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Energy collects inside me, growing, glowing. Fury melds with determination. Fear fuses with my love for Marrok. It coalesces in my head, races through my body, a lightning-fast lava sizzles down my arms, into my fingertips. I’m vibrating. My heart roars in my head. An explosion I don’t understand feels imminent.
A commotion behind me disrupts the sparks ricocheting through me. Bram, Duke, and Ice charge the tunnel, three abreast. Caden follows, wearing a feral scowl, backed up by the automatic weapon in his hand and wicked blades strapped to his hard thighs.
With a wave of his hand, Bram floods the tunnel with light. A sea of undead Anarki clusters behind Mathias, their eerie hooded faces gray and menacing.
Oh, god. Fighting them will be difficult and deadly. The Doomsday Brethren is outnumbered, four against hundreds. The guys don’t want me fighting, but I won’t stand here like a helpless damsel.
I’ve barely formed the thought when Mathias raises his hands, palms down. Is he gathering a flash of energy? It’s the same motion I instinctively made moments ago. Was I attempting…magic? Before my transition? Can I even do that?
Though I’m afraid of the red-eyed fury on Mathias’s face, I have to try. Fending off this asshole and his disgusting zombies is the only way to escape alive. To keep Bram, Ice, and Duke from becoming casualties. To keep Caden in one piece so he can help find Anka for Lucan’s sake. So I can save Marrok.
Sparks fly from Mathias’s fingertips—red, orange, and black—like something out of the bowels of hell. As one, the undead Anarki rush forward, charging our way.
“Duck!” Caden shoves me to the ground.
I spot Marrok sprawled across the concrete, unconscious. Deathly pale. He’s too exposed, too vulnerable.
Quickly, I crawl to him and hover over his prone form protectively. He’s bleeding out. Somehow, he’s dying.
Ignoring the rat-tat-tat of machine-gun fire resounding off the ungiving tunnel walls, I press his shirt to his wounds, gratified when the first row of Anarki fall.
Unfortunately, another stands behind them to take their place.
Mathias staggers when another bullet strikes him, but seconds later, he’s healed the superficial wound in his thigh, exactly like he did the gunshot to his head. Though paler, he stands tall, glaring down at me kneeling beside Marrok. “You can’t win this battle. Already, you’re in the position you’ll occupy for the rest of your days, witchling: on your knees at my feet. Get used to it.”
“Never.”
“You’re wasting your time trying to save your mate.” He glances at Marrok. “He’s not dead—yet. But he will be.”
“Where the hell is Anka?” Caden demands.
Mathias turns an evil smile on Lucan’s brother. “I’ll never tell…”
Caden charges with a snarl. Mathias bats Lucan’s younger brother back with a flick of his hand, as if he’s batting away a gnat. Caden lands on his ass.
What is he thinking? He’s not even sure he’ll transition to a wizard, and he’s trying to take on the darkest, most powerful wizard alive?
Bram and Ice come to the rescue, drawing nasty-looking guns and firing into the crowd of zombies. Duke hacks his way in with a blunt sword, dripping sweat and black blood as he steps over decaying bodies resolutely as they work together to beat back the encroaching army.
Mathias laughs at them, flicking Caden down again the moment he gets to his feet. He’s toying with us. The fury and energy coiling inside me earlier, before the Doomsday Brethren rolled in, surges again.
Bram helps Caden up again, then fights to my side and stands between Mathias and me. “You shouldn’t be here. Go!”
“I’m not leaving Marrok.”
“He wanted to die.”
“Not like this,” I argue.
“His last wish was for your safety. Don’t make his death in vain.”
Bram has a point. Marrok surrendered both his chance to break the curse and his life to save mine. If he was conscious now, he’d be shouting and shoving me to safety.
“I can’t just leave him. He’s not dead.”
“We’ll bring him back. I promise. But if he recovers and you don’t survive this battle, he’ll kill me.”
The wizard means that as a joke, but I can’t laugh. “Bram…”
