No more holding back out of self-preservation. It was time to swing my leg over the saddle. It was time to accept what he already had—that we were meant to be bound together, body and soul.
First I needed to get out of this rope.
“You’re an idiot,” I said as Austin’s rage built, dark and twisted, a nightmare bubbling up from down deep. He would lose himself to his beast. This time, he wanted to. “Holy hell, you are an idiot. He’s pissed.”
Excitement surged within me. Anticipation. The desire to meet Austin and fight by his side.
I scowled down at the ropes.
“You’ve turned me into a damsel,” I murmured.
“Are you hearing a word I’ve been saying?” Chambers demanded.
The walls shuddered around me. The ground vibrated under my feet.
That wasn’t Austin.
My eyes widened as I looked at Chambers, my focus split between him and whatever was happening around us. “No, I haven’t. You unleashed hell, do you know that? Listen, really quickly, because it’s the last chance you’ll get. If you try to hold something over Elliot’s head, he’ll just kill you. He has no qualms about it. I don’t know why he’s pampering me, but it probably isn’t good. The others are almost certainly right about that. Second, your ego is out of control if you think you’d be able to pit Momar and Elliot against each other and not end up being smashed between them. You probably aren’t smart enough, or rich enough, or…whatever enough to handle the kind of crap you’re wading into.”
Glasses shook on tables. A small rock fell from the ceiling. The three lackeys in the room looked around, wondering what was going on.
I also wondered what was going on. What was the basajaun doing to this mountain?
“Third, you do not understand shifters at all. At all. They are incredibly loyal. They have pack mentality. If you are in the pack, they will saw off a limb for you. They wouldn’t leave a member of their pack out to dry. They aren’t like mages. And you just so happened to mess with the baddest shifter in the world. His brother doesn’t need you for safety. His brother needs him.”
Austin changed into his animal; I could feel it through the link. Niamh shifted, and the gargoyles did the same. They couldn’t use their wings, but their flyer forms had tougher hides and sharper claws.
Edgar came toward me fastest of all, slipping by whatever opposition waited in the halls in his swarm-of-bugs form.
I felt bad for standing here without doing anything, letting myself stay tied up. But I’d feel worse if I didn’t let Broken Sue decide what he would do with the guy who had stolen his life. Besides, I knew Austin was coming for me. I knew he would deal with this situation. That he would also want to give Broken Sue a chance for revenge.
The ground rumbled. Little pebbles fell from the roof.
“Find out what is going on,” Chambers told one of the guys at his back.
Power radiated through the walls.
A knock came at the door.
The attendant ran forward to get it. He cracked it open and peered out. That small space was all Edgar needed to slip by, materializing next to me before the mages could react, his eyes taking me in.
“Oh, good, you’re not terribly hurt,” he said. “The alpha is coming. The rest of our crew is with him.”
Magic jetted through the air. Edgar puffed into his insects and beelined for Chambers.
“No,” I shouted, wishing I could throw out my hand. “He’s Brochan’s.”
Edgar materialized inches from the mage, who staggered back in fright, a stream of magic going wide and crashing into the kitchen at the back.
“He’s the one?” Edgar asked, stepping calmly to the side as another stream of harried magic zipped past. “Despicable. Yes, that’s fitting.”
Austin ran at me now, moving fast, full of consuming rage. Power pulsed in the air around me. It throbbed, wild and intense, and I couldn’t tell if it was his or mine.
A great shadow blackened the doorstep. I could feel it—Austin’s nearness pounding through me. The mages in the room must’ve been able to feel it too. All four of them snapped their heads toward the door, Edgar forgotten, the ground rumbling under their feet, power pulsing through the air.
The door exploded, ripping off its hinges and pulling completely free of the frame. Austin’s roar filled the confined space, full of blistering rage, and then he was inside, impossibly large.