The sense of wrongness coming from her struck so hard it was all he could do not to rock back. Letting his power flow up to her brain, he sensed a foreign object embedded there. One that was interfering with the function of her energy, with the essence of the wild magic that flowed through her veins and made her the shifter she was.
His eyes had dropped to the point where the stethoscope rested on her chest as he focussed his attention beneath her skin. As he looked up to meet her gaze, he saw the knowledge of the violation the terrorists had forced on her in her eyes.
“Help me,” she mouthed, her head carefully angled away from the cameras.
Before he could reply, the glass wall looking out to the street shattered inward, firing shards of glass like shrapnel around them. Snarling as his bare arms were sliced to shreds, Rafe spun to face the new threat, barely processing the flash of purple that was the guard sprinting deeper into the building, away from the attackers.
Adri had already shifted. The tang of his mate’s blood on the air enraged Rafe’s wolf as he watched the jaguar prowl toward the street, his black fur all too visible in the harsh lighting of the office building. He was a walking target.
The sound of his packmates’ growls only registered for a split-second before all his attention was focussed on three silent,impossibly fast figures closing in on his mate. Where the fuck had the vampires come from? He didn’t have time to stop and find out. Shifting into his wolf form to give himself some protection from their mind tricks, he lunged to bite hard into the back of the knee of the nearest vampire targeting Adri. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth as he hamstrung the attacker, immediately following up his advantage by lunging up the vampire’s tumbling body to rip his throat out.
If these were Kyan’s people, he couldn’t risk permanently dispatching them, so he was careful to avoid severing the guy’s spine with his teeth. The arterial spray across the granite flooring and the hunk of trachea he spat on the ground told him this one wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon, though. Even with vampire healing.
A yowl to his right had him spinning back toward Adri, who was pinned down by two more of their attackers. Howling in anger, Rafe let his healing magic flow out before him in a rush of power that had the vampire’s muscles seizing. It wouldn’t last long before the magic inherent in their essence would fight off his attack. He took full advantage by bowling them out of the way to clear a path to his mate.
Adri had held his own as much as a single young shifter could against two older vampires. Large gashes from his claws had rent the face of one of them, and the other was sporting a broken wrist. Dropping his head, Rafe nudged Adri further away from the vampires, nipping at his haunches until his mate got the message to move outside, closer to their pack.
“Keep touching him and your death will be more painful than you can possibly imagine,” a voice was growling—Emilio’s.
As they emerged from the building, Rafe took in the scene on the street. Eight more vampires spread across the front of the building—half poised to rush into the building, and half facing off against Marco and the rest of the pack. Rocco’s glamour hadn’t held. They were no longer hidden. The reason for that became clear as Rafe turned his nose towards Rocco’s crisp winter scent to see that he’d been pinned to the nearest wall by Kyan’s hand at his throat.
Sending his power out in a quick scan, Rafe breathed a sigh of relief as he realised Rocco wasn’t physically harmed. Yet. He was, however, being held in thrall by whatever Kyan’s vampire powers were, unable to use his air magic. The head of the vampire coven must have snuck up on him while everyone was distracted, or Rocco would have used his power to protect himself before it could come to this.
Shifting so he could reassure Emilio, Rafe made his way to where Marco was holding back from launching himself at Kyan.
“He’s not hurt,” Rafe said softly.
“Iknowthat. I can feel it myself. Let me go so I can rip the tendons out of Kyan’s arms and use them to hang him,” Emmy growled.
Everywhere he looked, eyes were flashing gold and silver with aggressive wild magic shining through.
“Let him go before you start a war, Kyan,” Marco called.
“You’re inmyterritory, wolf. You don’t give the orders. If you didn’t want to start a war, you shouldn’t have come,” Kyan drawled back.
Adri slipped closer, pressing his furred side to the front of Rafe’s legs and screening his naked body from view as he placed himself between Rafe and the coven leader. The stubborn jaguar ignored his efforts to nudge him to the side and out of the line of fire. Not that there was anywhere safe now. The scents of more vampires approaching carried on the cold breeze, warning him they were now surrounded.
Before Marco could respond to Kyan’s challenge, searing hot flames flared up around them, shielding their backs from the gathering vampire coven. He’d forgotten Rocco had brought a fire witch as backup to deal with any explosives. It wasn’t going to help, though. Kyan had them at his mercy so long as his taloned hand was wrapped around Rocco’s throat, and he knew it. All it would take was a sharp twist, and he’d snap the air witch’s neck. That might be survivable from the magical benefits Rocco acquired when he bonded with Emmy, so Kyan would likely follow up by ripping his head from his body. There wouldn’t be any coming back from that.
“We’re only here to check out a potential terrorist cell and ensure there are no further incidents with the fighters that would bring the Council down on both our heads. You heard Gray at the winter ball. If we can’t work together to stop the D-2S attacks from being noticed by the humans, they’ll get rid of all our families and replace us here,” Marco said, his voice carefully neutral despite the murderous glint in his eyes and his lengthened fangs.
“Uh, about that,” the fire witch called from nearby, something in his voice drawing everyone’s attention.
Rafe winced as he let his gaze flick in his direction. Standing next to the witch’s side was the very thing they’d been trying to avoid—a seething mad vampire dressed in Council garb, her eyesflashing bright silver as her voice cracked out like a whip across the supernaturals gathered on the darkened street.
“What thefuckis going on here? You’ve got five seconds to stand down and explain yourselves before I call this in.”
“There’s no need for that, Leah. This was a simple disagreement,” Kyan said, releasing his hold on Rocco and holding his hands out to his sides as he moved closer to the Council vampire.
The move didn’t fool anyone into thinking he wasn’t a threat, but at least with Rocco free of his grasp, they had options.
“The flames were visible from five blocks away.”
The now-familiar thrum of Rocco’s magic tingled against Rafe’s senses before the air witch spoke up.
“They’re hidden now. Nothing to see here.”
Leah rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’s not going to work for me. Give me one good reason not to call Gray in.”
