Page 11 of Witches Be Damned

Raze thumped over to a second vampire soldier, ending his life on a hopeless gurgle.

“Stop,” Knoxe ordered. “We have to take them in and question them, to hopefully earn what we can on the Styx contract.”

Raze thundered and snarled at him, then abandoned his mission, falling back, obeying the chain of command.

Whimpers behind us called us all to spin around. Serena clutched a bloodied wound in her side. Her deathly pale face spelled danger.

“Goddamn, Hades,” Tor muttered, sending out another pulse of magick to torment the gantii.

Loco scrambled off the floor to grab our leader by the shoulders. “She’s losing a lot of blood, I have to get her back.”

Knoxe assumed command. “Go. I’ll take care of this.”

I limped over to Serena, examining the millions of potential chemical equations I might use to help her. Worth a try to save her life. I found one for hemostasis, pressing my hand to her abdomen, calling on the proteins in her body to clot and seal the blood vessel.

“I don’t know what you did, but thank you, Astra.” She clutched my hand and gave a weak smile.

Raze growled at me, stomped over to me, breaking us apart by lifting me off my feet, stroking me head, nuzzling my neck.

“What will you tell the warden?” Serena looked to Knoxe for answers for once, and my heart widened, appreciating their mutual respect and willingness to work together, not against each other.

“Nobody say a word about Hades.” Knoxe stared down every team member until they gave their nod of commitment. “Get her back to the prison,” he told Loco.

My father glanced at me, smiling that crazy grin, all teeth and wild eyes. “Good to see you again, kiddo. You good?”

“Yeah, I’m good, Dad.” The last word slipped out.

Although he hadn’t been a father to me in years, through no fault of his own, I couldn’t find it in my heart in the moment to hold it against him. All my anger and hurt drifted to the back of my mind, a topic for another day.

“See you back at the prison, kiddo.” Loco winked his crazy eye and slashed open a portal, carting Serena through it.

“We’re so fucked, but in a good way.” Tor rubbed his chin, then his forehead.

Raze growled in response, squeezing me tighter, and I wriggled to breathe against the pain in my chest. He rumbled in my ear and dragged his Lycan snout along my neck to apologize and soothe me.

“Not yet, we aren’t,” Knoxe countered, eyeing off Raze like he assessed the danger to me. “We’ve hit the jackpot with the Styx contract and that ought to count for something.”

“Hope the warden sees it that way.” Tor patted him on the shoulder. “I know I’ll be his favorite person. Again.”

The beat in Raze’s chest escalated with pleasure as if he welcomed our freedom and us joining his pack outside of the Guardians.

Except they forgot to mention one key ingredient—the warden was low on Guardian soldiers and wouldn’t release us until we corralled all the fugitive prisoners that escaped, Styx contract complete or not. We belonged to the Guardians for the indefinite future, and that soured the pit of my stomach.

Knoxe’s hard gaze went to Tor. “Are there any more vamps?”

“Just these five,” I replied.

Five on the ground, writhing in pain. Tor usually needed to focus to hold them under his spell. His heightened magick didn’t wear off as easily.

“Cuff them and take them back to the prison,” Knoxe ordered, and he and Tor went around shooting each vamp with stun bolts from their guns and cuffing them to the benches.

“Where’s Pascal?” I asked when they were done. “Did he make it?”

“He’s fine, Sunset,” Knoxe’s reply never felt as sweet. “He’s back in the hospital, and the docs are taking good care of him. And so are we.”

I rubbed at the ache in my chest. “That’s good to hear.”

“Clear out,” Knoxe ordered, hauling one vamp to his feet. “You too, Sunset. Say your goodbyes to Raze.”

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