Mated to the Chaos - Georgette St. Clair Page 0,11

breath, her startled eyes jumping to Nanshe. “Skuld.”

Nanshe smiled serenely. She couldn’t speak, but she had found a way to answer.

Asherah released a rather unladylike cry. “And she then made me believe my sister had left me behind to be taken. That anger, loss, abandonment …”

Torin sighed. “It would create a Fury with the right setting. But there is the added measure of insanity brought about by pain.”

Asherah gaped at Torin. “You know how to make a Fury?”

Torin looked around the room and nodded. Stepping back from the table, he held out his arms. “Care for your women.”

It was the only warning they got. His runes blazed gold, brighter than the sun. Power, pure and undiluted, swelled into the room. Carlo grabbed for Nanshe, dragging her to his chest and backing against the wall to get as far from Torin as possible.

“What the hell are you doing?” Romano roared.

“Playing Lite-Brite, Romano,” Adonis replied dryly.

“Oh, good one,” Carlo tossed out.

“Fifty bucks says he blows his filament prematurely,” Dominic added.

“Twenty-five says he flips a fuse long before showtime,” Arturo countered.

“Are you serious?” Heath looked at all of them with shock and confusion on his face. “What the fuck is funny about this?”

Heath obviously didn’t get it. Perhaps it was a wolf thing, but they couldn’t show fear. They were unable to react normally. To be a wolf was to face any danger with teeth and claws, or sharp wit. They had to. Their mates were here, their other halves, and they couldn’t risk not being clear-headed.

“I take a thousand points from Rosemary’s Baby if either of you are right. That means she doesn’t have free hits at Carlo’s balls for like a month,” Silva quipped.

The Fae Queen got it, though Carlo would have to ask later how points were attached to his balls. When he looked over, Silva’s smile was vicious, a challenge to the fear probably swirling in all of them.

Torin’s body elongated, going gray with a deathly pallor, but Carlo swallowed a scream when he saw Torin’s face. It was Chaos, twisted and shifting his bones and razor-sharp teeth.

It was rage. Agony. Terror.

Everything wrapped into one and contained in a package of pure destruction.

“A Fury,” Asherah whispered, but every wolf in the room heard her.

Just that fast it was gone, and Torin fell to his knees with a ragged breath. “Not nearly as powerful, or at full force.”

“You were a Fury?!” Silva’s screech echoed in the room.

“Yes. Once.”

Silva’s eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets. “How the hell are you still alive and not crazy?”

“Because of the runes,” the Guardian answered.

“Then a Fury can be beaten. We don’t have to worry about that with Skuld if we have the help of the Guardians,” Adonis reasoned.

Zahara snorted. She’d been quiet, and the only one who hadn’t gotten out of her seat, but now her snort turned into a full-blown laugh.

“What?”

“You t’ink t’at’s all, chile? Some runes and it all ova? Ask him how many died, yeah? How many died so t’at he could live.”

Eyes swung to Torin. “One thousand. They couldn’t kill me, only contain me. And then the National Mage Council thought it be better to have me on their side instead of a threat possible to attack them. I am … bound.”

Silva sucked in a breath. “Bound how?”

Torin shrugged. “To the land. Mother Earth herself.”

“A Fury is made to destroy, completely,” Silva added. “They are a weapon brewed to break the very ground.”

“And if you broke free and did that, you’d be killing yourself.” Adonis whistled. “Effective. And you’d be driven to protect it as well.”

Torin nodded. “You now know what only a very small group is aware of. It is only because of the Ales and this threat that you know now.”

Carlo’s jaw dropped. “You knew, Kalinda?”

“Not exactly, but I knew the terms of Torin’s … imprisonment.”

“So is she sending a Fury after us?”

Arturo’s question brought everyone back to the table, although Adonis leaned more toward Dominic than Torin on his left. Carlo couldn’t blame him.

Nanshe shook her head. “I cannot be for certain. Her best chance was Asherah, but things can change. There are many ways to kill, are there not?”

“Meaning we aren’t in the clear at all. So she’s coming at us, and we’ve got to be prepared for whatever she throws. I swear we’ve gone from Mafia to world defenders overnight.”

Adonis laughed. “Speak for yourself, Arturo. The Moonstone has never been as simple as a Mafia.”

Carlo wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole. The Moonstone