Melisande, can you bring her any closer without endangering her? Maybe the woods on the other side of the fortress?
No problem, Wulfe. I’ll mist her there, now.
Thank, Mel. Hold on, Natalie. This will all be over soon. He prayed. And keep talking, if you can. Recite the alphabet or just keep talking. Your voice grounds me. And reassured him that she was okay.
Low, husky laughter sounded in his head, but there was a pained quality to it that made him ache. The alphabet it is.
Wulfe took two more wounds before he and Zaber fought past the sentinels and their blades. Finally, nothing stood between them and their targets.
Inir raised his hands, his eyes closing as if in prayer, though Wulfe suspected his intent was to draw magic. But Inir wasn’t Wulfe’s problem, not yet. He turned fully to the six Ferals gathered around the Daemon Blade. With a growl, he leaped, intending to fly into the middle of the circle. Instead, he hit a solid wall of energy that threw him back, hard, onto the stones. Pain shot through his spine.
He shifted to human and the moment he did, the warding became visible—a glimmering blue dome around the evil Ferals and the Daemon Blade. Wulfe lifted his hand, willing this warding to shatter as had the last, but nothing happened. Dammit.
With his fist, he tried to breach it in human form and nearly shattered the bones in his hand. He might as well have hit a brick wall.
Shifting back into his wolf, he called to his brothers. I can’t get through.
At the cry of a man’s agony, Wulfe swung his head to find Zaber tearing off one of Inir’s legs.
My lord! Inir cried. Why are you withholding your power from me?
Because I need it to rise!
But I am your servant, your right hand.
You are nothing, Inir. My vessel. My tool. And I need you no longer.
Wulfe grunted. After all these years, after all the death and misery Inir had caused, Satanan had forsaken him. Karma was a bitch.
Wulfe ran toward them, limping, one of his hind legs almost certainly fractured. Try to get through the warding, Zaber. I’ll handle Inir. And, goddess, would it be a pleasure.
As the sabertooth took off, Wulfe faced the male, the creature, responsible for so much pain. At Wulfe’s snarl, Inir threw up his hands, real terror in his eyes. Wulfe almost felt sorry for him. If Inir had been a good man controlled by Satanan’s will, he might have. But he knew better. And Inir would die. Soon.
Wulfe leaped, grimacing at the fire in his hip, and grabbed Inir’s other leg. With his massive jaws, he bit it clean off, the warm blood tasting right and fine in his mouth. The blood of his enemy. The son of a bitch would not escape his fate.
I can’t get through, either, Zaber said.
Wulfe limped toward him, meeting him halfway. Let’s try it together. They leaped as one, and Wulfe felt the warding give ever so slightly. But not enough. We need the others. Together, they’d be able to break through, he was certain of it.
While Zaber stood guard over Inir, Wulfe turned and loped back up the path to where the rest of the Ferals dispatched the last of the Mage. The doors to the fortress swung open, and Olivia stepped out, followed by a flood of Therian Guards. In their midst, he glimpsed Kara, and he wished Natalie were with her.
Belatedly, he realized she’d stopped talking to him.
Natalie? Melisande, is she okay?
She’s fine, Wulfe. But Melisande lied. If Natalie were fine, she’d have answered him herself.
The truth, Mel.
The truth is, she’s fighting Satanan with everything she has. You have to do the same.
What he had to do was help her. Concentrating, he found Natalie in his mind, in his heart, through that gossamer, fraying thread, and loved her violently, passionately, tenderly, pouring everything he had down that pathway between them, willing her to hold on.
A thin, weak pulse returned to him through that cord. Fear curled around his heart, the need to go to her clawing at his insides, but Melisande was right. They each had their battles to fight.
As the Therian Guard delivered Kara to her mate, Lyon took her hand and strode toward Wulfe. “Did you get through?”
“The warding’s too strong. It’s going to take more than two of us in our animals to breach it. But Inir’s down and ready for the ritual.”
Lyon nodded. “Quickly.”
As one, the Ferals raced back to where the great sabertooth stood guard over the moaning, legless Mage. But as Zaber and Wulfe shifted back to men, and the Ferals gathered around, Inir suddenly began to laugh.
“You are fools to think you can stop me. I will rise!”
“Satanan,” Tighe muttered. “He didn’t protect his boy.”
