Page 5

The third trafficker has backed himself against the far wall, gun hanging uselessly at his side while his other hand claws at the cross around his neck. “Jesus Christ… Jesus-fucking-Christ, please…” His lips keep moving, words tumbling over each other as his fist closes tighter around the cross hanging from his neck.

Keep praying, motherfucker. Maybe Heaven will hear you scream when Hell tears you apart.

Hellfire rolls between my teeth as I stalk toward him, every step driving my claws into the concrete.

He tightens his fist around the cross.

I bare my teeth.

Wrong-fucking-audience.

His gun jerks up, and I lunge. The shot cracks through the depot, but I’m already on him, my front paws slamming into his chest and driving him back against the wall. His head slams against the concrete, the gun dropping from his hand as my claws sink through his shirt and into flesh.

He screams.

Good.

My jaws close around the arm still clutching that fucking cross, and I bite down. Bone splinters between my teeth, his scream ripping higher as I wrench my head sideways and tear his arm free at the shoulder. Blood sprays hot across my muzzle, splattering the wall behind him as he crumples, one hand clamping uselessly over what’s left.

The cross hits the concrete with a tiny metallic clink. His eyes drop to it lying in a pool of blood on the floor.

Mine stay firmly on him.

Then I close my jaws around his throat. One savage wrench and the screaming stops. I let what’s left of him hit the floor, then I step over the body.

Should have prayed sooner.

A violent shudder rolls through the depot, and metal screams behind me. I whip my head around as one of the cages twists sideways, its frame buckling where the force of my roar hit it. A weld gives with a sharp crack, then another, and one side tears away from the base and folds outward as the cage beside it buckles along with it.

A small body scrambles backward inside.

Fuck.

My hellhound checks itself so hard my claws scrape along the floor.

The kid with the antlers is curled against the back of his cage, knees pulled tight to his chest, tears cutting clean tracks through the dirt on his face. One tiny hand is wrapped around an antler as if he can somehow make himself smaller if he holds on hard enough.

And he’s staring straight at me with fear in his eyes.

My chest heaves as hellfire slips from my nostrils.

His bottom lip starts shaking in terror.

Behind him, Sentinel drops into a crouch beside the siren, sweeping chunks of concrete away from her cage before reaching carefully through the twisted bars. “Easy,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you.” Golden light spills from his palm and slides across her skin, finding every cut, every bruise, every place those bastards hurt her. She flinches at first, trying to drag herself away, but Sentinel keeps talking to her, his voice too low for me to catch until her shoulders slowly come down from around her ears.

A soft sob pulls my attention farther along the wall to where the woman with the ruined wings hasn’t moved. She’s still pressed against the back of her cage, what’s left of her wings tucked as close to her body as she can get them, but her eyes aren’t on the trafficker anymore.

They’re on me.

Wide, unblinking, her gaze drops to the blood coating my muzzle, then follows the smoke curling between my teeth before lifting back to my eyes. She reaches through the bent bars beside her and curls her fingers around the little antlered boy’s hand.

He grabs on with both of his.

I let the hellhound pull back, and pain tears through me all over again as my body starts cracking and grinding its way toward human form. Fur disappears beneath burning skin, claws dragging painfully back into fingers while bones shrink and wrench themselves into places they sure as shit didn’t start tonight.

By the time I’m standing on two legs again, I’m naked, bloody, and hurting like a motherfucker.

Sentinel already has the first kid in his arms. He carries him through the busted doorway while the others follow close behind, some holding hands, some gripping whatever piece of clothing they can reach because apparently letting go of another person isn’t happening yet.