The man bringing up the rear was huge and impossible to miss as anyone other than Tatum Graves. He was carrying a burden over one shoulder, and it wasn’t a leap to assume it was the kid they were here to save.
Connor had been so focused on Tatum that he’d missed the other three moving down the front steps of the home, heading straight for Kat. Their intent to harm her seemed clear, even from where Connor was still sitting on the ground.
Surging to his feet, he partially shifted, the muscles of his legs, shoulders, and arms twisting and thickening, claws and fangs elongating even as he closed the distance between him and his soul mate. A remote part of his mind attempted to point out that he was carrying a gun for a reason, but his ingrained werewolf instincts demanded that he protect Kat using his natural weapons. Any attempt to use logic to reason with his inner wolf was impossible.
When he reached the flower bed where Kat knelt, Connor leaned down without slowing and scooped up one of the stone pavers edging the bed. Without hesitation, he stood and hurled it at the man only a few feet away from his mate. He expected the paver to knock the guy the hell out, but it was deflected away with little more than a twitch and a soft word. It gave Connor the distraction he needed, though, and in the next heartbeat, he leaped over Kat and slammed into the man who’d been mere seconds away from attacking her.
The grunt of pain told Connor that the guy had definitely felt the impact of their collision. Connor tore into the heavy cloak he found under his hands, but the thick fabric seemed to resist his attack, like it was the strongest bulletproof vest ever, yet after a few seconds, it began to shred nonetheless. He was a little shocked at his willingness to physically rip into someone like this, but knowing the man would have tried to take Kat from him made him keep going.
As his claws penetrated the last layer of fabric, finally coming into contact with the skin beneath and drawing blood, Connor felt a punch in the chest that cracked bone and threw him violently through the air. He slammed into what was left of the front of the Joneses’ house, dropping to the stone front steps with another bone-jarring thud. He shoved himself up, ignoring the pain in his arm. It was when he looked up to get his bearings that he realized the front lawn of the quaint home had turned into a damn combat zone.
Hale and Rachel were fighting Tatum, who was still carrying the sixteen-year-old Demarcus Jones around as if he were nothing more than a rag doll. Trevor was dealing with two female magic users—or at least trying to—but was getting pushed steadily back across the lawn as one invisible blow after another rained down on him, regardless of the gun in his hand.
But concerns for his pack mates faded the moment Connor looked back at Kat and saw her facing the same man he’d been grappling with mere seconds ago. The one who’d blasted him twenty feet through the air. Kat was out of the flower bed now, kneeling in the grass in front of it. She was hunched lower than before, her glowing green hands still raised to protect her against whatever her attacker was trying to do.
At some point in his struggle with Connor, the warlock’s cowl had gotten pushed back, revealing a pale face, dark eyes, and straight, dark hair tied back with a piece of leather. Connor’s stomach clenched. The man he was looking at had to be Marko. And the asshole was within inches of his soul mate, reaching toward her even now.
Connor grabbed one of the large pieces of the stone set into the edge of the porch steps, heaving on it with a low growl. The moment the twenty-pound piece of rock came loose in his hand, he turned and slung it as hard as he could toward Marko’s back with an angry snarl.
The chunk of ragged stone flew across the intervening space between him and Marko in the blink of an eye. Connor knew for a fact that he’d thrown the crude weapon with enough force to kill the man, but that didn’t stop him from dropping a hand down to his thigh holster and pulling his gun, aiming at Marko’s head even as he fought to get his claw-tipped finger through the trigger guard of the weapon.
The stone he’d thrown came to a sudden halt bare millimeters from Marko’s back, and the warlock snapped his head around to glare at him with an expression so cold and evil that it sent a tingle of electricity down Connor’s spine. Hell, if looks could kill.
Preferring for the warlock to keep his attention on him and not Kat, Connor took a step forward, pulling the trigger over and over, sending one bullet after another at the man.
Marko’s dark eyes burned with anger, and Connor watched in disbelief as the bullets began to burst into flame before disappearing into thin air. At the same time, the large chunk of rock that was still hovering in the air suddenly started moving again, coming straight back at Connor even faster than it had on the way out.
