AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Footsteps echo in the corridor outside the war room. They both hesitate for a half-second as Quinn appears in the doorway.
She skids to a halt between Malcolm and Maddy. “It’s my fight now!”
Maddy waves Quinn away. “Get out of here. Let me handle this!”
“No,” Quinn shrieks. “I will take vengeance for Ileana. I’ll have his head.” She charges Malcolm but stops before she runs into him. She sweeps her leg over the ground, knocking Malcolm down where she pounces on him.
Quinn’s hands disappear into a blur as she pounds Malcolm into the stone floor.
Maddy studies the duo, but somewhere, out there, she can hear Caleb calling her name. The image of him being torn into pieces flashes in her mind once more, and she flees the underground room.
Theymustfind Orion.
No matter where he’s hiding in this mansion.
Theymuststop him before he can do anything to put their world in danger.
She darts out, moving faster than she’s ever gone before. She still has the stake. She just needs to find Orion to end him. Up the stairs, Maddy reaches the main floor.
But she stops the moment she enters the main room. Her heart plummets. Her chest constricts.
There’s an army of evolved shifters, filling the hall….
And Caleb’s on the other side, fighting them one by one.
Shit.
Chapter26
Caleb
Aburst of movement at the far end of the main hall of the mansion snags Caleb’s attention away from the half-rhino shifter’s fighting. He trips as he looks and narrowly misses being rammed by the giant horn on the hybrid beast’s face.
Maddy!
His mate’s alive, and she’s well. Does she still have the stake?
A snort brings him back to the maniac of a rhino creature. The beast is half-shifted somehow, as though the magic within him hasn’t quite taken hold all the way. He paws at the ground then charges Caleb, the floor quaking beneath them. The hardwood creaks, and the building shakes. Caleb leaps out of the way of the marauding creature, leaping over him.
“Not today, fellow,” Caleb yells.
Cora appears at his side with a grin. “What he said!”
Caleb grasps his pendant and draws a burst of magic into himself. When he sends it out, he unravels the spell holding the rhino shifter, and the being drops to the ground, writhing.
Cora stops in the middle of the great hall beside him. “What’s up with rhino-guy?”
Caleb scowls as he studies the shifter. “I think the spell is releasing him. Or maybe it’s making it so he can’t exactly shift.”
The sound of running footsteps brings Caleb around toward the grand staircase. Three elk bound down the steps, trumpeting as they approach.
Cora leaps at them, landing on the back of the largest of the three. Her smile stretches from ear to ear as the leader peels off from the tiny mini-herd, careening into the parlor.
Caleb gives chase and follows the elk and Cora through the sitting room, the study, and the formal dining room. Fine dinnerware falls from the shelves lining the walls and crashes on the floor. He rubs his hands together and sends another burst of magic through the giant elk.
Cora leaps from the back. Almost immediately, the elk becomes a man.
“I’ve got to get to Maddy,” Caleb yells to Cora and sprints back toward the great hall. When he arrives, he finds Maddy amid a small horde, beating them back. A wolf, a bear, and something Caleb doesn’t recognize all go flying out from Maddy’s position.
