I screamed a warning just as she turned the gun and fired.
Jax went down, and my wolf came tearing out of me. Spinning, I grabbed Dean’s head and cracked it against the boulder. When his eyes started to glow, I slammed his head again.
Dead wolves don’t shift.
The gun sounded again, and a bullet tore into my body, but it didn’t stop me as I launched myself at Bridget. My teeth sank into her throat, and she whimpered just once before I tore her jugular.
The bond in me dimmed, and I turned to see Jax. He hadn’t shifted yet. Why hadn’t he shifted? He’d die if he didn’t shift.
The bond in me dimmed. He was dying.
Shit, I was dying too.
Whimpering, I tried to shift. I needed fingers. I’d pry the bullet out and then drag him to safety.
My wolf whimpered and stayed.
No. What was happening? She never disobeyed me.
She wasn’t disobeying.
She couldn’t shift.
Horror struck. There was something in the bullet. Something keeping Jax from shifting.
Something keeping me from shifting.
No. I was a null. Magic didn’t affect me. It was not going to stop me. Not now. Not while Jax’s life hung in the balance.
Painfully, I closed my eyes and dove deep inside myself. I searched for the magic, and found it buried in the inky darkness. A dim pulse of gold, like it was trying to hide from me.
Once I focused on it, I harnessed it. Watched it grow bigger and bolder. It wanted to take me over, but it had nothing to feed on.
I was the void.
In an instant, it vanished, and I howled as the shift came over me. One second wolf, the next human.
And not alone.
“Hello, Anna.”
41
Anna
“Help him.”
With every breath, Jax seemed to grow weaker under my touch. The bullet was lodged in his chest. If he remained human for much longer, it would be fatal.
There was only reason I could think of that the maiden would be here was if she was here to betray us all. Everyone else around us had.
But she was my friend, and if there was even the slightest chance that I was wrong, I had to cling to it. “Please help him. The spell is already latched on to him. I can’t absorb it.”
“You can,” she said as she crouched down and examined him. “You are bonded with him.
You can absorb the spell and turn it to dust.”
“I don’t know how to do that. He’s going to die!”