“He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about his boy,” Wulfe replied. “He doesn’t need him anymore.” But while his gaze was riveted on the sight of this terrible enemy finally prone at their feet, Wulfe’s mind was consumed by worry for Natalie. The primal energies were too much for her. They were weakening her. Killing her. Please goddess, don’t let her die.
Kougar strode to Inir and, without hesitation, cut off one of his hands. As Inir screamed, Kougar cut off the other, holding both of them wrist-side up, cradling the blood. Turning toward the others, he began to chant as he had in the ritual room, repeating the words they’d used before, words that Ariana and the Shaman believed would reverse the dark charm’s damaging magic.
“The ritual fires?” Tighe asked. The fires ringing the other Ferals were long out.
Kougar shook his head, a quick, silent, “not going to bother.”
As the Ferals ripped off their shirts, they all took up the chant. Kougar began to swipe Inir’s blood across each of their hearts, one by one. Their voices grew louder, the magic beating at the air, pounding in Wulfe’s blood. A soaked-to-the-skin, yet proud and once-more-healthy Kara strode into the middle of the circle, waiting for the signal.
On the alternate goddess stone, where the evil Ferals’ ritual continued, an eerie red-orange light suddenly blasted from the Daemon Blade, an unearthly scream tearing through the night like the voices of a thousand damned souls suddenly freed.
Inir began to laugh like a madman. “You’re too late. It’s done! The blade has been opened. Satanan rises!”
Chapter Twenty-three
The Ferals’ worst nightmare had come true.
In the midst of a hurricane-like storm, the Earth screaming in outrage, shapes began to fly out of the Daemon Blade through that swirling red-and-orange energy—dozens of them, hundreds.
“Holy goat fuck, Batman,” Jag muttered.
The Daemons were free.
Their chant had died abruptly, Kougar and Lyon, as one, murmuring the words to throw up a powerful feral circle that should, goddess willing, keep the Daemons out. At least until they could retrieve their immortality.
Wulfe’s gaze flew to Fox. “Warn Melisande. Tell her to get Natalie out of here.” Only the Ferals mated to Ilinas had the ability to speak to their mates telepathically when they weren’t in their animals.
“She knows,” Fox assured him.
But Wulfe knew, deep inside, the women hadn’t left. Natalie wouldn’t leave him as long as he needed her. The knowledge both warmed and terrified him.
“Finish the ritual,” Lyon ordered.
Kougar took up the chant again as he swiped Wulfe’s chest with Inir’s blood, then Fox’s, then Zaber’s.
Wulfe’s pulse pounded in disbelief as wraith Daemons flew past by the dozens, their black, ropelike hair rippling back from horrific faces contorted like wax figures’ left too long in the sun. Sharp fangs dripped from their mouths, claws from their fingertips, their black, cloaklike bodies rippling in the wind.
Five thousand years the Ferals had fought to keep this from happening. Five thousand years.
The need to reach Natalie, to protect her, thudded in his mind, in his chest. Wulfe took up the chant with the others because the sooner this was over, the sooner he could save her.
In front of him, Kara went radiant, brilliantly so. Magic tore through him, cleansing, renewing, regenerating. He could feel his wounds healing, his breath filling his lungs with life and light. Radiance and Feral energy rushed through his body, strengthening him in the way he was meant to be strong. Feral. Immortal.
Deep inside, he felt the last of the wall erected by Inir’s poison—a wall intended to destroy his connection with his animal—some crashing down, then obliterated into nothing. His wolf howled with triumph as they were fully joined once more.
All around him, the Ferals shifted into their animals with relieved growls and whines and sighs. But no sound of victory. Except one.
Lyon swung his heavily maned lion’s head toward Inir with a deep, rumbling growl. This is for harming my mate. With a feral roar loud enough to wake the heavens, he bit off Inir’s head.
Wulfe shifted into his wolf and immediately called to Natalie, for once hoping she wouldn’t answer, that she was too far away.
But she answered immediately. “I’m here.”
Dammit. The Daemons are free! Melisande, take her to the Crystal Realm. Quickly.
But it was Natalie who answered him. We see them, Wulfe. Awe and fear wove through her too-soft voice. But I’m not going anywhere.
Natalie . . .
