“That plan makes no fucking sense,” Zane grumbled. “Brenda and I need to work off some of our anger, so how about I murder the guards and you and fangs hit the house?”
I fought hard to stop irritation from clouding my judgment. As an alpha bear, I wasn’t used to pushback from my inferiors. But I should have fucking known the incubus would want to do things his way. The idiot had no sense of danger.
“None of us can cross the wards,” the vampire pointed out with an eye roll, his arms folded across his chest. “Can’t you hear the hum of magic?”
Fuck, he was right. I’d been so busy trying to work out where the guards were that I’d missed it. Fuck my life. If we climbed the wall, the wards would fry our asses like BBQ chicken tenders.
“Oops, yeah, I forgot about the wards.” I threw Zane a glare, but the asshole shrugged, unrepentant. “Last time I was here, the kitsune got us in.”
In that case, we were fucked. My little mate’s familiar wasn’t here, and since none of us had a mental link with the obnoxious creature, we couldn’t call him.
“Maybe we should just throw the bear over the wall and see what happens?” Zane suggested to Rasmus, but before I could punch him, the kitsune and the merman blinked into view.
“Let’s go, my furry friend,” Zane told my mate’s familiar after some mysterious gestures back and forth. I probably should have been concerned that the idiot now thought he could talk to animals, but I had bigger problems on my plate.
“Oh, if we bump into an ugly mage with boils on his face,” Zane added, “I should probably warn you, he has mage lice. Like, a really nasty case of the little critters. So steer well clear of him unless you want to take a flea dip when we return to Starfall.”
Once again, I had no fucking clue what he was yammering on about, so I ignored him and instead followed the kitsune to a tall tree that overlooked the wall.
But before we could climb up, armed mages fired a volley of attack spells from inside the perimeter.
“Don’t kill the incubus!” one of them yelled. “The boss wants him alive.”
Zane cackled while dodging a mini-explosion. “Ooh, I must have a bounty on my head. How thrilling!” He turned to the kitsune as the creature’s eyes glowed brightly. “Are we safe now?” Kenji barked once and vanished.
I assumed that meant the wards had fallen, and unwilling to wait a moment longer, I shifted back into my bear and sprang up the wall.
8
Zane
The bear’s hairy ass vanished over the top of the wall. I waited a few seconds to make sure the kitsune had indeed deactivated the wards, figuring it was better if Maverick fried, not me.
I had no issues sustaining burns for my pet, but roast bear was preferable to roast incubus. And besides, my pet might not like it if my dick turned black and crispy.
High-pitched screams and the sound of tearing flesh sliced through the frigid darkness. The vampy sniffed and groaned as the scent of coppery blood wafted toward us. His fangs dropped, and I shuddered, not entirely against the idea of him feeding from me.
And from his heated look, he wasn’t against the idea either.
But sexy times could wait. I needed my pet back first. My dick refused to work without her these days.
“On a count of three, let’s go murdering,” I told thevampire. “One…two…”
He’d gone over the wall before I hit three, so I sighed, sent Brenda back into my pocket realm temporarily, and started climbing.
“You coming?” I asked fish boy when I reached the top.
He stared up at me, blue face glowing in the dark.
“I don’t think she’s there,” he said. “I had a vision.”
A blast spell whizzed over my head before exploding in a nearby tree. Several birds screeched and dropped like stones. The smell of roasted meat had my stomach grumbling before I remembered cooked crow didn’t taste that great.
“A vision of what?”
“I saw her and Alaric in some kind of laboratory.”
What the actual fuck?Were the mage scum conducting illegal experiments on magicals? I’d heard rumors over the last year, but nothing concrete. I usually paid little attention to what drunk mages said in sex clubs. Siren magic had a way of twisting thoughts and rendering intelligent males incoherent.
