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“We can’t make it across the span to the other side!” Atlas shouted. “Reverse! Go back!”
“Make this stop!” Vincent countered as he continued to fight the skid. “Do something!”
“Take your foot off the gas and your hands off the wheel!”
“Why would I do that?”
When Vincent didn’t comply, Atlas cut a look at Icarus in the back seat, and the next instant, the cuffs around Icarus’s wrists were gone. Springing into action, Icarus reached both arms around the driver’s seat from behind and clutched Vincent’s biceps, yanking his hands off the wheel.
Vincent tried to wrestle free. “Let me go!”
Icarus wrapped his arms fully around Vincent and jerked him higher in the seat, pulling his feet off the pedals too, the car decelerating but still spinning out of control. “I’ve got him! Stop the car!”
Atlas splayed a hand on the inside of the SUV’s roof and cast a spell that created a sparkling green dome over the vehicle. With his other hand, he yanked up the parking brake lever, and finally, fucking finally, the car slowed its skid—until a blast of power pummeled Atlas’s shield, shoving their vehicle back toward the tunnel and the two other SUVs who’d wisely stopped before hitting the storm.
“Who’s doing that?” Vincent yelled, fear creeping beneath the shock and anger. “I can’t see!”
Atlas put a hand to the windshield, and a gap in the wall of water appeared.
So did the Devil.
Icarus had never seen a sexier sight.
Adam stood at the head of the pack, wind-whipped and rain-soaked, his arms extended, his hands flexed. Despite the water, an aura of glowing orange and red swirled around him and over his skin. Like the kid he’d rescued a week ago, but controlled, and at max power. Another blast of that power rocked the SUV, stronger this time without the water filtering it. Strong enough to slam their SUV back into the lead one Vincent had so foolishly passed, all three cars in the caravan piling up inside the tunnel.
“What’s he doing?” Vincent said, fighting against Icarus’s hold. “How’s he doing this?”
“You never wondered how he survived that fire?” Atlas said, voice deathly calm. “The ultimate power was right under your nose for ten fucking years, and you never figured it out.” But Atlas had. Same as he’d apparently figured out how to thwart his master’s thrall, if he’d ever been under it at all. With one snap, he was gone, only green mist floating where he’d been a blink ago in the passenger seat.
Icarus twisted in his seat, leaving one arm around Vincent. Sure enough, green light appeared in the rear car, and a second later, it was gone again—with someone else, Icarus suspected—but he didn’t have long to contemplate. With Atlas and the mysterious person off the scene, the dome over their SUV shattered, and with it, Icarus’s temporary view of Adam, water and rain obscuring the tunnel entrance once again. He reached out with his senses, found the heartbeat he’d know anywhere, and latched on.
A guide for Adam, a constant for Icarus, and a silent, shouted warning for any paranormal on the scene who dared lay a hand on his mate.
Vincent fought harder in his arms. “Let me go!”
Icarus did no such thing. He leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “You underestimated him too.”
Glass shattered, metal crunched, and the driver’s side door was wrenched open. Vincent yelped. “It’s me, boss,” Brock shouted over the thundering storm. “We gotta go.” He summoned a blue orb and flung it in Icarus’s direction. Icarus released Vincent and ducked, barely avoiding the sizzling ball of magic, and foolishly turning his back on the door, which was yanked open by someone else. Strong arms banded around Icarus and dragged him out of the car.
Icarus sniffed. One of Vincent’s shifters, a horse of some sort. As soon as his feet hit the ground, Icarus bent at the waist, trying to leverage the shifter over him, but the horse had at least fifty pounds on him. Icarus was also fighting at half attention, the other half on Vincent and Brock still arguing beside them.
“We stay!” Vincent wrestled out of Brock’s hold and lunged for his shoulder harness tucked in the side door compartment. “We can fight them.”
“We don’t have the power anymore.” Brock pointed toward the third car. “Atlas took him.”
What power? Whoever Atlas disappeared with? Was that the juice Vincent was using to keep Atlas and the rest of the paranormals under his thrall? How had Atlas broken through? Had the others? Was it just blind loyalty keeping Brock and the others by his side?
“We don’t need him,” Vincent countered, the awful lust for power back in his voice. “Not if we can get the Devil. I want his power.” He finished readying his pistols and swung his gaze in Icarus’s direction. Nope, nothing lovely about those brown eyes anymore. “And we use him as bait.”
Icarus kicked and clawed to no avail.
“We need to go back the way we came!” Brock urged. “It’s the only way out.”
“Cirillo!” The Devil’s shout echoed through the tunnel.
Vincent stiffened, and so did Brock and the shifter holding Icarus, all of them turning toward Adam’s voice. Toward the army bearing down on them. Adam stood at the center, a gun in one hand, a throwing star in the other, with Robin and Jenn in their massive coyote forms on either side of him and flanked by Abigail and Cormac in human form. Ten more of the pack were behind them, some shifted, some not, the latter heavily armed. Jenn and Abigail had salvaged a lot from Adam’s armory—guns, crossbows, knives, and more.
Compared to Vincent and his army of eight, the odds favored Adam. Icarus smiled, and Adam grinned right back before shifting his burning blue-gray gaze to Vincent. “You have someone I belong to. I need him back.”
