Kylo was to his left as they strolled like they didn’t have a care in the world into the frigid room where Pete sat, his eyes closed, his face ghostly pale. Conrad’s eyes narrowed on Pete’s chest.
He’s alive. Get him out while I distract Selina.
What, no! I’m not leaving you.
Pete needs help. We can’t let him die.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
Yep. Now get ready, she’s coming.
Conrad’s animals alerted him to the sudden shift in the air before Selina appeared, hair flying around her shoulders. Eyes murderous with insanity, Conrad could see how the beast inside her had consumed all humanity, if there was ever any to start with. One could not be sure.
What was to come, he knew, would be a battle to the death. There was no other way, and he accepted it when it came for the greater good. For his family. For his mate.
Go now!
Seeing Kylo grab Pete and fling him over his shoulder, Conrad threw back his head and roared. His lion led the charge as he shut his eyes to sink into himself and allow out the one part of him that rarely saw the light of day. It clawed to escape at the confines that Conrad used to keep it locked inside him. To protect him and the world from the lunacy the scientists had created.
The surrounding walls crumbled and crashed around him. Dark magic thickened the air, making it impossible to take a breath. Only the monsters inside him didn’t need to breathe.
Conrad’s eyes flicked open and tracked its target in a world of madness.
“You won’t win. I will tear you limb from limb and feast on your bones, like I did to those children who thought they could take my place,” she screamed in the room’s chaos. “I’m not nothing!”
Large pieces of concrete flew at him. Limbs elongated, and Conrad batted them away like an annoying fly. She sent more raining down on him.
His chuckle was menacing as he stepped closer to her while magic tore at him, attempting to skin him to the bone. Her rage fed the monster inside him, and his animals, grotesque from the experiments, merged into hideous creatures. Unique monsters. A chimera. They rippled forth, revealing themselves one at a time.
“You are nothing,” he roared, flames melting everything around him. “You have no animal. They gave you nothing,” he taunted in a guttural voice, not his own. “Look at me. I am everything you will never be!” Evilness stared at the witch as she screamed.
The air exploded over him. Her body shifted into that of a dragon. His laughter was deadly chilling as his dragon emerged, the two tails it had swinging to sweep everything aside as the magic rendered the house a pile of rubble around them as he continued to push her.
Animal after animal surfaced, with her following his lead. Only they had no power. They were an illusion. His, however, were not. They merged into one. A malformed arm covered in scales and fur reached forward through the magic shield she used to protect herself.
The scent of his own flesh burning filled the smoky air. Scales and fur melted from his bones, only they weren’t felt as the seething fury reached its peak. There was nothing, only the need, deep-seated inside to give the beast what it wanted to feed on—her black soul.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kylo
“Fucking hell, come on, Pete, wake up.” In the jeep, Kylo glanced back at the death house. Once shrouded in darkness, now it was ablaze with magic, the walls crumbling with the intensity of it all.My mate’s in there.Kylo knew, with every fiber of his being, that he had to get in there too.
Pete didn’t deserve what had happened to him. Dragging out the old medical emergency box his father meticulously maintained in the jeep, Kylo cursed the fact he’d brought a family vehicle and not one of the work ones. With no radio…shit, my cell phone.When he dragged it out of his pocket, Kylo could see the battery was dead.
Damn magic.“Pete. Pete. Come on, buddy. Wake up.”
At least it was warmer in the jeep than it had been in the icebox Selina had converted the death house into. Pete’s color was slowly returning. Kylo risked another glance as the sound of plaster and concrete falling filled the jungle clearing.Hang on, mate, I’m coming.
“Boss?” Pete’s voice was wafer-thin.
“Pete, you’re awake. Thank the Fates. Will you be okay?”
“Okay, how exactly? That damned silent woman with the magic. She took me!”
“Good, those keen observation skills are coming back to you. Drink this.” Kylo held a bottle of water to Pete’s lips.
“I can hold it myself.” Pete lifted his hand, only his hand wasn’t there. There was just a blackened stump. It appeared as though Selina’s magic had cauterized the wound so Pete wouldn’t bleed out. Pete’s screech, “What the fuck? Where’s my hand?” severely tested Kylo’s ear drums.
