Page 82 of Mated to the Enemy
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Klaue and his men were all taken aback by the rapidity with which Lorran and the rest of the Canim turned on them. He’d expected it to take longer. All of them had.
Training kicked in, however, and he lunged forward, dropping a shoulder into Lorran’s midsection with as much force as he could. There was no time to finish the job. Turning on his heel and dashing toward the two sisters, he shouted at them to move, pointing toward the oncoming rush of bear shifters. Many of them had drawn weapons as they charged into the center of the clearing between the tombs, forming a protective circle around the women.
“It’ll be okay,” he said, reaching in and giving Jessica a squeeze on the shoulder.
The speed of it all had thrown his plans into disarray. His reinforcements were close, and the shouting and yips of the wolves as they stalked around him and his men would tell them that it was time to come running, but nobody had thought Lorran would move so fast. It would be at least a minute before the plan could be put into action. Still, he had a part to play.
“Spread out a bit,” he muttered, and the circle widened slightly. Pulling a disc out of his pocket, he cracked it in half and dropped it on the ground, then turned his back and joined the circle, growling and daring any of the wolves to come closer.
There had to be nearly fifty all told now, between the original eighteen and the reinforcements. They were circling too fast for him to get an accurate count, but he had faith in his guess.
“What’s the plan now, boss?” Kasperi asked, his dual swords—both of them now the uranium-edged versions, not the straight metal from their duel before—held at the ready. Klaue knew just how painful a strike from one of those would be. It would open a wound that wouldn’t close, not until the radiation that played havoc with shifter DNA was removed.
“The plan is to—”
Fiery red lightning spat out from the Dracos tomb, but stopped five feet short of the nearest shifter as a bubble of red appeared around the Ursidae shifters. The shield held, absorbing the energy and then fading back into invisibility.
“A little gift from Kvoss,” Klaue announced as the mage emerged, looking unhappy.
He lifted a hand and this time, green darts flickered toward the bear shifters, a constant stream. They impacted upon the shield, energy spitting and cracking as it was dispersed once more.
Snarling angrily, the mage lifted both hands and slammed them together in front of him, pointing his fingers directly at Klaue. A blue spear shot out across the distance. It hit the shield, and the little disc Klaue had been instructed to use sparked, then burst into fire before finally exploding, sending little bits of shrapnel in every direction.
The shield was down.
“Klaue,” one of the men said nervously.
He swore. Their reinforcements still hadn’t arrived, and now they were sitting ducks. The mage’s right hand was glowing with green energy as he prepared to attack them again. They couldn’t disperse, the wolves would tear them apart. But if they stayed bunched up, so would the magic.
“Stay in formation,” Kasperi said, stepping back and turning to face the mage.
“You and that scarf,” Klaue muttered with a grin as his former rival pulled out the artifact and whirled it around just in time to deflect the mage’s spell.
“You!”the mage shrieked, recognizing Kasperi from the raid on Moonshadow Manor.
“Anytime now, Klaue,” Kasperi called. “I really don’t want to see what he does next.”
Neither did Klaue. Blue magic was building once again. Around them, the wolves circled constantly, howling, yipping and barking at them. They knew better than to approach the circle of armed men while they were still a cohesive group.
A black shadow reached out from around the corner of the Ursidae tomb and something flickered across the distance toward the mage. He spotted it just in time and slashed a hand in front of him. Green magic deflected whatever it was, but the mage hissed as he realized another player was on the field, and raced away into the rows of tombs.
Klaue watched, his teeth pulling back into a snarl as Kvoss, the Assassin of High House Ursa, gave chase.
Seconds later, he felt the rumble.
“Here we go, boys!” he shouted, and the men of House Ursa start to holler, tossing their heads back and making inhuman sounds that quickly overpowered the howls of the wolves.
Especially when the oncoming stampede of shifters called back.
Dozens of bears, each one nearly two tons of muscle and fury, stormed the circle, bowling into the assembled wolves like a tidal wave. Full-grown wolves soared through the air, bounced across the ground or were trampled as Klaue’s reinforcements arrived in a mass of death and destruction.
“Okay, move, move, move!” he shouted, and his circle made a mad rush for the nearby SUV. His first job was to get Jessica and Zoe clear of the danger.
Then he could turn his attention to the ones that were deserving of the anger coursing through his body like blue-white fire.
“Get in,” he ordered, pulling open the door.
