He’d seen his pack mates do it though. Well, the ones whocoulddo it.
His inner wolf was already howling to be free.
He had to try.
For Karissa.
Sliding to a stop, Hale reached down and quickly untied his boots, kicking them off at the same time he unbuckled his belt. Pulling his top over his head without slowing to unbutton it, he tossed it aside, then took a long, deep breath, reaching for his inner wolf.
Hale gritted his teeth as his body began to reshapeand take on his four-legged form. He remembered Gage telling him that it got easier and less painful the more often a werewolf fully shifted. And that the first time hurt like hell. But he had no other choice. His soul mate needed him, and he would do whatever he had to if it meant reaching her in time.
Karissa had thought she and her brothers would be able to get everyone out of the plant in minutes. Unfortunately, with having to focus so much of her attention on simply keeping their terrified group together—not to mention watching out for Bagley—they’d gotten turned around somewhere along the way. It didn’t help that they ended up wandering into a part of the plant clearly not ready for the press or general public—an area where very few of the emergency lights had been wired up yet. On top of that, Patterson and son were damn near useless, both of them so rattled they could do little more than follow where they were led.
She’d hoped that her Paladin instincts would guide her to the nearest exit, but the only ones screaming at her right now were those connected to her soul mate. And all they wanted was for her to turn around and find Hale.
Karissa prayed she’d done the right thing leaving him in the first place. Yes, there was a part of herthat knew getting Patterson and everyone else out of the building was the responsible thing to do, but that didn’t make her worry any less. Her soul mate was in danger and the connection between them didn’t give two ducks about being responsible.
“We’re lost, aren’t we?” Deven suddenly said from behind her, where he’d been riding rear guard to make sure they didn’t lose any stragglers. “I’m sure we’ve been through this room before.”
“Maybe,” she admitted. “But on the bright side, if we don’t know where we are, then I doubt Bagley will be able to find us.”
“I’m not sure if I agree with that logic,” Lorenzo said, looking around worriedly into the darkness. “How hard can it be to find a group this large in an empty building? We’re making more noise than a herd of elephants.”
Karissa realized her oldest brother was right, but there wasn’t much they could do about it. Patterson and the others were only now starting to come out of the mental fog they’d been put under by Bagley’s presence. Getting them to move quietly was a bit much to ask at the moment.
“I know,” she said. “But there’s no other choice than to keep going until we find a way out of here. We have to hope Bagley doesn’t hear us.”
Karissa probably shouldn’t have said that last part out loud because thirty seconds later, that familiar inky cloud appeared right in front of them,so dark it was clearly visible even in the dimly lit section of the plant.
“Take everyone and go back the way we came,” she told her brothers without looking away from the portal, pulling her sword out of the air at the same time. “Don’t worry about being quiet. Run as fast as you can. I’ll hold him off.”
Both Deven and Lorenzo looked ready to argue with that. Karissa understood their concerns since she’d had the same ones not ten minutes ago when Hale had given her the same instructions. But then Lorenzo grabbed Deven’s arm and dragged him away, shoving the two Patterson men and everyone else in front of them.
“You didn’t think I’d forgotten you, did you?” Bagley asked as he stepped out of the portal with that ever-present shiver-inducing sneer on his face. “I apologize for making you wait, but I was entranced watching your soul mate try to deal with the Balauri.”
Karissa’s heart lurched at the thought of Hale being hurt, but a second later, a little whisper in the back of her mind told her that her soul mate was fine. It was impossible to explain, but if he’d been seriously hurt, she would have known it in her heart.
“So you and the Balauri are working together now?” Karissa countered, moving slowly to the right, forcing Bagley to move to keep in front of her. “I never thought of you as the teamwork type.”
His eyes narrowed, like he’d expected more of a reaction about Hale. She was glad she hadn’t given it to him.
Bagley stepped forward quickly, swinging one of his blades toward her. Karissa parried and then quickly backed away to avoid the second blade coming her way. If nothing else, she was giving Deven and Lorenzo more time to get everyone clear of the building.
Hopefully.
“We’re not really working together,” Bagley said, suddenly reversing the direction of the swords’ rotation, forcing her to move and parry as he jabbed the point of one blade straight at her heart.
He seemed a little stunned at how fast she’d reacted. She had only a moment to wonder if her speed was part of the soul mate bond before Bagley recovered, once again reversing course, his blades weaving together in a blur of motion.
He was fast.
Faster than her, soul mate connection or not.
“When I realized you were developing a bond with your pet werewolf,” Bagley added, his smile broadening, as if he’d somehow read her mind and knew she was aware of the disparity, “I knew I needed a distraction to separate the two of you long enough to let me get close to you alone. So I tracked down the Balauri and made them an offer they couldn’t refuse—easy access to the very people they wanted to fight. I didn’thave to even pay them. All I had to do was put them and your soul mate’s pack in the same location.”
“Yet my soul mate showed up all the same,” Karissa said, stepping forward to knock one of his swords aside, the tip of her blade missing him by mere millimeters. “So it doesn’t seem like your plan has worked.”
“I don’t know about that,” Bagley said, stopping his predatory movements and squaring up to face her. “I have you here alone, which is what I was looking for all along.”
