at the back of the group, watching his allies fall one by one. As we crushed their front line, some of the witches and shifters started to back away, but we didn’t let them retreat. They’d chosen their path, and now they would die on it.
We pushed harder into the group, using our tail to swing in a massive arc, shattering shifters against the walls. Just when we were starting to make some real headway, Hunter let out a pain-filled roar and our beast bellowed with him. A witch and wolf had teamed up against him, one using magic to hold him, while the bear sank his enhanced claws into my brother’s chest, dangerously close to his heart.
We couldn’t blast our fire without hitting Hunter, and any attempt to dislodge the bear would only dig those claws in deeper.
We need to split, I barked at my twin.I have to be in my human form to help Hunter.
Talon accepted this change of plan with the same ease as he accepted most of my orders. I was the older twin, and the only alpha in the world he’d take orders from without question. Not even Hunter had that power.
When our energy separated, it left me briefly disoriented. No amount of practice had eased that transition yet, and I had to ride it out until my brain stopped rattling in my head searching for its twin.
When I reached Hunter, he was motionless on the ground, but I caught sight of his hand gripping the bear, scarcely keeping it from carving out his heart completely. My vision went red on the edges, and the dragon was raging for a kill as we gripped the bear around the throat and broke his neck in one flick of our wrist.
Hunter’s breaths were ragged as he stared up at me. His chest was even more destroyed than I expected. That much visible muscle and bone was beyond a shifter’s healing, even one as strong and dominant as Hunter.
