Page 192 of Wolf Caged
“This isn’t good,” she said.
I levelled a look on her that said it was far worse than not good. I doubted our situation could get much worse.
The piles of bones behind the lich began twitching and moving, reforming into skeletons.
Or perhaps it could.
I shoved to my feet and pushed Saphira behind me as several of the skeletons launched at us, sweeping my hand out before us to form my own barrier. They slammed into it, bones scattering across the sand, each impact weakening the barrier. It would not hold long.
I handed Saphira the pack and she placed An’sidwain into it and then readied her dagger, her eyes darting over the skeletons as they reformed, their bones tumbling back together.
“Take the heart.” I pressed my hand to the barrier the lich had cast, sensing it, studying it, picking it apart as I kept my eyes on the skeletons. “When I break this spell, you run.”
She locked up tight. “No. What about you? You’re coming with me. You’re coming with me, Kael.”
I glanced over my shoulder at her and she growled that demanding little growl of hers that called me a bastard and ordered me to do what she wanted.
“I’m not leaving without you,” she snapped.
It was my turn to growl at her. “You are leaving. You run and you do not look back.”
The skeletons slammed into the barrier before me again, and it fractured, crumbling to pieces. One made it through,launching at me, and Saphira swung the pack and struck it in the chest, the blow so fierce it broke apart.
And then she was yanking off her corset and kicking off her boots.
“What in the Great Mother’s name are you doing?” I snapped at her as she stripped.
“I’m faster as a wolf.” She loosened her pants and pulled her blouse over her head, flashing her breasts, and then she was a wolf hurtling towards the skeletons, a snarling blur of white fur as she tackled them to the ground and snapped their bones with her teeth.
Those she broke did not get back up again.
I followed her lead, slicing through the skeletons with my blade, making sure to cut clean through their bones to incapacitate them. Several of the skeletons jumbled together, forming a new beast from the whole bones, a gnarled monster that lumbered after Saphira as she leaped between the humanoid skeletons. Blue fire blazed in their palms and grew, stretching long before them into swords or spears.
They swung at Saphira and she kicked left, narrowly avoiding being struck.
Orbs of cerulean fire shot at her, keeping her on her toes, and I gritted my teeth and raised my hand, pulling up a wall of shadows to block them for her as she skirted around the edge of the skeletons, coming back towards me.
Too fast.
She was going too fast.
“Saphira!” A grunt burst from my lips as I tried to keep up with her as she moved back to me, as I pulled my limited magic to me and pushed through the pain.
She yelped as she reached the end of the shadows before I could finish summoning them to shield her and an orb struck her hindquarters, taking them out from under her. The scent ofsinged fur seared my nostrils and her gasping pants sounded in my ears.
A growl of rage tore from my lips as I turned on the lich.
The fiend raised his fiery blue staff and orbs shot from it, forming a ring around the crystal at the tip of it.
And they all shot towards Saphira, a blazing shower of shooting stars that had me hurling myself into their path to shield her, agony ripping through me as I summoned my magic and cast the spell before me.
The air there hardened, forming a barrier between her and the spell, and bright light exploded across my eyes as the stars hit it.
Saphira came around behind me, snarling as she sailed through the air and tackled a skeleton that had been coming at me in my blind spot. She savaged it, breaking bones and scattering them across the sand. When it was no longer a threat to me, she whined and licked her side, cleaning the darkened fur and burned skin.
Darkness overcame me.
I surrendered to it, letting it stain my fingertips black and sharpen my fangs, and drench the world in crimson.
