Chapter 26
Thea struggled in the Skin Walker Sentries’ hold. She may as well have been trying to push a bus off her for all the good it did. Arms like steel bands clamped around her shoulders and knees. Marko’s hold was the tightest with one arm intimately secured just below her breasts, and the other clamped over her hips.
When the pilot yelled for everyone to brace, the Walker holding her shoulders bent and covered Thea’s head while Marko folded his body protectively over her abdomen. She heard him snarl, and it was the last thing she heard before a deafening roar filled the cabin as the helicopter hit the ground. Thea was only aware of the feeling like the entire cabin collapsed onto them before everything went black.
Thea woke cold to the sound of metal wrenching. Everything was dark, and smoke filled the air. She strained to get up, but hard hands grabbed her, and instead of being gentle as she’d expected, she was jerked roughly from under debris and drug out into the open where her body slammed hard onto the frozen ground. She was being pulled away from the helicopter by the zip tie still locked around her wrists. Trying to get her bearings, her breath chugged out of her in puffs as the frozen earth scrapped against her back. Her head ached something furious, and after the deafening crash, the absolute silence that surrounded her was terrifying and had her fighting to blink her eyes open. She moaned as the brightness of the snow-covered terrain blinded her. Too bright!
Rocks and chunks of ice tore at her as she was pulled along. She tried to jerk her arms free, but the grip on her slid to one wrist and tightened painfully. Her shoulders ached too from the strain of being dragged.
Blinking her eyes open, it took Thea a moment to focus on the bare branches of the towering tree above her as they slowly passed overhead. The pain in her shoulder and arm ceased as her body stopped moving. Moaning, she made to roll onto her side, but something hard hit her chest and pinned her back to the ground.
Thea looked down at her chest and the object. It was a boot. Someone was holding her down with their foot.
Eyes tracking up the leg, her heart pounded out a terrified rhythm as she glanced a long dark trench coat and followed it up to the pasty white creature who’d shot her with the tranq dart at StoneCrow. Megalya!
She wanted to scream but didn’t want to draw the attention of the Megalya holding her hostage.
Marko! Turning her head just a fraction, she scanned the area. Nearby, she saw smoke billowing up from where the helicopter must have crashed. Her eyes snagged on movement near a tree, and she startled hard. Her eyes cut back to the Megalya standing over her and then back to the creature near the tree. They looked exactly the same. Both…creatures wore dark trench coats over dark clothes. They had bald heads and blacked out eyes. When they opened their mouths, they had sharp, shark-like teeth. They looked evil, and while she’d heard that there were many Megalya, she hadn’t known that they all looked the same.
“Thea!”
She heard someone call her name and turned toward the sound. It wasn’t Marko, and that had her worried that he’d been hurt in the crash. Knowing she needed to call out so that the Walkers could find her, Thea looked up and fear dumped into her middle as the thing standing over her angled his head and stared at her.
“MARKOOOOOOOOO!”
***
Marko came to crumpled up against hard cold metal. He heard King shout, “Thea!”
Snow burned his cheek, and there was something warm and sticky trickling down his face. Sitting up, his eyes snapped to his lap. “Thea?” Fuck! Shoving up off what was left of the floor, he scanned what was left of the cabin. Beside him, Lok was just coming too, blinking furiously, he reached for a still unconscious Bodi.
“Thea!” Marko barked, pushing part of the bench seat up off the floor in front of him to search underneath.
The sound of clicking metal drew his attention and his eyes locked on where King pulled an unconscious Tito out of the pilot’s seat with one hand while his other shoved a Glock toward the window. “Gentlemen, we’ve got company.”
Marko’s eyes shot to the window, and he didn’t see anything.
“Megalya,” King explained. “I count at least seven.”
Marko’s heart seized, and his eyes shot back to the area around him as he searched frantically.
King’s next words sent horror washing through him. “They’ve got Thea.”
They’ve got Thea? They’ve. Got. Thea! Something inside of Marko snapped. He drew in a breath through his nose, and it wasn’t enough. He had to take another and then another until his chest was heaving with the rage that seared through him, yet it seemed that with each inhalation his chest expanded and kept right on growing.
“Holy shit!” Lok breathed. “The fuck’s wrong with him?”
Marko couldn’t focus. Couldn’t concentrate. The thought of the Megalya—the same monsters who’d tortured him for years—now having their hands on his Angel and unborn child was too much. An animalistic snarl tore through him as he felt his body changing, but it wasn’t like any other shift he’d experienced.
“Fuck!” King hissed. “Get Bodi out! Everyone out, now!”
King hauled Tito out the opposite side of the helicopter while Lok slipped his arms around a just waking Bodi.
Marko wanted to move, but he couldn’t. Something was happening. The blood rushing through him suddenly felt like it was a billion degrees and a vicious roar left him as his body lurched forward. He landed on his hands and knees, and he watched as his hands curled into tight fists that grew too large. The color drained from his knuckles first and then the entire back of his hands before his fingers went snowy white. His favored color for animal form had always been white, and he was changing, just not into any animal form he recognized.
Silken white, almost transparent hairs, slipped from his pores. Hunching in on himself as his body bowed and contracted, he threw his head back and roared louder, but the sound that came out wasn’t one he’d ever made before.
Adrenaline tore through him, and he shoved to his feet, realizing he’d grown so large that his boots had split and his clothes were shredded.
Behind him, he heard Lok breathe reverently, “Holy shit! He’s like a white hulk!”
He didn’t care what was happening to himself though. No, one purpose consumed him. Find Thea! Keep Thea!
He took a thundering step and crouched. With all his strength and all his rage, he vaulted himself upward, tearing through what remained of the metal shell that was the helicopter cabin.
He landed twenty yards away with a force that shook snow down from the trees all around.
Thea! Megalya have her. Megalya must die! His head slowly ticked around the clearing seeking a target to destroy. When he heard Thea scream his name, his head whipped around, and his brows speared down as his lip curled back in a vicious snarl. Time to die!