Page 41 of Savage Blood
He gave one of his crooked smiles, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Unfortunately, I’m stuck here. But Barric won’t kill me. He needs me too much.”
When the former head alpha’s roar resounded from the ritual room, my pulse shot through the coffered roof. We’d wasted enough time arguing. It was now or never.
“Thanks, Roman. I won’t forget this.” I turned and jogged down the hall, Alicia on my heels. As I peered over my shoulder, my stomach clenched at his somber expression.
If I ever stole the amulet from Barric, I’d make sure Roman got out of this safely.
We crept through the maze of corridors toward the dungeon, peering around corners to check for Collective members before continuing. As the sleek, opulent décor transformed into dull stone and brick the closer we got to the dungeon, our steps quickened.
“I really want to shift.” Alicia sprinted beside me, her curls bouncing against her shoulders.
“We’re almost free,” I said. “When we’re out of here, you can shift all you want. We’ll probably be faster in animal form once we get out of the forsaken mansion.”
My inner wolf purred, longing to stretch her legs and feel the soil beneath her paws.
We turned another corner and halted dead in our tracks, my boots skidding on the stone floor as a shifter emerged from a door on the left. His dark eyes, nearly sunken into his face, widened in our direction.
Sharp, invisible claws raked against my chest and squeezed my heart in a vise grip.
“You two shouldn’t be down here.” Ben, the lanky shifter in charge of ritual supplies, shook his head, throwing around dishwater-brown locks.
My demon side wanted to lash out and rip him apart, but I calmed those violent urges and tried to think rationally. “Oh, well, Barric sent us to fetch Ruin.”
His head snapped back. “Why would he do that?”
I gave a noncommittal shrug. “He knows I can’t do anything, or he’ll hurt Enid.”
Ben crossed his arms as he studied the blood covering Alicia. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting sacrificed right now?”
A string of curses raced through my mind.
Alicia and I traded glances, and we slowly advanced on Ben. Without the Malbraxis manacles hindering our abilities, we could handle this little waif of a guy. A strong gust of wind could blow him over.
A low snarl slithered between Ben’s teeth. “You can’t do shit. You have those cuffs?—”
His words sheared off as he scrutinized our wrists and noticed the absence of power-suppressing devices.
“Shit.”
We lunged toward him, and he let out a high-pitched wail as Alicia grabbed him around the middle. As talons burst from my fingers, it took all my control not to rip his throat out.
Instead, I slammed my fist into his jaw. His head whipped back, and then he crumpled into a heap on the ground.
“What a wimp,” Alicia muttered, bending down to clutch his arms. “Let’s put him back where he came from.”
After Alicia and I stuffed an unconscious Ben into a supply closet of candles, candelabras, and other random junk, we hightailed it to the dungeon. Enid bolted from the ground when she saw us.
“Oh my god. I thought you were dead, Alicia.” She hurried toward the bars, wrapping her hands around them. “And I was worried they’d done something awful to you, Tate.”
They had, but it was pointless to describe Barric’s new torture tactic. Erica’s dead stare flashed through my mind, haunting me. She’d become a new specter in my nightmares.
“Roman helped us escape the ritual room.” My hands trembled as I fit the gold key into Enid’s cell and jerked the door open. “Thanks to him, we’re getting the hell out of here.”
Enid hugged me, and I tensed, not familiar enough with her to be comfortable in her embrace. “I’m so glad you’re okay, sweetie.”
“You guys can hug it out later.” Alicia waved us on. “We’re running out of time. Roman won’t be able to hold that magic forever.”
I unlocked the mystical cuffs around Enid’s wrists, and her eyelids fluttered as her connection to her animal side rushedforward.
