“May you find eternal peace,” he murmured softly and for a moment let himself feel the fatigue that came with combating a mage spell as dark as the one Anatolie had used to seize the warriors from their graves. His woman had been doing just that for what seemed like hours.
He sent his shadow warriors forward to meet the next line of evil coming at them. He suspected it would be Barnabas’s hellhounds. He had no idea what they might do, and he wanted Julija out of there. He hurried back to her.
The book had wrapped long, disturbing-looking roots of black and ash wood-like vines around her arm and through her hand. The book was pierced with holes through and through, but still it fought back, desperate to survive. It had changed tactics, bringing forth those who had been sacrificed for each of those dark spells preserved inside the pages of the book. Julija was forced to relive each life taken.
Bloodred tears ran down her face and dripped onto the book. With each tear, more small holes burned through the papyrus pages. For once, the safeguards Xavier had so cleverly woven into the spell book had backfired on him. For all that, no lifemate could bear to see his woman suffering. Even as he hurried toward her, the book changed strategies again. Dark vines grew from the papyrus, coming directly from the piercing of her hand, moving down her belly in a twisting snakelike movement in a very threatening manner.
A look of horror crossed Julija’s face. “The baby, Isai. It’s after the baby. It knows it is our combined blood, all three of us, that is destroying it.”
Isai hacked at the growth nearest her stomach with a knife. Even as he did so, a bright light burst from beneath her clothing and the dragon was there. The scales were a shiny black obsidian. Although small in stature, it didn’t need to be anything else. The fire was just as effective as if it had been a full-sized dragon.
The little fierce dragon sprayed fire all up and down the roots, so that they withered and turned completely to particles of black ash, dropping to the snow, covering the blood Julija’s hand had shed.
Without hesitation, Isai tore open his wrist again and added the power of his blood to Julija’s. At once he could see the difference, the tears in the book gaping wide so that there were only the outer edges and a few troubling places where the safeguards stubbornly held.
A dread, so dark, so malicious and all encompassing, overtook both of them. They looked at each other. It felt for a moment as if time had stopped. The wind rushed toward them, carrying a sulfuric stench, much like rotting eggs.
Julija pulled her gaze from Isai’s. “Brimstone,” she whispered. “Hellhounds, Isai. His hellhounds.”
“You get rid of that book, woman. You are very close. You can do it,” Isai instructed.
“You can’t take on all of them. He’ll have impossible numbers coming at you.”
Isai called to the cats. To me now. All of you. “Just as you have to destroy that book, I have to destroy his hellhounds.”
The cats came out of the night, great slinking shadows, huge panthers. He held out his arms and one by one, they leapt onto him, merging with his skin. He noted that they were getting better at it, not using their claws as much. If they all survived this night, they would soon be able to fuse with Julija as well.
Once more he leaned over to brush her mouth with his. “Get it done, little mage. You were born to stop them.” He’d infused confidence in his voice and left her, striding into the snowstorm to stand between his woman and the monstrous animals coming for them. He covered himself in hyssop oil as well as every arrow for his crossbows. He needed mobility. There was only one way to kill them. He had to shoot an arrow in each eye and then sever the head. Unfortunately, they often had more than one head. They were fast and vicious, and once set on their purpose, they didn’t ever stop.
Hellhounds were not unknown to him. Isai had fought them more than once in the past. They were faster than anyone could possibly imagine, and even calling up the memories didn’t always prepare him for that first encounter again. A throat shot could slow them down if it was needed. He didn’t want one to slip