Page 5 of Centaur Bolt

It was black leather or fabric, with metal—my heart froze as I recognized the galloping Centaurs. But they’d been hammered flat…

Kiko pounced on something too. “Here’s a note,” she said. “And an envelope.” She waved it, eyes wide. “It’s got Marcus’s name on it.”

Cara snatched the note from the Satyr’s fingers, and her face lost all color as she read it.

“What is it?” I demanded. “What’s happened?”

There was a tremendous clatter at the front entrance, and suddenly the foyer was full of Centaurs. The one in front was beautiful, with a dappled gray coat and vivid-red, braided hair.

“Cripes,” Kiko exclaimed.

Part of the Satyr’s reaction was because of the five-foot sword the Centaurina held across her chest. The rest was due to her expression. She looked ready to wreak mayhem. And she wasn’t alone—five others followed her, huge males, all armed. They defined the very meaning of the word menace.

The Watcher hurried over to them.

My heart thundered with a murky kind of terror as Cara hurried to them. Six Centaurs put a significant dent in the foyer’s open-concept architecture. The Watcher stopped before the redhead, and they had a quiet, intense conversation.

Kiko and I pushed our way to Cara’s side. “What’s happened?” I asked.

Cara didn’t look at me—she held the gaze of the red-haired Centaur. “Isobel has kidnapped Emmanuel.”

My gut clenched. The thought of that proud warrior in that bitch’s clutches…

The female Centaur’s fingers whitened on her sword. “Manny was on his way back from the market when he was attacked. They shot him with darts—and then I lost contact with him. But he caught a glimpse of a Bellati before he went down.”

I stared in confusion at the female Centaur. Had she been with him? How had she escaped?

Kiko leaned close to me. “She must be Emmanuel’s mate.”

Cara overheard her. “Triss is telepathically connected to him,” she confirmed. “Which means his captors had to knock him out fast and gate him away.”

My mind sifted out the facts—mates? Telepathic bond?—and focused on the important bit.

This Centaur was Marcus’smother.

The Watcher met and held my gaze. The note Kiko had given her was clenched in her fist. “Isobel has demanded that Marcus trade his life for his father’s.”

My entire world spun to a halt.No.No way. Marcus could not return to that bitch and her twisted plans. “We have to stop him. We have to find another way.”

The set of Cara’s jaw, and the pain in her eyes, stopped me cold. Because I knew. He’d been headed to fight class, but he hadn’t arrived.

That was over an hour ago…

3

Rafael

I inhaled the fetid air in the alley.

Perhaps the previous day’s cleaning crew had missed a body—there was so much debris in the corners that there could be anything lying within them.

I stalked past a small group who perused me, but wisely let me be. It disappointed me. I wasn’t quite at the randomly-attacking-strangers stage, but I was damn close.

The town of Murnia suited my current mood perfectly. It catered to killers. I briefly debated heading deeper into the shadows to avoid those who hunted me, but to move away from them would be a clear sign of something wrong.

So instead, I swung toward the street, just in time to see them rounding the corner into the alley. Two figures, one extremely tall, the other with a cloak wrapped around seductive curves.

“See,” Finn said with a sneer. “The wizardling isn’t avoiding us. Only lost.”

---