Hour of the Dragon - Heather Killough-Walden Page 0,116
to Magnus as Anna drew in a fast breath and screamed her sentinel’s name. At the exact same time, Antares Mace called her sentinel’s name as well. He didn’t call his – he called hers. She was sure it didn’t work that way, but then again, sometimes wardens were incapacitated. Maybe he felt it was worth a try.
“Magnus!” they bellowed together.
Absolutely zero time passed between their tandem cries for help and the appearance of Annaleia’s statuesque guardian. It was as if he’d been anxiously waiting. Anna watched breathlessly as Magnus then instantly shifted into motion.
The first thing she saw him do was gesture with one hand at the exit portal, and it must have been some kind of wordless negation spell because the portal promptly dissolved. In the next blink, Anna felt her body being ripped from Randall’s grip and passed from one strong set of arms to another.
She had just enough time to recognize the second set of arms as belonging to Ares before Randall Price was on the ground and bleeding from both his nose and lip. Magnus strode forward to grab Price by the collar, lifting him up off the ground. Price’s hands wrapped desperately around the sentinel’s thick wrist.
Another beat passed and Ares turned around with her to face another group of men – three of them, all wearing Monsters jackets. “Nate, take her for a sec so I can finish the fucker.”
But Anna put her hand on his chest to stay him. “No wait, Ares.” Ares stopped and looked down at her. “He’s connected to Maze somehow,” she told him earnestly. She wasn’t sure what it was – maybe his white eye and the way it was growing more green the longer he was away from Victor, maybe the way he seemed so orderly and calm in contrast to Maze, but something struck her as off about Randall and his relationship with the chaos god. “I’m not even sure he was fully responsible for killing those women. And also,” she said, lowering her tone, “You might be able to use him to find Maze.”
She looked back at Price. He wasn’t a small man, yet he hung limply in her sentinel’s obviously more than capable grip. She winced, wondering if her instinct about him was at all right. Randall Price was covered in blood, and probably for the first occasion in months at least some of it was his own.
Behind Ares, Nathan Connor addressed Annaleia, “Faith, that man can’t be allowed to hurt another human.”
“No, she’s right,” Ares told him with a glance over his shoulder. Because she was. He absolutely hated to admit it; no one in that room wanted to destroy the butcher more than Ares.
“Yeah she is,” agreed Rafael Valentine, or “Rafe.” He and his twin brother Dante had also accompanied Ares back through the portal. “Any lead we can get is a good one. This shit has to stop and we need to mount a better defense.”
“In the form of an offense,” said his brother, Dante.
Mace. Ares straightened as Cain’s voice sounded clearly in his head. Take Faith with you to the garage.
Ares blinked. Of course the man had managed to break into his mind and clearly communicate despite the distance and the mess of wards Maze had placed over the location. It had taken Ares and the other three what felt like forever to finally traverse the labyrinth of false openings once and for all and get inside the fake safehouse.
Ares turned to his clansmen questioningly. They nodded at him, indicating that they’d heard Cain too. But when Ares turned back around, Magnus was striding toward Ares, dragging Price beside him. “I need to heal her,” Magnus told him frankly, his eyes on Annaleia.
Ares nodded, and Dante moved forward to take Price from Magnus. “I’ll watch him,” he told the sentinel, who readily released him.
Magnus raised his hand but left it a few inches from Anna’s chest. With a distractingly enchanting smile for his beautiful ward, Magnus asked, “May I?”
Ares watched Anna’s pupils dilate a little as she nodded. He felt a muscle tick in his jaw and knew his dragon was itching to give into a jealous fit, but the better part of him realized that was beyond ridiculous. He watched quietly as Magnus lowered his hand to Leia’s chest.
“Wait!”
Magnus and Ares both turned their heads.
Rafael stepped forward, dropping his hand from where his fingers had been at his temple, where Ares had seen