Awakening the Fire

Ari stumbled over the wolf Mike had shot. She had nearly reached the wall again, when she heard the distinctive click of the latch opening. Abandoning caution, she sprang forward, arriving in time to see three wolves escape inside. Sheila sprang out of the smoke to follow them, but her injuries made her one step too slow. Ari knocked her aside and fired the derringer into the she-wolf’s gut. Sheila howled with pain and anger, falling back into the smoke. Ari yelled at Mike for someone to follow the she-wolf, then she plunged into the tunnel.



Like the passage to Club Dintero, there were no lamps, no electrical system. For the first ten feet, the light from the open panel revealed the way. As soon as Ari rounded the first turn, the light faded to total darkness. She squeezed her eyes closed, forcing them to make a quick adjustment. She heard the wolves ahead and moved in their direction. The derringer remained in her hand. Not killing power against werecreatures, but still damaging. And she had one bullet left.



She could smell the wolves’ trail, but they had an advantage—they knew the way. Victor had committed the ultimate betrayal by revealing his prince’s sleeping chambers. Ari could only follow, and she’d have to stick close. As the sound of their feet on the tunnel floor began to fade, she broke into a slow jog, trailing one hand along the wall to guide her in the dark. If she missed a turn, she might not find them again before they found the vampires. Somewhere ahead, the prince and his court were sleeping, defenseless. And Andreas was one of them.



She increased her pace again, concentrating all her senses on following the path. She was so attuned to the smell of the wolves, that she failed to register the sudden closeness. She collided with a furry mass. A rear guard. Ari stepped in close, pressed the derringer against his throat, and pulled the trigger. Blood spurted. The wolf grunted and slumped to the floor. Not dead, but down. She stopped long enough to mutter a binding spell to hold him an extra minute or two. She hoped it was enough. With the derringer now useless, she left it on the tunnel floor.



Ari hurried on, arriving at an intersection of four paths. The smell of wolf was all around her. She hesitated, listening, uncertain which route to take. Sounds came from the tunnel behind her. Had the injured wolf recovered so quickly? Was it her team? Or had Sheila returned? She didn’t have time to find out.



Reaching out with her witch magic, Ari picked up nearby energy. Second tunnel on the right. Startled by how close they were, she slipped forward, more cautious now. Another misstep might not turn out as well. She kept her back against the wall, hands searching along the clammy walls.



Ari felt the familiar surge in her blood as her witch fire rejuvenated. Soon it would be strong enough to use. She crept through three more junctions. Only once did she make a false turn. Her senses alerted her quickly, and she corrected but lost precious seconds. She forged ahead, intent on her quarry, aware with every step that pursuers were also closing in from behind.



She began to pick up faint traces of Otherworld power. Not wolf. Vampire. Her witch magic reached out for the trace that led to Andreas.



“There!” The word rang out like a shot from the blackness ahead.



Ari sprinted forward. That single word meant one thing—the two assassins had found the entrance to the sleeping chambers. No! She couldn’t let this happen. Not to Andreas. She put everything she had into a desperate sprint, her magic reaching out before her, witch senses screaming in her ears. Danger. Danger. Her mind formed terrible images of the wolves breaching the chamber door.



Rounding a sharp corner, she braked to a stop. She still had time to stop them. The guy with the Uzi held a flashlight in one hand and was running the other over a rock wall; the gun lay at his feet. A brown wolf guarded his back and immediately charged her. Ari backpedalled, firing a small burst of stuns into the lunging figure. He stumbled. She dodged aside as he crashed against the rocky wall. She sprang toward the man at the end. He grabbed for the Uzi, but her foot got there first, kicking it against the far wall. She body-slammed the assassin, forcing him away from the entrance. Ari whirled, back against the wall, making her body a barrier.



The brown wolf regained his feet and rushed toward her. The gunman crawled toward the Uzi. Pounding feet raced toward them from the tunnels. Ari summoned her magic for a last stand.



An enormous black wolf launched into the room, taking down her wolf attacker. The gunman reached the Uzi and swung it over his body one handed. Her crimson fire caught him as he pulled the trigger. Bullets riddled the wall. Ari saw the surprise on his face before he burst into flames and dropped the discharging weapon.



Ari didn’t see him die. A ricocheting bullet caught her arm and sent her reeling against the wall. As she felt the rock impact on her forehead, the wall opened, and she fell into Andreas’s arms. The vampire stared down at her, a strange look on his face. Ari slipped into darkness.



