Though he scarcely had time to dick around, he stood back for a moment and admired the sight of his mate overpowering and—

Shit. He shook himself out of it. “We’ve got to go.”

Runa’s eyes shot wide. “Shade!”

Two Darquethoths burst into the cell, their fluorescent eyes, lips, and slashes in their obsidian skin glowing bright orange in the dim dungeon light. They moved fast, but he tore through them, making an opening for Runa as they spun away.

“Come on!” he shouted, and grunted as a rope wrapped around his neck. One of the Darquethoths slammed him into the cell door. Pain sliced up his spine.

A roar of rage echoed through the dungeon, and then Runa was there in a flurry of fists and feet, ripping some impressive moves on the Darquethoths. The rope slipped free, and he planted his fist in a Darquethoth’s face. The male crumpled to the ground at the same time as the other, who had taken a blow to the head from Runa’s foot.

The Bathag struggled to her feet. When she locked eyes with Shade, she hissed, and the ground began to shake. A stone in the ceiling crashed to the floor in a cloud of dust, and shit, she was going to bring the entire place down.

Runa’s pupils dilated and narrowed wildly. Her fingers elongated. Night was falling as fast as the ceiling. Shouts came from somewhere. More Keepers.

“We have to go!” He grabbed Runa’s arm. He wished they could take Roag’s female with them, but the Bathag would slow them down.

The ground beneath them rolled and bucked as they dashed out of the cell.

Ahead, two Keepers fought to stay on their feet. Shade went through them like a bowling ball through pins. Without slowing, he dragged Runa up the narrow, winding staircase. They burst out of the stairwell and out onto a grassy expanse. Gray mist surrounded them, featureless save for the thick tendrils that swirled at their feet. Here and there, the veil thinned, allowing a view of rocky cliffs and scraggy trees in the distance. Behind them, a stone wall rose sharply, disappearing into the fog.

They’d been held in a castle.

“Where are we?”

“Ireland, I think.” A guess, based on the landscape, but also on Roag’s background. Upon his first maturation, he’d emerged from Sheoul, the demon realm deep inside the earth, to live among humans in various Irish cities, eventually becoming involved with the IRA. Nothing excited him more than causing trouble.

Runa doubled over, panting, though he suspected her respiratory issues had less to do with exertion than with her impending change into a warg. “What was all that about? The shaking.”

“The Bathag … they have control over earth and water. They can cause tsunamis, earthquakes, all kinds of shit if they’re riled. She was pissed.” Angry shouts interrupted, sending him into his own bout of spastic breathing. “We gotta go, babe. I’d love to stay and play, but it seems like this stupid bond has brought out some seriously protective instincts.”

“I can take care of myself.” Her voice was soft but infused with steel. Just like her gaze.

He took her in, aware that time was running out, but not wanting to deprive himself of this moment. She had a warrior’s soul, a fighter’s resolve. It called to him, overriding his common sense.

He grabbed her around the waist and tugged her up against him. At the same time, his skin tightened and his blood flushed hot. He wanted to take her right then and there. Hell’s fires.

“I know you can. But I can make sure you don’t have to.”

Knowing the smart thing would be to leave her here to get herself killed, he cursed the bond, took her hand once again, and dragged her toward the forest.

Runa kept up with Shade, welcoming the stitch in her side and the way her lungs burned with every breath. She was free, and the fresh, crisp evening air ignited an urge to run, howl. Hunt.

“It’s coming.”

He stopped so suddenly she nearly ran into him. “Roag?”

She inclined her head toward the horizon, where a sliver of the day’s last light peeked through the curtain of mist. “Night. I’m turning.”

“Where do you usually go?”

“Does it matter? We’re thousands of miles away from the United States.”

“I can get us anywhere in minutes. Now, where do you go?”

She had a comfortable cage on the Army base, a secret installation beneath Washington, D.C., that ingeniously used the pentagram and hexagram layout of the city to its advantage. The symbols of Masonic significance, mistakenly believed by some to be satanic in nature, provided protection against evil while enhancing defensive magic.

Obviously, she couldn’t tell Shade about it or take him there. Civilians weren’t allowed anywhere near the operation. Demons were, but only if they were restrained, part of the R-XR program … or dead.

“My house in New York. I have a setup in the basement.”

