Page 111 of The Wolf and the Chimera
I snarled, and the werewolf shook. Preparing myself for a killing blow, I crouched, but my mate—clothed in nothing but a flimsy, white sheet—dove between us. I froze, petrified that I had almost leaped upon my enemy and harmed her instead.
“Wait,” she begged. “Think about what your brother said—the Handmaidens are here. He’s warning us, Ryder. They’re here for me.”
Handmaidens…
The words tugged at my memory, but my rage was a wild, confusing thing. I couldn’t see or think or act beyond it.
“Come back to me,” she whispered. “I need you.”
As I stared into her eyes—chocolate brown mingled with flickers of red light—her words freed me from the confines of my anger, and reality tumbled back. In an instant, I shifted, barely noting the twinge of pain. I picked Elle up and pulled her behind me, then stifled the power that roared in my veins and demanded blood.
I pointed a claw-tipped finger at my brother’s face. “Start talking, or I really might kill you.”
Kieran took a heaving breath. “They somehow got here through a ripple.”
“Is Cordelia here?” Elle said.
She tried to bypass me, but I gently pushed her back.
“For my sanity,” I said gently, “please get dressed.”
It didn’t matter that I now remembered my brother wouldn’t care to see Elle naked. With the rush of the claiming so fresh, my wolf’s possessiveness wouldn’t abate.
“This is the only time you get to go full cave-man on me,” she warned but dug into the dresser.
When she found a handful of clothes, Kieran wisely spun toward the wall, and Elle hurried past him, into the bathroom. Kieran didn’t face me again until the door clickedshut. As he spoke, I found some jeans and hastily threw them on.
“Cordelia isn’t here,” Kieran said. I trusted Elle could hear him with her chimera’s ears, “but there are five Handmaidens, and they brought golemsanda few pet leeches.”
I sneered. Five Handmaidens was a powerful force, but on top of that, the witches had crafted beings of earth and sand to life to fight alongside themandgathered their bloodsucking lackeys. I had faced golems the night of the Bloodmoon, when my pack had helped Freya’s coven defeat Josephine. I wasn’t eager to battle the creatures again.
Vampires, on the other hand, I was always excited to kill.
Elle stepped out of the bathroom, and my breath caught. She had gathered the coils of her hair into one long braid down her back. The collar of her shoulder revealed the mark on her shoulder. Where I had bitten her, my pack’s signet now decorated her lovely flesh.
A small, unbreakable knot adorned her smooth, brown flesh. It was the perfect signet not only for the strength of pack, but also for the strength of my devotion to Elle.
As I stared, Elle’s breath caught. Part of me wanted to leave the Handmaidens and their pets for the others to face, so I could finish what we had started, but I couldn’t abandon them and neither could Elle. Through the murky connection we now shared, her resolve was palpable.
“I’m ready,” she said. “Take us to them.”
Kieran led us out of the room and down the winding halls of Circe’s home. Instead of heading to the coliseum, we pivoted toward the front of the house. As we walked, light and magic distorted the world. Walls shifted from stone to wood to ice, and back again.
Had the Handmaidens stolen Circe’s focus so thoroughly that the ancient witch struggled to control her own realm?
We neared the spacious entryway. Sunlight and storm clouds poured in from outside. My mind flashed back to the last time the Handmaidens had come for my mate, and she hadgiven herself up to save Cadence. No matter how grateful I was for the young witch’s survival, I couldn’t bear to lose Elle again.
“No self-sacrificing,” I warned my mate and squeezed her hand.
She met my gaze. “Don’t worry. I’ve got other methods of defending myself and my pack now.”
Despite the monsters we were about to face, I smiled.
Kieran threw the door open, and my expression morphed into a snarl. Across the tundra, the Guardians battled vampires, who moved with matching speed and dexterity. Despite the sun that loomed over us, they remained intact, though their ashy pallor was stark in the light.
“How are they not crumbling to ash?” I muttered.
My attention was stolen by the two partially shifted werewolves who fought back-to-back against a group of golems. Melanie struck one of the creature’s chests and yanked out its stoney heart. Its sandy body became dirt on the wind, and Kieran raced to help his friends. The Minotaur tore through some of the creatures with ferocious bellows, and smaller beasts with green scales and wickedly sharp tusks helped the Guardians take out vampires.