Connor ducked, snarling as the damn rock nearly took his head off. The sound the stone made as it tore through the home behind him confirmed that he’d be dead now if he hadn’t moved. It seemed Marko was just as deadly as Kat had made him out to be.
He risked a glance in Kat’s direction, catching her eye.
“Run!” he shouted. “Get the hell out of here and don’t stop!”
He didn’t wait to see if Kat did what he asked, instead turning back to face Marko. He prayed she left now that Marko was here, like she’d promised she would.
Connor emptied the rest of his magazine in the guy’s direction, dropped it, then quickly reloaded, and started firing again, all while moving steadily closer. The .40-caliber rounds from Connor’s gun never reached the dark-haired magic user, but at least they kept him occupied. They also apparently irritated him, if the twisted grimace on his face was any indication. It wasn’t the best outcome, but at this point, he’d take a distraction if it gave Kat a chance to get away free and clear.
When Marko lifted a hand in his direction, Connor knew he was screwed. The only question now was whether the warlock would simply blast him through the nearest wall, as he’d tried to do before, or do something much worse. He had a feeling there was no end to the horrendous things a man like Marko could do to him.
Fortunately, he never got to find out how vicious Marko could be because Kat popped up behind the man and shouted something in that language she was always using that Connor didn’t recognize. Suddenly, the tall warlock was completely enveloped in a fireball of white-hot flames. Instead of screaming in pain and batting the fire engulfing his clothes, Marko simply stood there, slowly turning to face Kat. Even though Connor couldn’t see the man’s face, he could still sense the anger roiling off him. It was even more intense than the flames surrounding him.
A part of Connor wanted to scream and shout at Kat for not running when she had the chance, but there simply wasn’t time for that, especially with the way Marko was fixated on Kat. It was like he was planning something next-level bad expressly for her.
Connor loaded up his last magazine and charged toward Marko, praying the warlock would be distracted enough by the flames to allow at least one round to get through. Because one round was all it would take. Connor would make sure of that.
One of his pack mates must have had the same idea because suddenly, gunfire was coming at Marko from a completely different direction. Connor glanced over to see Rachel moving their way, her handgun pointed straight at Marko. Rachel had apparently left Hale to deal with Tatum, clearly thinking their best hope was to take down Marko first. Connor couldn’t argue with his pack mate’s logic. Hell, if they took out Marko, maybe the others would simply give up—or at least leave without Demarcus.
For a moment it seemed like the plan would work, as at least some of their bullets appeared to get through the warlock’s defenses, ripping through the heavy material of the man’s cloak. But then something punched Connor in the chest, and he flew through the air—again. He lost his grip on his weapon as he suddenly became unsure which way was up and which was down—until he slammed into a wall and dropped once more to the front porch of the house.
Connor allowed himself half a second to grumble about how being thrown around like this was starting to get old. Then he pushed himself upright, frantically looking for Kat—and his weapon. He found her kneeling once more on the front lawn, except now the grass around her was scorched black. She looked more exhausted than he’d ever seen her. If Marko attacked her now, he’d take her down for sure.
But he didn’t attack.
Glancing around, Connor realized that the four witches and warlocks they’d been fighting were gone, disappearing without a trace. His three pack mates were all okay, even if they looked like they’d had their asses handed to them. From the scowls on their faces, it was obvious Marko had gotten away with Demarcus Jones. The whole reason they’d come here was to keep that poor kid from getting kidnapped, and they’d failed. Hell, it hadn’t even been close.
While Trevor and Rachel went to check on the teenager’s family, Connor moved toward Kat, his strides slow and painful. He felt every broken bone and fragment of wood and stone piercing his skin. Pushing aside the discomfort, he took in the scene around him. The Joneses’ place was torn apart, pieces still falling to the ground even as small fires smoldered here, there, and everywhere. The front yard looked like it had been bombed, craters large enough to hide a small car dotting the landscape. Even the air smelled scorched, as if someone had transported them all to the middle of a battlefield.
And yet the three teens at the end of the cul-de-sac had never once stopped playing their game of basketball, laughing and joking as they took turns making shots. As for the woman across the street in her porch swing, she never even glanced their way.
