Page 23 of Hunter

Ember let out a breath loud enough to be picked up by the phone. “Good. We weren’t sure whether they were keeping you at the house they’re renting, but Sora seemed pretty certain. What do you need from us for your rescue?”

“I’m locked in a cell that’s covered in spells to keep me from casting magic,” Kana began.

“So, you need us to come get you out?” Ember cut in.

Kana shook his head, but then remembered Ember couldn’t see him and said, “No. They left the key behind to taunt me.”

Sora turned to look and shimmered for a second as he called on his human form. He slid the phone through the bars of the cell window, which Kana gratefully clutched, and then went to get the key.

“They didn’t even trap it,” Sora said, his hand hovering over the key for a brief moment as he felt for any spells. He grabbed the key and hurried back to the door, slotting it into the hole and turning the lock with a clunk. The door swung open and Kana hurried out.

Sora’s presence immediately bloomed in Kana’s mind as the block between them vanished. Mika’s was more muted, but Kana hammered through it and yanked Mika to him.

Mika vanished from inside the cage and reappeared in Kana’s arms. He yawned and blinked at them both, then gasped and jumped onto Kana’s shoulder so he could get his bearings.

What happened? he asked. His voice still sounded groggy, but he was steady on his feet.

“You got caught in a trap,” Sora replied, his tone light, although Kana could hear relief there too.

Mika huffed in disgust. He jumped from Kana’s shoulder and landed on the ground in human form.

“What now?” he asked.

Kana looked behind himself, at the cell designed to keep witches helpless. He looked at the cage designed to cruelly imprison a familiar, torturing their witch in the process.

“I have some things I want to destroy,” Kana replied. “It’s going to make a lot of noise and fuss.”

Ember laughed. “Sounds fun. Want us to knock on their front door at the same time?”

Kana didn’t know what Ember meant by “knocking,” but he had a feeling it wasn’t as benign as Ember’s simple words made it seem. Still, Ember did sound as if he had a plan, and Kana could use that to cover his escape.

“You causing a distraction would definitely help,” Kana said.

Ember laughed, and then his voice rang out as if he had pulled the phone away from his ear so he could shout to others around him. “Kana said we should have a bit of fun!”

Loud, echoing howls sounded as Ember’s wolves answered.

“They’re ready to hunt,” Ember said into the phone again. “And I’m sure your captors heard that, since we’re currently surrounding their house. Smash away, Kana, and then come find me so I can assure myself you’re safe.” His voice went low and growly at the end in a possessive way that had things tightening low in Kana’s body.

Kana sternly told his body to behave. “Will do,” he said, and his own voice was low with suggestion even after his attempts to corral his libido. “Stay safe.”

“You too.”

The phone line went dead as Ember hung up. Kana tucked it into his pocket and turned to Mika and Sora.

“Ready?” he asked.

They both grinned at him and their bodies shimmered. A second later they had shifted into their massive six-hundred-pound primordial forms.

Ready, they replied in tandem.

Chapter Ten

KANA THREW OPEN the magic channels between himself and Mika and Sora, drawing in as much magic as he could hold. Spell circles grew in his wake, blossoming across every inch of Kana’s cell and Mika’s cage. The runes for destruction seemed to glow red as Kana added them. Kana backed up to the door and then sent a final flare of magic into his circles.

The thud of the circles erupting hit Kana in the chest before the roar and crash as concrete exploded and rained down. Kana coughed as dust filled the air, but he waited for it to clear so he could double-check those terrible cages were completely gone.

No one came running despite the noise he had made, so apparently Ember’s distraction was working. Kana hoped Ember had some sort of protection against spells—Kana remembered the awful sounds the bodies of the wolves who had come to pick him up had made when they were hit—but Ember had sounded so confident on the phone. Kana trusted him to do what was best for his wolves, and Ember wouldn’t blindly attack a witch.

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