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Chapter 28
My screams rang across the ruins, and I recoiled from the gargoyle, numbness threading through my mind.
The creature’s arms struck out and seized my injured forearm as cords of my hair jerked toward it in attack. They wrapped around its wrists, binding them to its body, forcing me forward by its unrelenting grip. The creature thrashed against the restraints, crying out from the stabbing ache racing up my body. Fear shackled me while I pulled against its hold, both of us stumbling about. Its wings beat and it lifted off the ground, dread smacking me in the chest.
“Stop its wings!” I called out, repeating the words in my head. But the stone monster dragged me by an arm upward, and when my toes left the ground, an agonizing ache jolted through my stretched shoulder. At once, my hair pulled my head backward, and I shrieked. Faye was on the ground getting dragged behind us, still locked in my tresses.
Pin down its wings, I bellowed in my head, swaying in the air, writhing for escape.
Hair fluttered in my face, swooping around me. In a breath’s whisper, we dropped, and my stomach hit the back of my throat. I yelled out. We hit the ground, my legs crumbling beneath me, my wrist released. I scrambled backward on my ass, feeling no pain as dread knocked me about. The gargoyle fought my tresses. It had one wing clasped under the hair around its body. It yanked one of its arms free and tore at the golden cords binding it in place.
Faye moaned loudly, half-cocooned in my locks, laying on her side, flapping about like a fish out of water. With her mouth and hands disabled, her magic remained immobile, but for how long before she escaped? Grunts escalated behind me, and I spun to find Gage and Kahlo brawling with the other shifters, all teeth and blood. Reed rushed to their aid, and I didn’t see how in the world we could win this. But we needed to escape.
Not while you’re stuck with the gargoyle and Faye.
My gaze settled on Leon glaring at Reed’s back. The lion scratched the ground with a front paw, his head lowered with the bull horns pointed at Reed. Dread shook through me, and I darted toward him, wincing each time my foot hit the ground. “Reed, watch out! Behind you!” I shouted, my insides icing over.
I willed strands of my hair to snake through the air. They caught Leon across his horn, winding tightly, and yanked him back. Normally, his immense strength should have enabled him to drag me along. But with me weighed down with the gargoyle and his love, his vigor failed him. They pulled me in three directions.
Leon roared with frustration, his nose creasing, saliva spitting from his mouth as he slashed at the air with a clawed paw. He thrashed and eyed me as a target. I trembled and needed him anchored away before he attacked me. I scanned the field and spotted half a granite wall from the old ruins.Tie him to the stone.The cord of hair locked on to him, shaking him and hauling him closer, strands hooked on to the parapet atop the decaying ruin. My hair wrenched him across the ground, his paws digging into the ground, his head forward, shaking to break loose.
The horn groaned under all the weight, and Leon screeched as if in pain. The tresses went taut, and a loud crack resonated. A fracture split along the base of his horn.Oh, shit!I’d underestimated the tension in the rope of my strands. The horn snapped clear off, flinging into the air. The lion fell to his knees, bleeding from the breakage.
His face contorted with malice, and he came for me, thundering like a bull.
Terror catapulted through me, shaking me, and I recoiled.
He reached me in seconds, and his deadly tail slammed the ground at my feet, missing me by inches. I jumped out of the way. Over and over he struck toward me, and I ducked each blow, but only within a whisper of my life. Desperate, I threw him backwards while darts of my hair jabbed him in the face, the neck—anywhere to stop his assault. I wasn’t ready to die.
I struck him in the eye, and he halted, shaking his large head, the shaggy mane billowing around his face. But his tail kept flinging around him, reaching for me. I backtracked, but my heel caught on a rock, and I fell backward, crying out, my hands flailing for balance. All I could think about was the lion attacking me, ripping me to shreds. I’d never see my men again, my future lost before it even began.
I hit the ground, and a piercing ache jolted up my spine. But a loose lock caught the tip of Leon’s tail, barely restraining him, tugging him away from me.
To my left, the witch wriggled against the grasp of my hair. Soon she’d get free. To my right the gargoyle fought his restraints, his second wing an inch from being freed. The gargoyle darted toward me so fast, I gasped. He snatched my wrist, trying to hoist me to my feet. All of it was too much. I couldn't hold all three at the same time.
“Help,” I wailed, scrambling backward as the lion’s stinger hammered the ground near me. He growled with such intensity, it rippled my skin with goosebumps.
Gage was by my side within moments, punching the albino in the back like a wasp intent on stinging an animal to death. Leon turned with swiftness, his stinger aiming for my dragon. Gage punched Leon in the chin, but the lion didn’t budge and hovered toward Gage, ready to finish him. He lunged and bit Gage in the thigh.
I fought against gargoyle’s grip, hauling against his strength. “Gage! No!” I tossed out a thin lock at Leon, noosing it around his neck, choking him.
The albino scratched at my hair, veins in his forehead bulging.
The gargoyle clawed at my shoulder. Piercing fire jolted down my back, and I lost my grip on the albino. He batted Gage with his paw, drawing blood, his tail poised, but Gage rolled away.
Leon’s head jerked in my direction, and he loomed closer. Growling like a lion that had cornered a gazelle, he lifted his tail above his head. This was it. Fear stabbed my gut like a knife, twisting ever-so-slowly. Paralyzing dread spread through me as if it were ice. I twitched, fighting the impulse to just fall to my knees and cower. In the distance, shifters surrounded Reed and Kahlo, while two panthers charged for Gage, who bellowed with rage.
My eyes swung to the scorpion barb, and I pictured myself being stabbed to death. Behind me, the gargoyle fought to loosen its wing, staggering on the spot, holding me in place with a solid grip. My throat thickened, and I heaved against the gargoyle’s clutches.
But the barb rushed through the air, straight for my face, and I froze.
A lock of my hair snared around my free arm, jerking me sideways so fast, I lost my breath. My head spun as I cried out. A flurry of air rushed past my ear. The scorpion barb had missed me by inches but had struck the gargoyle in the chest. Fire scorched across my scalp as my hair had caught on White Venom’s tail during the attack, and it was now trapped inside the gargoyle, held in place by the barb that had detached itself from the lion. Under the intense pain, I could no longer hold the witch or gargoyle at bay, and the cords restraining them slackened. They stumbled free.
Yet the gargoyle dropped to its knees, hissing, hands clasping its chest just above its heart. Reality punched me in the gut. “Fuck! Yes!”
Leon had just stabbed the stone creature in the heart. I jerked around to find him staggering, his body shimmering and transforming back into human form. He was going take the stone beast’s place. I held my breath, waiting.
Faye rushed to her lover’s side, crying, mumbling words I didn’t understand. A spell perhaps?
