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The werewolves and the accompanying pack of wolves gallop toward the battlefield, slicing down enemies as they leap from rock to rock, making their way down into the valley.
Alec darts along the edge of the fighting line, and he waves toward the reinforcements as Caleb, Maddy, and Cora hurry to meet the canine warriors.
However, instead of joining up with Caleb, Maddy, and Cora, Isabelle starts toward the other side of the valley. She lifts her hands once more. “We’ll take care of the shifters! Find Orion!” She sends her blade through the center of another beast. “End this now!”
As the shifter tumbles to the ground in two pieces, Isabelle throws her head back and howls her triumph. The others join her, and the piercing wail echoes through Caleb’s bones, stirring another jolt of energy through him. He could level the valley, but it would kill them all—good and evil, alike.
That’s not an option.
“Where is he?” Maddy yells, touching the stake under her shirt.
Caleb doesn’t answer, and Cora hypnotizes another shifter into a long nap. All around them shifters drop, and dead Fae litter the lawn.
Nearby, one of the shifters glances toward a spot on a rocky outcropping. It snorts at the shifter beside it, and the shifter looks to the same place. They jostle one another.
Is Orion up there?
How can they make it up there?
Caleb spots the edges of a miniskirt flapping in the wind overhead. Gabby! Colt isn’t far behind her.
Caleb waves toward her as she flies overhead, and she circles back. “Gabby! I need to get up there!”
She spirals overhead, her head swiveling between the rock ledge and Caleb. She dips down and Colt follows. Caleb lifts his hands and Gabby scoops him up into her arms. Colt grabs Maddy, and they start toward the rocky outcropping.
They drop the two of them on the ground. Caleb’s surprised to see the ledge is nearly as big as a three-bedroom house. It’s completely empty, devoid of anyone. However, there’s the front façade of a concrete bunker-like house, flush with the cliff. A metal door is to one side of the wall. It’s thick, as though it’s a bomb-proof door, a small window in the center.
“Going back for Cora,” Gabby yells before diving toward their best vampire friend. “See you on the other side.”
Colt nods to them both without speaking. When they reach the ground, he uses his wing and slams into a row of shifters, and Gabby scoops up Cora.
Caleb stops watching Gabby and Colt, and he turns to face the rock wall, unwilling to let his hopes up too high. It’s unlikely Orion’s in there by himself.
Maddy elbows him. “Do you think he’s in there?”
“In the bunker?” Caleb asks.
“Yeah.”
He coils his muscles. “Only one way to find out: let’s go.”
They slink toward the entrance. When they reach the window, Caleb rubs a clean spot into the pane of glass, and he studies the main room. It’s completely empty inside, but lights flicker on the walls of the corridor at the rear of the room. There’s no way to get in outside of the metal hatch.
He gestures toward Maddy. “It’s clear.”
She glances over her shoulder as Gabby drops Cora on the rock ledge. Cora tucks her legs and rolls as she lands. When she pops up, she scrubs her hand over her face. “Not my favorite way to travel,” she mutters. “What are you two waiting for?”
“For you,” Maddy says. “Come on.”
Caleb turns the wheel on the bomb door, cringing with each clang of internal mechanics. There isn’t any way to sneak in. They have no choice.
We have no choice.
They have to find Orion, they have to use the stake, and they have to end this all. The hinges creek as the door swings outward. They creep into the large foyer. Noises come from a room beyond, but bodies litter the ground. Splotches of ash cover the floor, burned places speak of the horrendous things done inside the bunker.
Maddy shudders. “What is he doing in here?”
Cora gingerly taps a small pile of ash and scrunches her nose. “Nothing good.”