Not that she’d been there in months; she’d been too busy working with the Army to go home. Who’d have thought there were so many were-creatures in the world? She spent most of her days traveling the globe to were-beast hot spots, mostly coming back to D.C. only for the full moons. She loved the travel, the challenge of tracking down others like her, most of whom were tagged and left unharmed. The military seemed to think that in the event of a battle between humans and demons, weres and shapeshifters could play a vital role, and the military wanted them fighting on the side of humans.

Shade shook his head, but his alert gaze never ceased scanning the area around them. His muscular body sang with restrained power, and his sharply defined tribal dermoire lent an uncivilized, predatory quality to him. Amongst the haunting, untamed landscape, he fit right in. All he needed was a broadsword, and he could have been an ancient warrior, built for two things—fighting and sex. She shivered in a primal, feminine response to the image of Shade claiming a victory in battle, and then claiming her.

“Roag might know who you are,” Shade said. “I don’t want the Ghouls finding you.”

Panic flared, making her heart thunder violently in her chest. Or maybe the tight, strung-out feeling inside was just the werewolf wanting out. “We have to do something. If I change …”

She trailed off, not wanting to voice the problems that could come from changing into a slavering, murderous beast that would probably kill Shade and then run off in search of human victims.

“I know.” Shade lifted his face to the sky, as if he wanted to let loose a howl. She knew the feeling.

“What are you doing?”

“Probing for a Harrowgate. Roag wouldn’t base his operation far from one.”

Harrowgate. An underworld transportation system. The Army had been trying to figure out how they worked for years.

“Got it. This way.” He started moving in the direction from which they’d just come.

“Uh …”

“We’ll be fine. Once we’re inside the gate, we’ll transport to an exit near my place.”

They slipped quickly through the trees. Shade moved like a cat, all sleek grace and light steps, and if his injured foot troubled him, he gave no sign of it. Her own steps grew heavy as her body tensed, preparing for the change. Part of her wanted to give the wolf side free rein, a danger for every warg.

Once a month she battled the desire to become a beast and run free, killing at will and for pleasure. This was the monster she’d become thanks to the bastard who had bitten her.

And thanks to Shade—something she’d do well to remember.

“We’re here.”

Runa peered into a glimmering space between a boulder and a crumbling stone wall. She’d seen similar curtains of light before, but she’d written them off as a trick of the eye.

Less than a dozen yards stood between them and the gate. But something wasn’t right. The air had gone unnaturally still, as though evil had leashed the wind against its will.

Shade must have sensed it, too, because they weren’t moving, and he’d gone motionless, except for his eyes, which seemed to be taking in everything at once.

“The gate is being guarded,” he murmured.

“By what?”

“I don’t know.”

The rapid thump of multiple footsteps carried to her ultrasensitive ears, and she knew they were out of time. “We’re going to have to risk it. Bad guys, eight o’clock.”

They dashed toward the gate. Something rose out of the ground, a nebulous, smokelike creature, and they skidded to a halt, mere feet from the entrance. White wisps of mist wove together, slowly taking form as a beast about twelve feet tall, with gaping jaws and sharklike teeth. Red slits formed its eyes. It had no legs that she could see, but what it lacked in legs it made up for in claws the length of her arms. Runa had no idea what it was, but it smelled like feces and rotten fish. And it was scary as hell.

“Not good,” Shade grumbled.

“Aren’t you the king of understatement.”

Behind them, three Keepers and the Bathag crashed from out of the brush. Shade leaped into action, taking one of the Darquethoths down. The Bathag leaped on Runa, her face morphing into something horrible and vicious, with a mouthful of sharp teeth and a forked tongue. Runa had trained hard with the Army, and while she was no Special Forces commando, she could hold her own. More or less.

Less, in this case.

The world spun as they rolled down an incline and crashed into a stone fence. Runa grunted and plowed her own fist into the demon’s face. Teeth scraped her knuckles, and Runa sucked air.

“That hurt.” Runa hooked her leg over the demon’s back and flipped her. The female’s snarl broke off when Runa struck her in the jaw.

The demon froze, momentarily stunned. Runa dragged herself to a thick, dead branch. The sickening crunch of something hard striking flesh, followed by Shade’s pained curse, breathed new life into her fight. She leaped to her feet and swung the branch like a golf club.

“Runa! Don’t kill her!”

Too late, the crack of wood on the Bathag’s skull rang out, and the thing went limp.

*** Copyright: Novel12.Com