“Distraction duty.” A short woman with black and white hair glances over her shoulder at me and shrugs. “What’s more distracting than a troll holding a paint gun?”
I… do not know whether that’s an actual question or if she expects an answer, so I just silently gape instead.
“He’s got her inside. He’s got Echo,” Brogan says as he shifts into his two-legged form. His voice is more panic-filled than I’ve ever heard it before.
Instead of it fuelling my panic, I feel a surge of rage. Someone has tried to take my mate away from me? Fuck. That.
I’ll tear them limb from limb. I’ll fuck them up.
I’ll wreck them so thoroughly, there’s no soul left for Soren to reap.
I’m shifting into my other form before I know it, letting out a bestial roar that I hope my mate can hear. I doubly hope the fucker who's got her can hear it too, and he shits his pants at the sound. I send a bunch more calming energy through our bond, letting her know that I’m here and she’ll be safe and back home soon enough.
First, though, I have some guy’s head to tear off his body.
24
Echo
In case you hadn’t guessed already, it wasn’t Soren that smacked me around the head with a baseball bat and made me fall down the stairs.
Something that becomes apparent when I wake up aching and bruised.
On the wrong side of the cage.
“So much for the heroic rescue attempt,” I grumble onto the cold concrete floor.
“This was a rescue attempt?” Cam asks, her tone dry. I slowly shift so that I’m sitting up, wincing at the stabbing pains in my ribs and head. I’m one giant ache, a big ol’ bruise on shaky legs.
“Uh, we didn’t know that we wouldn’t have powers down here, or that they’d be back so quick. Although, I don’t know exactly who it was that hit me around the head.” I squint around the room. My eyes are blurry at first and I take a few seconds to spot the other body lying a couple of feet away from me.
Soren.
An unbidden cry escapes me as I crawl over to him. He’s unconscious, his face pale, and he’s got a nasty cut at the side of his head that’s bled all over him.
“Andrew, the prick, dragged you both down here,” Cam says. “He wasn’t too gentle about it either.”
“He wasn’t supposed to be back for ages. Leif said his routine is to leave for hours.”
“Leif? What does he have to do with any of this?”
I glance up from inspecting Soren’s cut. It’s shallow but the amount of blood makes him look like an extra in a horror movie.
“Yeah, Leif’s outside. He has been for days by the sounds of it. Since he realized you were here, I don't know if he's eaten or slept. I chuckle softly. “I think he might have a little crush.”
“Good to know,” a raspy voice croaks, and I take a second to source the sound and to recognize it’s Wren. Her head turns my way, dark eyes opening to rest on my face for just a moment before they close again, like she doesn’t have the energy to keep them open. “Fucker wasmyfriend but, of course, he goes all white knight for Cam.”
“You can keep him. We only argue with each other, anyway,” Cam snipes back. Wren snorts and waves her hand, but it’s a miniscule, stilted movement like she can’t quite get her limbs to work right.
She seems so weak, so tired, and it can’t all be from how cold this room is.
It’s flipping freezing in here. So cold my nipples feel like they might pop off any minute. And yet, somehow, Wren and Cam are joking with each other. They’re both so different to me, acerbic, a little grumpy, like two storm clouds while I’m the weak rays of sunshine trying to sneak through. But I think, despite our differences, we would work together well in the garden and I’m kinda bummed that I didn’t choose to do just that over the past couple of years. Not that I would swap the time with my sister for anything.
I meet Cam’s eyes over the top of Wren’s curled up form, a question in my eyes. She shrugs and can’t seem to meet my gaze for too long.
“Bastard spent the past couple of weeks draining her powers,” she says.
I’ve never seen someone who’s had their weaver powers drained before, but if the result isthis, it’s pretty terrifying. The way that Cam is looking at me tells me that she doesn’t think things look too good for Wren, or for the rest of us, either.