Chapter Thirty-Three



She opened one eye. Tan walls. Ari lay on a sofa in a room she had never seen before. Her arm was bandaged—again—and a damp cloth covered her forehead. She opened the other eye. Andreas sat on the arm of the sofa talking to someone she couldn’t see without sitting up. She wasn’t sure she was ready to do that.



Events and images flooded back. The deafening gunfire, the blood, the bodies. What had the vampires thought of the carnage throughout the compound? Jeez, Ari, she chided herself. They’re vampires. Tame stuff to them.



She stretched her arm to see how bad it was. Andreas immediately crouched at her side.



“How do you feel?” he asked.



“Ready for another round,” she said in a feeble stab at humor.



“Well, isn’t she the bloodthirsty one,” Carmella said from somewhere above her. “And they think we’re bad.”



There it was again, that vampire issue with humor. Before Ari thought of a suitable response, she heard Carmella walk away.



Andreas looked at Ari, his face unreadable. “Your magic woke me,” he said. It almost sounded like an accusation. “An overwhelming sense of danger jolted me awake. Your magic filled the room, and I saw the wolves outside the chamber door. Outside,” he repeated, as if she might have missed it the first time. “What kind of a witch are you?”



Ari stared at his face, saw the tension, even the alarm in his eyes. But no one could wake a vampire. Could they? Or do the things he was suggesting. “What are you talking about?”



He raised an incredulous brow. “You woke me from the sleep cycle, Arianna. And now you say you don’t know how?”



Ari frowned. “I don’t, uh, I mean, I didn’t…do anything. Whatever happened, whatever got you up, it wasn’t me.”



“And the image of the wolves? How do you explain that?”



Wide-eyed, she just shook her head. “I can’t. How do you explain it? This is your deal, not mine.”



He started to say something but seemed to change his mind when voices reached them from the hallway. “This is not a good time, but we shall discuss this later.”



Yeah. Like never. She had a hard enough time coping with the tangible things, like killer wolves with Uzis.



She struggled to sit up and winced when she bumped the arm. Painful, but not too bad. With her constitution she should be fine by the end of the week.



Andreas soon dashed that hope. “The bone was splintered. It may need special treatment to heal properly. Should we find something for the pain?”



“No, I’m good for now,” she said. “Tell me about my team. I want to see them.”



“Everyone survived, and their injuries will heal. Lilith and Russell are down the hall licking their wounds. Mike morphed into his human persona and—”



“Is he a black wolf?” Ari interrupted, remembering the wolf who helped her in the tunnels.



“Yes, and very large. He left to look for Benny.” At her frown he added, “We think Benny is still trailing Sheila.”



“She got away?”



“Mike saw her and a gray wolf leave by the front door, right after you entered the tunnel. Benny went after them.”



Ari snorted. “She left before the fight was over? Some leader. And the rest of her pack?”



“Seven dead, one captured. We believe ten or twelve were inside the compound. The chopper pilot took off when Lilith and Russell climbed onto the roof.”



“So Sheila and two or three others are still out there.”



“At least,” he said. “We do not have a good count. Sheila may have new recruits who were waiting outside. I hope Benny will return with a more accurate count—and a current location.”



“They’ll be long gone. Probably in that chopper,” Ari said in disgust. “And trying to get out of the country with Victor dead.”



“But they cannot know that yet,” Andreas argued. “It is too early. We should have another hour or two before he is late enough they become alarmed.”



Ari couldn’t stand the thought of Yana’s killer escaping. But in Sheila’s place, Ari would head for the hills, or in this case, home to Canada. Hell, the she-wolf had already run out on her pack. Why would she hang around? Unless she needed time to heal.



Ari heard voices at the door. Andreas straightened his tall frame and left to see what was causing the commotion. She felt strangely disoriented, touched the large lump on her forehead, and wondered if her brains had been scrambled. What had Andreas been talking about? What really happened those last moments deep in the tunnels? She didn’t have long to think about it, as Andreas returned, reporting Mike had checked in, without Benny. He’d been unable to find the missing werelion.



Now Ari had something worth worrying about. Benny had sense enough not to take on the werewolves alone, but what if they discovered he was tracking them? He could have been ambushed, outnumbered three to one.



She pushed off the couch. So far so good. She waved off Andreas’s offer to help. Enough coddling. She brushed past him and was headed out the door when he reached out a hand to stop her. He drew back at the last moment, as if he was reluctant to touch her.



“Arianna, I meant to thank you. Would have earlier, except I was…ah, distracted. You saved the prince. We owe you.”