Not until we heard the screams.
Thirty-One
DARIUS
For hours I paced the rocky shoreline south of the lodge, my fingers wrapped around the handle of a fae blade we’d procured from the warehouse, all of my senses attuned to my surroundings. I tasted the ancient salt of the coastal air on my lips, felt the pounding of the surf beating in my chest, braced myself against the sharp bite of the wind on my face.
Despite the circumstances, I couldn’t help but feel invigorated. Hopeful, even. Emilio had survived insurmountable odds to return to us, whole and unbroken. The witches we’d liberated from the hunter’s prisons were growing stronger through practice and new, shared knowledge, combining their magics in unique and powerful ways that made victory feel a little more possible with each passing day, despite Liam’s dire warnings. Gray was finally beginning to embrace her legacy, and though I suspected she’d need a little more time to fully claim her birthright, I felt the greatness in her, so close to the surface she practically hummed with it.
For the first time since I’d returned from the Shadowrealm without my memories, things were beginning to look up.
Other than the brutal cold and the frenzied state of the great Pacific, the night had been calm. Emilio and Elena were patrolling the southern end of the property, with Detective Lansky and another wolf shifter from the department keeping watch at the forest’s edge. Two more shifters were posted at the mouth of the cave system Liam had discovered, and all was quiet there, as well.
But for an occasional wandering witch raiding the kitchen for a midnight snack, the occupants of our lodge had finally settled in for a good night’s rest. After the energy and excitement of relocating to the lodge and settling in with the new witches and animal companions that’d arrived with Verona, it’d been a surprisingly peaceful evening.
So peaceful, in fact, that when a desperate scream broke through the rhythmic roar of the waves behind me, it took me a moment to comprehend what I’d heard.
Reva.
And she was in grave danger.
I spun around and caught sight of her cowering in the sand at the base of a massive sea stack. Her eyes were wide with fear, her whole body trembling in the wintry mist.
“Reva!” I knelt down before her, reaching out a hand to help her up. “How did—”
My words cut off abruptly as my hand passed through the mist. It wasn’t Reva after all—only a shadow projection. Which meant her body was somewhere else, and I had no idea how to find her.
“Reva, where are you?”
“They’re all around me!” she shouted. It didn’t seem like she’d seen or heard me at all. “Leave me alone! I can’t… Help! Somebody help me!”
I took off at a run toward the lodge, the ocean blurring in my peripheral vision, the icy wind tearing at my hair. I arrived on the scene at the same time as Emilio and Elena, the three of us tearing across the front of the property, straight for the forest behind the lodge.
“In the woods. There!” I shouted, catching sight of the melee just inside the tree line. Witches and wolves alike had teamed up against an enemy whose scent turned my stomach.
Vampires.
Gripping the fae sword, I charged into the trees, swinging at the first bloodsucker I saw, taking his head clean off.
I didn’t even spare him a glance as I spun around, catching another one in the chest as Gray staked him from behind. He stumbled backward, and I beheaded him post haste.
“How many?” I shouted.
“A dozen at least,” she said, yanking the stake from his back. The hounds were by her side, their fangs already dripping with blood. “Maybe more. We all bolted out here when we heard Reva screaming. The wolves had already taken some of them down—it all happened so fast, we—.”
“Duck!” I hauled Gray to the ground and covered her with my body just as a vamp lunged at her from behind. Overcorrecting for his miss, he slipped on the snow, and the moment he righted himself, a huge raven swooped in and clawed out his eyes. One of the hounds lunged at him, knocking him flat on his back. The other dove in to finish the job, gnawing his throat, snapping the bones of his neck.
It was the most gruesome vamp-killing I’d ever witnessed, but I wasn’t complaining.
Leaving the hounds to sniff out a new victim, Gray and I ran deeper into the woods, chasing the sounds of snapping wolf jaws and tearing flesh. Intermittent flashes of blue and violet light lit up the forest like a nightclub, magic sizzling in the blood-soaked snow.
“Reva!” Gray shouted, her stake at the ready. “Where are you? Reva!”
“Over here,” I said, scenting the demons close by. “This way.”
We caught up with Asher and Ronan, who’d just tackled a hulking bloodsucker with a ridiculous bright red mohawk. I did the whole world a favor and chopped his head clean off.
Gray and the incubus headed deeper into the pines in search of our youngest witch while I teamed up with Ronan on a pair of vamp females.
