Page 55 of Blood and Reign

Luka shakes his head. We stay holding one another for a moment before reality slowly creeps in, the worry and fear soon following it.

Where could the rest of the boys be? Are they okay?

I reach down inside me, trying to sense them. I feel the connection, but it’s completely dulled, as if lost in a fog.

Though feeling a connection at all is at least something.

I try my powers next, but just like in the room, they’re gone, making me feel hollow.

Which makes no sense. Shouldn’t I be able to access them now that the beads are charged? I sigh, pulling back from Luka. The worry also slashed across his face.

“We’ll find them,” he says as if reading my mind.

I nod, pushing the thought of my missing mates away to focus on the problem at hand. “Can you shift?”

Luka focuses, but after a moment, it’s obvious he can’t. His frown deepens. “What about you? Are your powers gone?”

I try again to pull something up, but it’s like pulling from a dry well.

Shaking my head, I walk over to the bars and glance out at the large area. It looks like an arena. There’s a wide-open circular space with nothing but sand and rock on the ground. I can’t see what’s above, the top part of the bars is covered in rock that juts out like a ledge blocking my view.

I go to move back when a shadow flickers in the corner of my eye. A moment later a guard with Ivor’s red crest shows up outside the bars. “You both are up in ten. Be ready.”

“Hey!” He leaves before we get the chance to ask what we need to be ready for.

Luka squares his shoulders, a hard set to his jaw as he stares out at the arena. “Whatever happens, we stick together.”

I grab his hand, squeezing it. “Promise.”

The bars slowly slide upward, releasing us from the cave prison. As soon as I walk past them, something inside me snaps like an elastic band, and my power rushes through me.

I rub my chest as the bond follows, feeling stronger than ever. I reach out for them, trying to get a fix on their location.

They feel close, really close. But it’s also like they’re blocked or behind a barrier of some kind.

I glance around the circular arena that stretches about forty feet wide, the wall enclosing us in made from small prisons similar to the one we just left. The wall stretches straight up until it meets a black net covering it, stopping anything from getting in or out.

I turn to Luka to ask if he can shift now too when I see him in distress. Shaking his head, his eyes are squeezed tight with his fists balled at his side.

I move over to him. “Luka? What’s wrong?”

“It’s my shadow wolf. He feels trapped when we can’t shift. He wants out.”

My worry for Luka and his wolf gets put on hold when the ground beneath us rumbles, shaking the dust from it as a loud stomp sounds out from the other side of the arena, drawing my eyes to it.

“What the—”

An enormous beast similar to the old demon’s steps into the arena, followed by four smaller human-like demons, two on each side. Luka reaches out, pulling me behind him, his eyes flickering from gold to dark green and back again.

Before I have time to figure out what’s happening, the two smaller demons make a run straight for us.

I don’t get a chance to move before Luka steps forward, shifting into his shadow wolf, meeting them halfway.

I keep an eye on the larger demon beast behind them as it watches Luka viciously rip through two of the demons in seconds. He leaves nothing but scraps of them behind before his focus shifts to the other two heading right for him.

I pull my powers up, the energy right under my skin ready and waiting for me to use it and push it toward the last two smaller creatures as they try to catch Luka’s wolf off-guard. They burst into a mass of flames, turning to ashes, and fall to the ground.

The large beast shrieks, the sound cutting through my skull and making the world around me tilt and spin. I’m still trying to get my balance when it slams its fist down in front of it, making the ground rumble once more.

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