Page 103 of Cursed Bonds: An Alpha's Destiny

Another bolt of colored lightning burst from my hands, crashing into Poli and sending the hulking man backward. He hit the wall and fell to the floor. The blast didn’t knock him out, but he lay there, moaning and rolling around. I had to hurry.

Leaping over him, I rushed down the hallway, panic drowning out the pride I felt at taking two shifters down on my own. The hallway branched off at a T—one corridor going left, the other right. Two men were running toward me from the left, and Poli’s shout for help behind me had them running faster.

“Shit,” I muttered, then sprinted down the right hallway.

At no point in my life had I ever felt like prey being stalked by a predator. Not even when Eren and his men had accosted and kidnapped me. That had all been so frantic and confusing. At the back of my mind, I’d assumed he would give up, or that Jace would somehow swoop in to rescue me. Now? This must have been what a mouse experienced when an owl was diving down, talons outstretched and ready to pounce.

Footsteps thumped on the floor. There was no way I could outrun shifters. Not in a million years. I had seconds before they were on me.

Ahead, I spotted another door. Knowing I had no choice, I ducked through it. I slammed it shut behind me, pressing my hand to the locking mechanism. A short, sharp pop sounded, and a wisp of smoke curled up beneath my hand. I gaped. The doorknob had melted. More unconscious magic. An instant later, the door shuddered in its frame as the two shifters tried to barge through it.

Turning, I saw I was in a stairwell. Did I go up or down? Behind me, the door shuddered again as the shifters did their best to tear it down. I’d bought myself precious seconds and didn’t want to waste them. If I went up, I might end up stuck on the roof with nowhere to run. If I went down, there might be a bottom floor or some less dangerous avenue for escape. I went down.

Heedless of my safety, and with the fear of being caught again at the back of my mind, I took the steps two, even three at a time. Just as I reached the bottom, a crashing sound came from above me. Shit, the shifters had gotten through the door. More fear surged through me, forcing me to run through the next door I found.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

I skidded to a halt in what looked like a small kitchen or break room of some sort. A man stood there, frowning, holding a pot of coffee in one hand and a mug in the other. Before I could think, I raised my left hand in a sweeping motion. A wave of pressure, something akin to a shockwave, coursed from my palm. The coffee in the pot roiled and expanded like a living creature. It gurgled out of the top and splashed into the man’s face. He dropped the mug, the porcelain exploding as it hit the ground. The man screamed in agony and fell to his knees, clutching his already-blistering cheeks.

The door to the outside world lay ahead. I lowered my shoulder and rammed into it as I turned the knob. Hot, humid air greeted me. It smelled of freedom, and all I wanted was to kneel down and take a breath, but more shouts echoed from within the building. The men, Eren possibly with them, were gaining on me again. They’d be outside in a second to chase me down. Where could I go?

I glanced around quickly and spotted what looked like a huge barn fifty yards from the house. My feet kicked up dirt as I moved faster than I’d ever run before. No one would have ever called me an athlete. The most I’d ever done was jog a bit on the treadmill at the local gym back home. But if anyone had seen me right then, they would have had a hard time not thinking I’d been a track star in high school. My arms pumped, sweat dotting my forehead, my thighs screaming as I pushed my body as fast as I could.

Reaching the barn door, I opened it just as shouts echoed from the house.

“She’s there! The barn. Fucking stop her, goddamn it!” Poli bellowed.

Time had lost all meaning. It seemed to have both sped up and slowed down. My body moved as though it was stuck in a vat of cold honey. I glanced back and saw the men rushing toward me, Eren behind them, his face streaked with blood and murder in his eyes. They were so fucking fast, it was like they were going at hyper speed.

I slammed the door behind me and tried the same lock-melting trick as before. Nothing happened. It had been subconscious, pulled from somewhere deep inside, and now I had no clue how to pull that particular spell out of my hat. Instead of trying again, I turned and found a fleet of cars lined up in rows. Everything from pickup trucks and SUVs to a few sports cars. A classic Corvette and what looked to be a Porsche convertible were the most notable. A peg board on the wall beside the door had keys and fobs dangling from small hooks. I snatched the first fob and hit the button. A black Chevy SUV chirped at me, and I ran for it.

As I unlocked the door and jumped in, the garage door burst open, nearly tearing off its hinges as Poli crashed through it. The force of the impact sent him sprawling to his hands and knees, and the others behind him took a moment to step over his huge body.

That was all the time I needed. Jamming my foot on the brake, I pushed the start button, and the engine roared to life.

As I slipped the gear shift into drive, I hit the lock button. Half a second later, one of the men slammed into the door. A startled and terrified yelp left me. His face was mere inches from mine, shouting curses at me. Eren stalked forward, his eyes gleaming with anger and malice. I could not let him take me again. I shuddered to think what he’d do to punish me.

Heedless of the danger, I pressed the gas pedal to the floor. The SUV rocketed forward and slammed into the rear of the Corvette, sending it spinning out of the way. I rammed into the flimsy sheet metal wall of the garage, the SUV’s large frame barely fitting between two metal support posts. The windshield cracked from the impact, but the airbag didn’t deploy. The wall tore apart like aluminum foil. I turned right onto the long driveway that would take me to the highway. Given my panic and adrenaline, it would have been best to keep both hands on the wheel, but I dug into my pocket for the phone I’d taken from Eren.

As I barreled toward the guard shack, I spared a glance in the rearview mirror. Horror churned in my gut as two trucks emerged from the hole I’d put in the garage.

As fast as I could, I scrolled through Eren’s contacts and found Jace’s number. It rang several times, and I almost started crying in frustration when I finally heard his voice, like a light in the darkness.

“You son of a bitch,” Jace hissed. “If you hurt one hair on Kirsten’s head, I will kill you, do you understand? Touch her, and you die.”

It took me a moment to realize he must have seen Eren’s name pop up on his caller ID. He thought Eren was calling to gloat. I nearly sobbed with relief at the sound of his voice, the deep rumble of his words like a calming hand touching my shoulder. It was nearly as good as feeling his arms wrapped protectively around me. The moment his voice touched my ears, a soothing balm washed over me.

“Jace, it’s me. I need you.”

Chapter 2

Jace

Voices murmured around me. Waylan, Langston, and I had summoned over a dozen men to my house. The two other members of my pack council had done most of the calling since I’d been too distraught and consumed with rage to do much.

Kirsten was gone. Taken. I’d been too slow, too stupid to save her. I’d fallen for Eren’s distraction, and for that, I’d lost my mate. I alternated between browbeating myself and imagining the awful things I would do to Eren when I finally got my hands on him.

Langston and a few others stood over my kitchen table, studying the map of the area spread out on it. They were marking spots of likely locations where Eren might have taken Kirsten.

---