This fucking place is messing with my nose. All I smell is soot and fire. Even these dead trees don’t smell of wood.
I keep seeing a wolf.
It is probably a scout. We’ll have to deal with it when we get there.
Scout or not, they wouldn’t be turning around. They had to get to Kalinda. It had been several weeks since she’d been taken, and they didn’t want to trust that Kieran wouldn’t hurt her now that he knew Silva was completely healed to fight.
It still confused Giuliana as to why he wanted her healed. It would be easier to take an enemy when they were too weak to fight back. Waiting had a sense of honor she didn’t trust Kieran to truly have. Not after killing an innocent man or attacking the Council offices under the guise of a Trinity mage. This thing didn’t make sense, and Giuliana couldn’t help but believe they were heading into an ambush, one they were forced to.
Torin began to slow down, bringing the wolves to a crawl before they stopped. “Ahead, is the old dais.”
“They have one here?” Silva alighted next to Torin. “I didn’t think mages maintained those anymore.”
“This one was preserved before the creation of Scorched Earth.”
“Meaning no one could get here to destroy it.”
Giuliana stepped forward. “Want to explain what the dais is?”
“We can do that after I get my mate,” Romano interrupted.
“The dais is deadly, Romano. It’s better to be prepared,” Silva warned.
The normally jovial wolf stood to his full height. “I’m deadlier.”
“The dais was made as a meeting ground for mages and Fae. It’s a place of coming to compromise or ending wars.”
“He started this war, and we’re going to finish it.”
“Agreed, but we have to face the truth. He’s stacked the odds in his favor. In the dais—”
“We’ll move now.”
Giuliana had never seen Romano so disagreeable, but she couldn’t fault the wolf. If Pasquale were in danger, she didn’t think she’d have been able to wait out the time for Silva to heal. Though, to be fair to Romano, Dominic had made Zahara ward the wolf so he couldn’t leave his Alpha’s home to make sure he didn’t sneak out and become a one-man army.
She understood his need to get to his mate as soon as possible. “We will get to her, Romano. She’s still alive.”
“I know it. I feel her.”
Losing a mate would cripple any shifter, no matter how far apart they may be.
“Torin, can we get to them from here?”
Torin nodded. “We’re just steps away. The trees block your view, but once we step on the other side, it’ll be clear.” He closed his eyes a moment, lifting his hand once again. “Eleven souls on the other side.”
“Kieran had four Fae and five wolves with him at the Council when he took Kalinda. That accounts for everyone. Be careful of the Fae warrior’s spears. The Unseelie tend to put poison on their blades,” Silva explained.
“Noted. Wolves.”
Romano may not have been an Alpha, but he was a Capo, a powerful one. All the wolves with them snarled. Some stayed in their human forms, palming their guns in preparation, others—the Bianchi in particular—shifted into their four-legged other halves. Giuliana allowed herself to partially shift, her fingers tipping with claws and her teeth sharp. If she needed to grab Kalinda and run, she’d make sure she did.
Zahara readied for battle as well, her eyes filling with storms and her hair whipping around her in a blast of air. The white lines and dots on her face were vibrant as her skin darkened. It was … eerie, to see her shift so. The witch doctor, in all her glory.
Torin watched it all before nodding. “You’re ready.”
He slashed his hand to the side, and the trees parted, bending under his gift to expose the dais. It was a large, flat stone circle with larger rocks standing up around it. Sort of like the human Stonehenge. In the center stood who Giuliana assumed was Kieran, given his triumphant smile and Silva’s hiss. Behind him, a golden orb hovered with Kalinda floating within it.
“Romano!”
