The concern over Rowan dies instantly, replaced with a heavier need. The need to protect.
We’re out of time to get answers.
Chapter 30
ROWAN
There’s no time to breathe, no time to think. Elias’s warning is still echoing in the yard when the first shadow barrels out of the tree line. Then another. Then at least ten more.
The ground shakes beneath their boots and paws, the air alive with snarls and war cries. I don’t even know who they are yet—wolves, vamps, and heavy energy—but there are too many. Dozens, just like Elias said.
Liz’s daggers flash, steel catching the sun as she plants herself at my side. Cade is already in motion, a blur of lethal precision, his growl so deep it makes even the front line hesitate.
Archie surges, still in his Great Dane form, hitting a cloaked figure with enough force to send both of them tumbling across the dirt. Iris mutters a curse so colorful the gods would blush, digging into her fanny pack. “Knitting needles it is,” she announces grimly, yanking out an oversized wooden one and burying it in a vampire’s chest. He drops, and she jerks theneedle free with a grunt. “You have to love a multi-purpose tool.”
Seconds are all we have.
I don’t have the luxury of easing into this fight. Training drills vanish from my mind. There’s only instinct—the rush of claws, the sting of fists, the burn of fear licking up my spine. I duck under a wild swing, my own returning punch landing harder than I expect, sending a man twice my size stumbling back with shock in his eyes.
The air hums against my skin, a warning. One fiery and dangerous, like the heat that filled my hand last night and again when I hurt Liz.
Not now,I beg myself.Not here, not with everyone watching. Don’t become the prophecy.
But the power is restless, prowling just under the surface, hungry to be used. And with every enemy pouring in around us, I’m less and less sure I can keep it locked away.
Still, I have to try.
The yard is chaos—shouts, metal, the heavy crash of bodies. For every one we knock down, three more push out of the trees, filling the clearing with teeth and rage.
Then I see them.
Wolves. At least six of them, their eyes glinting unnatural silver. Their growls rumble through the ground as they break formation, charging straight for Cade and me.
My wolf surges inside me, snarling, furious. I don’t hesitate.
Shift,she demands.
The transformation rips through me, bones snapping, fur spilling across my skin. The world sharpens in an instant—scents slicing clean, sounds deafeningly close, every heartbeat pounding against my ears.
Beside me, Cade explodes into his massive russet wolf, a living wall of muscle and fury, and together we meet the charge head-on.
The first silver-eyed wolf barrels into me, all weight and fang. I roll with the impact, jaws snapping—fur and teeth meeting, but no flesh. My wolf drinks it up; she loves this, the rawness of it, the perfect violence. I rake claws across the beast’s flank, but before I can finish him, another crashes into my side. Dirt fills my mouth; blood sings hot under my tongue, and I shove up, lungs burning.
Cade is a catastrophe of teeth and muscle—two of them gone with one brutal swipe, their bodies flying like rag dolls. His snarl uncoils across the yard, a sound that makes attackers hesitate long enough to give us breath.
That breath lets me see the rest of them.
Liz is a blade in motion, daggers an extension of bone and intent. Every cut clean, every stance economy of movement—grim, precise, terrifying.
Archie plows through the commotion, flattening a cloaked man under his weight and dragging him off as if he’s tossing a sack of grain.
Elias, sand-furred and feral, tears an arm from a would-be attacker and ducks back in for another like these people are nothing more than snacks for him.
And Iris—freaking Iris. I didn’t consider before thatshe’s not supernatural, but that doesn’t stop her. She stands away from the fight, but has her fanny pack wide open, pulling out a handful of glittering powder.
“Plan B, assholes!” she shouts, hurling it in a vampire’s face. He screeches, clawing at his eyes as he stumbles backward, shimmering like he lost a fight with a children’s craft box.
Even in the middle of battle, I almost want to laugh.