No, Wulfe.
Goddess. Now that the Daemons are free, Satanan has no more need to pull the primal energies. There’s no danger.
We don’t know that. I’m not leaving.
Deep inside, he knew her caution wasn’t misplaced. The darkness could try to claim him even without Satanan’s interference. But he needed her safe!
“Look at the blade!” Hawke shouted.
They all turned. Directly above the Daemon Blade, the colors swirled, dense and fast. At the top of that twisting mass, the head of a male had begun to form.
All around them, flying shapes began to materialize. Wraith Daemons by the score, but also human-looking men and women dressed in fur or leather or naked, and armed to the teeth with knives and blades of every length and size. Suddenly, the human-looking ones—were they Daemons, too?—began attacking the wraith Daemons as if their lives depended on it.
Shite, Fox murmured.
One of the leather-clad men, a tall male with thick dark hair tumbling to his shoulders and black tattoos covering nearly every inch of his body and half his face, turned to the animals, the Ferals.
“Stop Satanan before he’s free! We can’t touch him, but we can hold off the Abominations.”
Abominations. The same term Strome had used for the wraith Daemons. The real Daemons looked human, just like the Therians and Mage.
Wulfe leaped toward the evil Ferals, who continued to chant as Satanan slowly formed in that swirling color, his neck and shoulders now visible.
It’s going to take all of us to breach the warding of that circle, he told his brothers, then realized Lyon would never leave Kara to fend for herself among the Daemons. If only the Ilinas could mist in.
Sending his senses outward, he realized they could.
The anti-Ilina warding must have been destroyed with Inir, he told his brothers. It’s gone. The only warding now is the one encircling the evil Ferals. Have the Ilinas mist Kara out of here.
The moment Kara was out of danger, the eleven good Ferals raced to the ritual stone. Around the edges of Wulfe’s mind, the smoke began to gather again, nipping at his control, at his conscience. Concern gripped his mind.
Natalie?
I’m fine, Wulfe.
But, dammit, she didn’t sound fine. She sounded as weak as a newborn kitten. His wolf whined in distress. Wulfe knew he didn’t dare disengage from the primal energies yet, but goddess, he’d better do it soon.
The good Ferals circled the evil. Within that swirling color, Wulfe could feel the darkness growing stronger. A pressure began throbbing in his chest and head, and he imagined that swirl of color calling him, trying to drag him toward it. Or trying to yank the soul out of his body. Was this what had happened to the rest of the Daemon race? Was it happening to the newly freed Daemons even now?
If the tattooed Daemon was right, the moment Satanan was loose, he’d snatch control of them all once more. This time, Wulfe included.
Roar, Satanan’s calling my soul. If he gets free, I may turn on you.
He’s not getting free.
As he watched, the evil Ferals suddenly shifted into their animals, turning to face the impending attack—a polar bear, white tiger, crocodile, lynx, black bear, and giant-ass wolverine. Powerful, yes, but too few against their far more experienced and more numerous opponents. Six evil against eleven good. It wouldn’t be much of a fight if the good guys could just get through the damn warding.
Spread out, Lyon ordered. Falkyn, get the Daemon Blade.
The little falcon shifter, their sole female Feral, was by far the fastest of the lot. On the count of three. One, two . . .
Suddenly, the polar bear shifted back into a man, grabbed the sword he’d dropped to the rock at his feet, and lopped off the head of the wolverine standing beside him, then whirled and took off the head of the white tiger.
Polaris . . . Ewan . . . was clearly free of the dark magic that Inir had used to control him.
Three! Lyon yelled.
Wulfe leaped, feeling the warding resist, then give with a soft, sucking pop. They were in! Falkyn zipped past him, barely visible from the corner of his eye. And then suddenly she was all too visible as she flew back onto the stone as if in slow motion.
As Hawke darted after his mate, Satanan laughed within that swirling storm of energy and color.
Inner warding. Falkyn’s voice was breathless in his head. Satanan’s warded himself in the middle.
As his brothers and Polaris took on the remaining evil Ferals, Wulfe leaped at the Daemon Blade and, just like Falkyn, flew back, slamming into the rock in a blaze of pain.
Wulfe! Natalie cried.
I’m okay. We’ve almost got him. But, goddess, he didn’t know if that was true.
