Page 7 of Cold Foot King

“Run,” he said in that inhuman, gravelly voice of his. “Run or die.”

There was fire in this room. It was some kind of science lab, with clear cylinders full of things she didn’t understand. They were abominations. Tiny mixtures of different shifter animals.

She rolled over and coughed, then pushed upward as King disappeared into the smoke. Raynah was staring in horror at one of the tall, water-filled cylinders. There was a creature with a tail like a crocodile, but it looked half-human.

“Run!” she shrieked, hooking her arm around Raynah and dragging her toward a clear part of the room. There was a door, if they could get through the flames.

Cold Foot Prison was burning.

At the door, she tried to open it, but it had one of the keypads. Fingers fumbling, she reached into her pocket for the key card, but it wasn’t there. She checked her other pocket, and the hem of her pants. She searched the floor around her, panicking.

“Move,” the evil-sounding voice of King gritted out. It echoed around the room and dragged chills up from her skin.

Katrina looked up, and his massive silverback gorilla was coming at them like a torpedo.

She yelped, grabbed Raynah, and shielded her as the gorilla went straight through the door, taking half the damn wall with him.

She glanced back at the room and tossed up a little prayer for the little souls in here. Whatever evil had been done here, it hadn’t been their fault.

Cold Foot Prison burning was a good thing.

She grabbed Raynah’s hand and dragged her over the rubble, ducking out from under falling debris. King had taken the next three doors, and the fire hadn’t reached this path yet. She didn’t trust him one tiny bit, but what choice did they have?

She bolted through the destruction he’d created and at the end of it, there was an enormous pair of metal doors. Automatic metal bars held them locked, and King was slamming himself against them.

The smoke was drifting in here. Feeling trapped, Katrina jogged along the walls, looking for any way out. The walls were thicker here.

King slammed himself against the cinderblock walls, but they were only crumbling a little, not giving.

“Look!” Katrina yelled, pointing at a vent cover twenty feet above the door.

The smoke was being sucked into it so clearly. It had to lead outside, or at the very least to some kind of ventilation system that filtered the air.

King leapt off the ground and reached for the rafters, and she was mesmerized by how powerful he was. How graceful, as he swung to the vent and yanked it off. He gripped the edges and tried to rip the vent shaft opening wider. It didn’t budge.

He roared so loud, it scared Katrina, and she hunched. King released the rafter of the ceiling completely and held on with all of his body weight to the edge of the vent, leveraged his feet against the wall, and pulled as hard as he could.

The damn thing didn’t budge.

“Fuck,” he gritted out, dropping to the floor hard. He stood on his legs, to his full height. She had never seen a shifter like King. His animal had to be twelve feet tall, at least. He was barrel-chested and had powerful arms, and enormous fists for pummeling. “This room is for a dragon,” he gritted out. “I would bet money on it. It’s reinforced.”

“We’re trapped?” Raynah asked, cradling her belly.

King’s nostrils flared, and he slid a golden-eyed glance to her. “No.We’renot trapped. I am.”

He rushed forward so fast, he blurred. Katrina gasped as she reached for Raynah, and missed by a mile. He had her up near the vent shockingly fast. He held onto it with one powerful hand and eased her into it. When she disappeared, King dropped down on all fours and eased himself toward Katrina.

A flashback took her. She dropped her gaze and backed up, still struggling to breathe.

“I won’t hurt you now,” he uttered.

“Get away from me. I’ll get up there myself.”

He stopped immediately, and lifted his chin higher into the air. His eyes cooled. “Get to the woods.”

“I know. You told me that already.”

“The dragon will be scanning for motion. Hide as fast as you can. Go still until he’s farther away, and then run again. He’ll be circling the prison. He’ll be flying in a pattern.”

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