With a frustrating cunning, the Were used his head to herd the reluctant prophet into the cement cell, then blocked the narrow doorway with his large body. There would be no getting to Cassandra without going through Caine.
Bastardo.
Gaius took a covert step backward as Ingrid and Dolf charged into the literal jaws of death. He had no intention of getting caught in the fray. Not when he was drained from his shape-shifting, not to mention the effort of mist-walking with two curs and a witch to get to this wine cellar in the first place.
Instead, he waved an imperious hand toward the witch, who tried her best to hide behind a stone column. “Sally.”
Her feet visibly dragged as she forced herself to move to his side. “What?”
He scowled at her petulant tone. “Are you just going to stand here gawking?”
She sent a wary glance toward the snarling curs who were trying to use the tag-team offense against the larger Were.
A futile effort.
Even as one managed to dig their fangs into Caine’s thick fur, he was savagely ripping into the flesh of the other. Of course, the brutal battle did mean he was temporarily distracted.
“What do you want me to do?” Sally demanded, her nose wrinkling as the potent scent of blood saturated the air. Or maybe it was the howls of pain that echoed through the cellar as Caine managed to rip a chunk out of Dolf ’s muzzle.
The two curs were managing to wound the Were, but not without taking a dangerous amount of damage.
“You’re a witch, aren’t you?”
She shrugged. “It’s too small a space to risk a spell.”
“You were quick enough to use magic when we first arrived.”
“That was a harmless masking spell to disguise our presence in this place,” she reminded him, her gaze deliberately skimming down his tense body. “Not all of us have been . . . neutered.”
Gaius grasped the bitch by her neck, infuriated by the reminder he’d allowed himself to be stripped of his very essence. Digging his claws into her throat, he yanked her off her feet, holding her so they were eye to eye. “Don’t think you can taunt me, witch,” he hissed, his voice thickening with an accent as ancient as the Roman Empire.
She grabbed his wrist, her eyes wide with agony. “The Dark Lord—”
“Will accept my most abject apologies for the death of his conduit and swiftly find another,” he smoothly interrupted.
“Please,” she begged. “No.”
Abruptly releasing his hold, he allowed Sally to drop to the ground. Her ridiculous pigtails bobbed around her face, which was painted with black liner and lipstick, as she straightened, wiping the blood from her neck.
“Then make yourself useful and bring me the seer,” he snapped.
“Are you mental?”
Gaius watched the witch’s fear of him being replaced by a flare of panic at being ordered to wade into the gory battle.
“Even if I could get past her rabid protector, which I couldn’t, she’s a pureblooded Were.”
“She can’t shift.”
“She can still rip me in half.”
He leaned down until they were nose to nose, his power making her flinch. “So can I.”
“Crap. I should have just let my mother kill me,” she muttered. “She, at least, intended to make it quick.”
Clenching her hands at her sides, Sally grudgingly made her way across the floor, abruptly jumping sideways when a bloody Ingrid went sailing past her to slam into the wine barrels and lay unconscious.
Gaius shook his head. Things weren’t going well.