Through the Ether (Force of Nature Book 5) - Amber Lynn Natusch Page 0,12

and ordered them to continue their assault, even as they damn near burned to death, silent screams stretching wide across their faces.

“Knox!” I shouted as I yanked on his arm. “It’s not working!”

“I know!” he yelled back.

Then a yelp from behind us sent ice up my spine.

I turned to see Kat on the ground, her leg twisted at a horrible angle, and Brunton standing above her, ready to finish what they’d started back in Alaska. Without thinking, I flung my hand out, and a whip of fire followed, snapping around Brunton’s waist to yank him away. Grizz managed to finish with the wolves that had tried (and failed) to overcome my guardian grizzly. He converged on Kat just as I pulled Brunton to me. He flew across the room like a rag doll, and the second my hand clamped around his wrist, his eyes went wide with horror. They turned back to Kat, who stood with the help of Grizz, her broken leg clutched in her hands. She stared back at him as she took the fractured limb and wrenched it back into place, then wriggled out of Grizz’s hold to stand on it like it didn’t hurt at all.

“We need to get out of here,” I said to the others. “I can’t hold onto you two and fight. And you can’t fight with me holding on.”

“I can deal with Mack’s boys,” Kat snarled, limping forward a step. But Grizz caught her shoulder and pulled her back.

She growled at him. He growled right back.

“There is no escape for you,” Mack shouted with delight as his remaining wolves circled like a pack of hungry dogs. “Only death, which I’d be lying if I said I won’t enjoy. I look forward to having the power of two alphas running through my veins, along with the fey king’s gift.” He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. The act looked sexual in nature, and it made my stomach roll, because I knew if we didn’t figure our shit out fast, he’d get exactly what he wanted.

I closed my eyes and felt around the fey magic in the air, trying to force it aside to focus all my energy on the connection I had to Knox’s pack. To those the fey king could control. Maybe he could do it in Faerie, and had found a way to translate that to our realm, but this was my world—the world where half my magic had been born.

And I had no fucking plan to let him beat me on my own turf.

I let my magic burrow deep into the ground, through the concrete and rebar and tunnels beneath the city, until it reached the distant bedrock. I siphoned the energy of that ancient stone up into me and channeled it into the wolves I held. Its power was heavy and binding and exactly what I needed to tether them even tighter to me in the presence of the fey king’s ability.

My eyes shot open as my hands dug deeper into Knox and Brunton as if the magic itself were burrowing inside. The two spared me a glance before looking at one another with their game faces firmly in place. Then I eased my grip.

“Ready to fuck some shit up?” Brunton asked right before Mack’s wolves launched at us.

Knox’s response was to hurl himself headlong into the wall of enemies barreling forward. Grizz, Kat, and Brunton weren’t far behind. But I could feel my connection to Knox and Brunton wavering the further they moved from me and the closer they got to Mack. I rooted myself in place and tried to extend the tether as quickly as they were moving. But their desire to get to Mack made it difficult, especially while I thwarted the wolves able to break through their line. They circled me like the predators they were, and I wondered how well I would be able to keep Knox and Brunton in check while fighting off Mack’s boys.

“Be rid of them,” I muttered under my breath, the strain in my voice so deep I barely recognized it.

The floor began to shake, and that bedrock I’d called upon came shooting up through the floor, impaling some and knocking others back. But it wasn’t enough. Their numbers were too many, we were too few, and the strength of the fey king’s call was too much to overcome.

Kat crashed into my back, knocking me to the ground. Grizz raced over to protect us, while Brunton and Knox also withdrew