“I’ve faced worse,” Thibault groans. “But fuck me, why can’t anything be simple?”
I understand the sentiment. It’s odd to worry about such things. Un Drallag should be able to obliterate any enemy, yet he lacks the control to focus his intent. And I should be able to sift from man to man in seconds, snapping each neck on the way. For two beings like us, a handful of guards shouldn’t pose a problem.
And yet they very possibly could.
That awareness makes my body ache to shift, a need I tamp down as best I can. The bones in my face and hands throb as my muscles tighten in a fight to maintain control. But in seconds, my fangs and claws are protracting, my mouth watering, my hands itching to swipe.
A ragged breath scrapes its way free of my chest. At least it’s only another partial shift, like when I fought Un Drallag in the desert. I’m not sure what I would do to this place or these people if it had been complete, given how different every other aspect of my true nature has been over the last two days.
Silvery blue light pulses through the room with another lightning flash followed by a rumble of thunder. Thibault’s eyes are fixed on me until it ends, no doubt noting my killer smile and the golden glow of my stare. I can see their light reflected like moons in his eyes.
“You better tame your beast, wolf. We don’t killanyoneunless we have no other choice, do you hear me? We might very well need them for information.”
I growl around the pain of the last claw punching out from under my fingernail. I don’t want to agree with this bastard on anything, but I know he’s right. “Just move, you rotting sack of misfortune. Let’s get this over with.”
A deep, annoyed sigh escapes him as he frees a dagger from his boot, leaving him with two weapons in his hands. One to stab and momentarily immobilize, the other to slice and kill. Armed to the teeth or not, I sense his apprehension about what he thinks we might find ahead.
Zahira unsheathes a curved knife from her belt, and together, the three of us slip into the main hall. The bronze sconces that decorate the walls are unlit for the night, save for two, flickering long shadows across the slate floor. I snuff them out with a quick thread of wind. It snakes from one side of the hall to the other, licking away the fire as we move toward the home’s entry.
Un Drallag lifts his hand, fisted around his dagger. We pause across from the staircase as he peers around the corner. When he drops his hand for the all-clear, we cut a hard right and creep toward the great room.
We’re three healthy strides away when the grating sound of twisting metal screeches from somewhere outside, bringing us to a halt. Suddenly, a powerful gust of salty sea air hits my nostrils, followed by a loudboomthat resonates down the hall.
Un Drallag and I look at Zahira, then at one another as the cries of men fill the night, along with the screams of the two women in the house. Their voices fade after a mere moment, though, as if they’ve been sucked from Starworth Tor by a mighty wind.
But it wasn’t a wind that took them.
I smell something else.
Twined with the earthy scent of briny air and rain is the fragrance of fresh soil and wisteria, and a sweet perfume I swear has permeated even my spirit. My beast stretches awake, drawn to that scent like bees to honey.
“Well, fuck all. I sense a wicked witch in our midst,” Thibault says with a smile in his voice.
With her scent guiding me, I shove past him and charge down the hall and into the great room. Wind and spitting rain howl into the house through the doors leading outside, because they’re wide open, one hanging askew on its hinges. The men who had been here moments before—men I can still smell and hear cursing and grunting at a distance—are now gone.
Yazmin and Mari sit huddled on a chaise, arms folded around one another. The room is lit by a single oil lamp that didn’t blow out and the growing light of a rainy day.
Their faces are painted with wide-eyed expressions of shock, fear, and disbelief as they look between me, Thibault, and Zahira, attempting to register what’s happening. Zahira rushes to her wife’s waiting arms.
“They’re guards sent by Vice Admiral Eryx,” Yazmin says quietly, though her words come out rushed with terror. “There are more watching the beach and main gate, and one in the kitchen.” She looks at Zahira with relief. “I… I don’t know what just happened, but I’m so glad you’re here.”
“I know what happened,” Thibault says before glancing at me. “Somebody pissed off a Bloodgood sister.”
I glare at him. Nephele was sotenderearlier at Fia’s. I can’t imagine her angry now.
“You just go get the asshole in the kitchen and the ones out front,” I tell him. “I’ll go see what’s happening outside.”
He shoots a look back at me, no doubt loathing that I’ve commanded him to do anything. But he throws up his armored hands. “Fine. Your fuck up. You fix it. I hope she eats you.”
With that, he turns toward the hall, and I turn and stalk into the stormy morning. Even though the wind and rain are strong enough to carry away her scent, I catch a hint of Nephele’s aroma. I follow that smell and a trail of wind-blown leaves, browning wisteria petals, and fresh dirt now turning to mud across the veranda.
Sword still drawn and senses on high alert, I climb the two short flights of stone steps that used to lead to an iron gate—the entry to the stretch of gardens between here and the lighthouse.
Now that gate is destroyed, flung open and dangling from its post and hinges. Its rain-slicked metal is twisted, bent at odd angles toward the house, as though a great force exploded through it.
Because it did.
A force named Nephele Bloodgood.
