Page 20 of Wild Wolf

Several locks clicked along with the sense of a magical barrier fizzling out of existence, then the fool pushed the door wide and stepped into the room with his death.

I was upon him before he could do so much as scream, snapping his neck with my newfound strength and tossing his body to the floor. The urge to feed raced through me, but I had to get the fuck out of here first. With another burst of chaotic speed, I ran through the door and up the steps, racing onto the top deck and crashing into the main sail. The beam snapped from the collision, a wrenching of wood filling the air and drawing Angie’s eyes my way from across the deck.

She gasped in fear, her hands raising and fire blooming in her palms.

“Stop!” she yelled as I ran at her, having no intention of following a single command she aimed at me.

The fireballs she sent flying my way were easy to avoid, my eyesight so sharp I could see them coming as if in slow motion. My legs responded even faster, weaving me left and right, even though I stumbled as I made it to Angie. We impacted hard, her body slamming to the deck beneath mine and I fisted my hand in her hair, threatening to rip her head clean off.

“Where is my Lion!?” I boomed in her face.

She flinched in terror, her hands clawing at my arms, her fire burning me, but I would never let her go.

“Roland has it!” she yelped. “It’s already in the facility on the island. That way!”

She gestured and I looked, taking in the sandy beach and the rising hill that led up to a large walled compound at its summit.

I dug my fangs into her throat roughly, ripping into her skin and making it hurt until her screams quieted beneath my lips, finally taking a measure of vengeance in her death. I spat her blood from my lips, nothing about this bitch appealing to me despite my thirst, then I shoved upright from her limp body and leapt over the edge of the boat. I ran up the hill so fast it felt like I was flying, the palm trees a blur in my periphery, the moonlight blurring with the dark green foliage.

The moment I made it to the hill’s peak, I realised I should have been more subtle. There were Fae everywhere, carrying cages filled with strange animals through a wide set of open wooden doors and down a series of steps into the building.

Roland was among them, standing beside a large cage where a beastly creature was hunched over inside it. My eyes locked on him and I ran faster, needing to claim his death this day and make him suffer for what he’d done to me. But not before he returned my Lion.

His dark left eye wheeled my way and he stumbled back in fright, his hand flying to the cage beside him and unlocking it with a flash of magic. The door sprung open and the beastly thing inside stepped out, placing itself between me and Roland while cries of fright punctured the air around us.

I came to a stumbling halt as the creature snarled at me, preparing to take it on and fight my way to the Fae I despised more than any other in this world. The beast was tall, layered with hair over thick muscles, almost ape-like in its gait, but its face…I knew that face, though his tattoos were now missing and his eyes were like two vacant strips of earth.

“Gustard?” I rasped, the horror of seeing him like this freezing me for too long. Whatever Roland had done to him had transformed him into a monster.

Gustard’s fist swung at me, colliding with my skull and I staggered sideways, my ear ringing from the impact.

“Capture him!” Roland directed. “Do not kill him!”

For some reason, Gustard complied, swinging at me again, but I was ready this time, ducking it and throwing a punch of my own. It cracked against his ribs, but the impact was like striking iron, my knuckles screaming in pain.

“Use your psychic abilities to disarm him,” Roland called to Gustard.

He opened his mouth, revealing sharp teeth and a horrid screeching noise ripped from his throat.

Everyone around me cried out as that noise pitched through the air and burrowed through my skull. But it wasn’t aimed at them, it was aimed at me, driving through my head like an anvil and forcing me to submit to it.

I hit the dusty ground, clawing at the dirt while trying to get back up, but the power in that sound bound my limbs. It shuddered through me and weakened me until I was just a useless wreck at Gustard’s feet.

Roland stepped over me, his hand slapping to my forehead and his two eyes merging together into one. Cyclops.

His power slipped into my head and I was helpless to fight it off as he forced my mind to shut down, making me sleep once more.

“You’re mine,” Roland purred as I fell away into oblivion once more. “Sleep now, Nightroary. When you wake again, we will have work to do.”

CHAPTER NINE

The moon hung in a deep crescent close to the horizon in the distance far out across the sea, almost as if she were beckoning us closer.

I checked the small backpack I’d filled in preparation of our departure, counting the contents for the third time as if they might have somehow changed. We didn’t know what we were heading into exactly and that left far too many unanswered questions for my liking. It was the kind of job I wouldn’t have taken on if offered it. Too many variables, too many unknowns. I liked a challenge and the thrill of the odd surprise but this was all risk and high stakes beyond the point of any form of prediction. I was used to changing tactics and going up against bad odds but the island we were headed towards was almost entirely unpredictable.

We couldn’t stardust there – none of us had been there before to be able to guide us to the place but even if we had known it, we couldn’t learn enough about the location to attempt it as the ticket clearly warned that there were wards in place against such arrival. It was also why we hadn’t been able to disguise ourselves magically. Jerome had been certain that there would be wards against all forms of illusion too so we’d had to go the old fashioned route of hair dye and bravado.

No doubt the entire island was going to be full of security measures, all aimed to keep the authorities firmly out of the nefarious business which was conducted in the criminals’ secluded pit of sins, but they would work just as certainly against us too.

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