Page 80 of Hunted

And… Gunn? The power slammed into him, and then bounced back at her, a white-hot sheet of flame that knocked her to the ground.

Time got strange, and everything seemed to move in slow motion. She heard noises in the hallway—snarling, yelps, gunfire.

And then for one moment, everything became crystal clear. The doors to the room exploded open, and Gunn was there—backlit by fire, wreathed by smoke, radiating power like a sun.

His voice echoed through the room. “I’ve come for my mate.”

And then she felt herself slipping away, and everything went dark.

Gunn saw Mikey on the floor. There was another man he didn’t recognized sprawled over the end of the table, like he’d been shoved there and passed out.

Thanatos was standing, his eyes glowing red inside his hood.

Gunn strode down the room, kneeling by Mikey. She was barely breathing. “What did you do to her?” he demanded.

Thanatos didn’t answer, and Gunn lashed out with his power. Blue sheet lightning flickered across the room. Thanatos raised one hand and the lightning split on either side of him.

“Guards!” he called out. A ring on his finger glowed red, and power gathered around his hand.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Gunn swung around at the unfamiliar voice. At the other end of the room, magic sparkled around a vertical slit in the air. A teenage boy in black leather was just stepping through it from… somewhere else. He was slim and wiry—no match for a full-grown wolf shifter. But his eyes were terrifying—a bright, inhuman green with slits for pupils, like a cat.

Tiny lightning bolts danced in them. As Gunn watched, the lightning spread, flickering around his body.

Thanatos threw the red ball of energy; it streaked toward the young man. He casually flicked two fingers at it, and it winked out. He said, “I told you not to do that.”

And he began to Change. As Gunn watched, mouth open, he turned into a black dragon, scales shimmering in the dim light, with batlike wings and razor-sharp teeth and claws.

Take care of Mikey. It was the same voice, but now it was inside Gunn’s head.

Gunn knelt by Mikey. Her breathing was slow and shallow. He looked at Thanatos. “What the hell did you do to her?”

But Thanatos was staring at the dragon, his red eyes glowing inside his hood.

“Answer me!” Gunn lunged at him, but in his fear for Mikey, his wolf took over, bursting out of his skin and snarling at Thanatos.

She’s slipping away! The dragon said, still in his mind. Forget Thanatos. Bond with her.

Gunn scrabbled to a stop, his claws scraping the stone floor. Now?

I will protect you.

Some kind of energy shield slammed down over the entrances to the room. The next second, Mikey and Gunn’s wolf were surrounded by an opaque bubble of flickering green energy.

Everything went silent.

Gunn tried to Change to human, and he couldn’t. His wolf was too panicked. He nosed at Mikey. Wake up! He had to wake her up. How did he bond with her if she wasn’t even conscious?

The same power that had opened him to the wolves showed him that she was slipping further and further out of his grasp. Her wolf was running toward something he couldn’t see, far in the distance. She was nearly gone.

He howled, and sent his mind after hers. She was his mate, his heart, his everything. There was no way he was going to lose her now.

He closed his teeth gently over the place between her neck and her shoulder, and prepared to hang on.

Suddenly he was back in the bunker, four nights ago, making love to her. Only this time, everything was more vivid, more real. And there was no roof on the cabin—he could see stars overhead, strange stars he didn’t recognize.

Their lovemaking played out, just the way it had that night, and he was there inside his body, feeling it all like it was happening for the first time.