I fought to get out from under him, but he was getting heavier, and heavier, andheavier.Not to mention his claws were growing longer and sharper to match his muzzle, which was sporting more and more teeth with every passing second.
Damn, so this was how I went out. At least I wouldn’t be alive long enough for Leo to lecture me. Silver linings and all that.
For all my rather dry thoughts about the whole situation, energy surged and roiled within me. I supposed it simply wasn’t in my nature to give up, because suddenly, I desperately wanted tolive.
My lungs burned from the lack of oxygen, but I kept holding my breath as I reached down into my apron and grabbed another smoke bomb. As the bear opened its jaws wide to either eat me or bellow right in my ear, I shoved it right into his spread maw.
The shifter reared back, and an even thicker cloud of smoke filled the space. Scrambling to my feet, I sprinted to the door, my straining lungs screaming in protest.
As soon as I was through the door, I sucked in air, and only then did I realize I hadn’t gone through the door to the kitchen. In my fall and our tussling, I must have gotten turned around, because I was in the middle of the grand hallway that led to theballroom. The ballroom which, from the sound of it, was a full-on battlefield now.
Whoopsie.
I needed to hide before the bear shifter recovered. Because he would recover. Sure, his tongue and gums would burn like hell for maybe five minutes, but that was about it.
I took maybe a handful of steps before a shape came crashing through the wall to my left and slamming into the opposite one. Shrieking, I jumped back, then frowned when I recognized the shape as one of the two mountain lion shifters America had connected us with. They called themselvesKlandagi.
I was about to rush to his side and try to help him when a man floated casually though the hole in the wall.
I didn’t need to be a magical being to sense the strange energy crackling around his raised hand. Quickly, I thrust my hand into my apron pocket and pulled out another smoke bomb. I only had two more after this, but what was the point in saving them when someone needed my help right then and there?
“Hey, fuckwad!” I cried as I lobbed the bomb, grateful for the couple of summers I’d spent at softball camp.
The man—I was certain it was one of the brothers because he was freaking floating—turned his head to the side just in time to get beaned right in the forehead.
Yeah, that was satisfying.
It fell to the floor, and smoke started to erupt around him, but he flicked his wrist, and the next thing I knew, the smoke became a living creature, coalescing in a wild and fearsome form…
And it was coming straight for me.
There was nowhere to run. A bear shifter behind me, the chaotic and dangerous ballroom to my right, and one of the brothers who had destroyed so many lives front of me.
Well… those weren’t exactly great options, were they?
So, I did the only thing I could do. I braced myself and pulled my shirt up over my mouth, as if that would help.
The smoke hit me with a physical force, pushing me backward so hard that my feet actually skidded along the carpet. I’ve barely been able to draw in a full breath before it did, but I did my best not to breathe now.
But my best could only bemybest, after all, and I was only human. My lungs were already burning when the smoke circled around me like a tornado, completely enveloping me. When it began to pick me up, I knew there was no hope for me.
Under any other circumstances, having magic lift me off the ground would have been fun, but this was most decidedlynotfun.Far sooner than I would have liked to admit, my self-preservation instincts forced me to open my mouth, and I dragged in a deep breath of the smoke. It smelled surprisingly pleasant.
I thought the sedation effects would be pretty instantaneous, that my eyelids would grow heavy, and I would pass out fairly quickly, but I felt as alert as ever. I felt even more alert when the swirling vortex of smoke around me began to haul me toward my enemy.
Wood shattered behind me, and I crashed to the floor. I shook my head and rubbed my eyes clear just in time to see two wolves had burst through the wall, the larger one landing squarely on the floating man’s back, his teeth sinking into the luminescent purple shield that had suddenly appeared around the warlock’s head, and the other going straight for his crotch.
Yeowch.
Between the two of them and the mountain lion shifter who had managed to get up, they overpowered him. One minute, he was screaming curses, his hands glowing with pent-up energy that didn’t know where to go, the next, the purple shield protecting him vanished, allowing the wolf—which I nowrealized was Leo—to snap his jaws closed through the warlock’s skull.
I shuddered. Holy shit, it was bloody. Gory. I’d seen a lot since Leo had entered my life, but nothing could have prepared me for the rush of blood and brain matter that dripped from my lover’s mouth. My stomach lurched, and I turned away in case I really did throw up. That would be embarrassing.
“Ven!”
I turned back toward the gruesome scene to see that Leo was back in his human form. I swallowed hard. He was completely soaked with blood from his chin down to his legs, so seeing him wasn’t as comforting as it would have been.
“What are you doing here? You were supposed to get to safety.”
