Wood cracked and groaned, screams and cries from the werewolves and elementals alike, then snarls, growls, barks.
End this!
The single thought was all he could manage amid the chaos, and he closed his eyes. The strength it took to ball his hands into fists left him with nothing, but before he crumpled to the ground, he felt the elements retreat, shrinking into nothingness, and taking him with them.
Chapter Twenty
Farren
The weathered wood roof over the patio started to collapse, and a beam slammed into Farren’s shoulder. “Fuck! Eli!”
She didn’t care about the pain. She’d heal. But her mate…she had to get to her mate. The rest of the wolves scattered, Liam herding Caitlin onto the grass well away from Eli, Cade carrying Mara back into the house as a cascade of planks clipped his leg. He fell, but twisted just in time to cushion his mate’s fall.
She was halfway to Eli when Ewan and Tierney—now in wolf form—bounded to her side. Fire scorched a patch of grass at least two meters square, and Eli lay in the center. His pants smoldered in places from the sparks still whirling around in the air he’d called while trying to work the spell.
“Peter!” Caitlin screamed. Farren only spared a brief glance over her shoulder. The scarred man was half buried under the remains of the porch roof, but she heard bones start to crack and his wolf’s pained howl, and ran for Eli.
The smoke stung her eyes, and shite. What she wouldn’t give for a little of Mara’s elemental power at the moment. “Eli? Wake up,mo ghra.” A couple of light slaps to his cheek did nothing, and Farren hauled him into her arms. Thank God for her enhanced strength. She couldn’t carry him—not with how solid he was—but she could at least drag him out of the burning grass and closer to the house.
Tierney shifted back into his human form and appeared at her side. “Farren, let me take him.”
“No,” she snarled. She didn’t want anyone touching her mate. But they couldn’t just walk into the house. No. They had to clear the rubble first. Farren tried to adjust her hold on Eli, but he started to slide from her arms.
Tierney caught him easily, and Ewan, who’d also shifted into his human form, started throwing the broken pieces of wood out of the way. Liam and Caitlin joined him, while Farren could only stare at Eli, hating herself for failing to protect yet another person she loved.
The few minutes it took to clear a path to the house felt like an eternity, and Liam rushed through the narrow opening first.
“Cade! Fuck. Say somethin’!”
Caitlin was right behind him and gasped. “Where’s Mara?”
Mara?
Farren took one last glance at Eli, offered him a silent apology, and followed on Caitlin’s heels. The alpha wolf lay on the floor, blood oozing from a jagged cut on his forehead. His right leg was quite obviously broken and trapped under a thick beam, and Liam tossed the wood aside like it was a toothpick.
“Shift. Come on. The moon’s close enough.” Liam knelt next to Cade and rested his hand on the back of his alpha’s head. “Ya’ have to shift. Do it for Mara.”
The mention of his mate’s name must have been enough to break through, and Cade groaned. Bones started to crack, and his flannel shirt split across his back as the wolf emerged. His back legs were still trapped in his jeans, and he snarled as he tore the denim to get free.
Once he stood tall and proud, he started to bark at Liam and Peter.
“I don’t know. She wasn’t with ya’,” Liam said, sniffing the air. “Her scent’s faded… How could it have faded so quickly?”
Farren hurried to the front door, catching a whiff of something foreign. Something that made her wolf snarl and whine and demand to be let free. “Magic. Someone cast a spell close by. But that’s all I can smell. Not Mara. Or any other person. Just…magic.”
“Caitlin,” Liam said as he wrapped his big hands around his mate’s upper arms. “Ya’ have to stay here with Farren. The wards will hide ya’. I need to go with Cade and see if we can find Mara. Or any trace of her.”
“Go.” Caitlin touched the amber pendant at her throat. “We’ll be fine here. I’ll help Farren with Eli.”
Eli. Her mate. Her unconscious, injured mate. Fuck. She should be running with Cade and Liam. Helping them. She was the strongest member of her pack, and she had a duty to this extended family she’d found herself a part of. But…Eli needed her.
“I can shift.” Farren hated the weakness in her voice, the hesitation, the reluctance. “I can go with ya’. Eli…Caitlin has Ewan and Tierney to help her.”
Cade’s growl was a clear refusal, and Liam shook his head. “Stay with yer mate. If a practitioner has Mara—” this drew a snarl from Cade’s lupine mouth, and Liam held up his hand, “—there could be more of them close by. Stay here where ye’re protected. If we don’t come back, ye’re the only one who can find us.”
Peter stripped out of his shirt. “I’m going with you.”
“Hurry it up, then.” With that last command, Liam dropped to all fours, letting his wolf take over. The three of them raced into the night, and Farren turned back to Tierney, who had Eli in his arms.
