Page 13 of Dead Wolf Rising (Bad Moon Academy 3)

I force her back and refortify the barrier so she can’t push through. I don’t have time to listen to her salivate over non-existent drama.

“Then what happened? How did Theodore get the power?” Brayden’s chest brushes against my arm as he reaches for Death. “You’re hurting my luna.” He leans over me, staring Death in the face.

A tense second passes, but then the pressure on my hand eases, and Death retreats, swooping back. “The Heir is all powerful, like her parents. This,” he waves a bony hand in my direction, “is to annoy me.”

Righhhht. I’m supposed to believe Mazzikin, the daughter of Samael and Lilith, gave a witch access to this power to annoy Death?

Silence fills the room, stifling and heavy as we all wait to see what he will do next. His eyes glow a little brighter, turning more orange than red, like there is fire within them, and he seems to grow. The endless black of his cape swells, rising up another foot until the hood brushes against the top of the stone room.

“Death?” Brayden pulls me behind him.

“Raven killed a demon using my power. Mazzikin will blame me.” He sounds amused and a little angry.

“I. I didn’t know,” I say, rising up on my tiptoes to speak over Brayden’s shoulder. “Jinx was taking the souls of shifters for power.”

A low, rattling sound fills the room. “Edax animae.”

“Soul-eater.” I nod. “She’s dead then?”

Swinging his red gaze to meet mine, he comes a little closer. “The demon is gone.”

There were three within one. If the demon is gone, does that mean the other parts are too?

I pinch my eyebrows together. “And the shifter and human side? The soul-eater was part human before being bitten.”

“Another annoyance,” he mutters. “Mazzikin is bold.”

“Are they gone too?” I ask, interrupting his muttering.

There’s a heavy pause. Tension coils between my shoulder blades.

“They are not in the Underworld.”

Releasing a hard breath, I drop my head on the back of Brayden’s shoulder. “Then we can find her.”

Carter clears his throat, a nervous sound. “There are wards on the property set by the soul-eater. How do we break them?”

Lifting an ivory finger, Death points at me. “Your necromancer can break them.”

“I can?”

“The power Mazzikin bestowed upon Theodore runs in your veins. You are not my kin, but you can harness the same demonic power I command because of her. If you can kill an edax animae, you can take down a ward.” Death stiffens, and his eyes swing down, searching the ground for something. But nothing is there, at least, nothing that we can see. “I’ll be back, thief. We’re not done.”

“Wait! How do I take down”—Death disappears—“a ward?” I mutter the last part. I look around, seeing the men are all staring at me like I’m the answer they’ve been searching for, and it terrifies me more than Jinx ever could.

Chapter 5

BRAYDEN

I don’t feel safe until we leave the secret room and the dungeon, and even then, I check behind me as we climb the stairs, searching the darkened space for red-hot ember eyes. The way Raven clung to me is burned into my memory. Her fear an echo of how I felt when I first encountered the Father of Reapers when I was six.

“And then the dragon ate the puppy and tore apart his insides!” I roar the end of my story, picking up Draco’s stuffed dog with my stuffed dragon and throwing it across the yard.

“No!” Draco races over to pick him up. “You can’t kill Norris. That’s not how we play.”

“Dragons are hungry.” I make a growling noise and lunge for him, laughing when he releases a frustrated shout.

“I’m telling Mom!” He stomps inside, leaving me on the back porch.

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