were curbing their murderous tendencies in favor of allowing smoke inhalation to do the heavy lifting for them. Then again, they couldn’t work their mojo on a charcoal briquet if I cremated myself, and I was definitely the kind to go out with a bang.
Earning a new sympathy for balls in pinball machines everywhere, I crisscrossed our half of the flaming circle, running flat-out. I kept the bird busy until a stitch developed in my side and I had trouble breathing.
The angle of my next sprint showed me Bishop and Smythe were clear, and the wargs were exiting through the gap Midas made for them. As much as it worried me to release them in such numbers, we didn’t know that they weren’t here to help. We couldn’t let them die just to be on the safe side.
“Hadley,” Midas yelled on his way back to me. “We’re clear.”
“Go on,” I panted. “I’m right behind you.”
The war of emotions battling across his face told me he knew I was a liar, but he let the whopper slide.
Bishop, however, fought him tooth and nail. He had known me longer, and he could smell a bad idea on me from a mile away.
“You know what to do,” I called to him then slid my gaze to Midas to shore up my courage.
One last burst of speed got me to the edge of the circle sealing off the pit, and I erased the line with my foot. The magic fell, but the roaches cared more about the waning music than their sudden freedom. I didn’t let myself hope that would remain the case. I didn’t let myself think at all.
Arms pinwheeling, I leapt into the pit with them, Ambrose clawing at the air as we fell.
A percussive boom shook the world, and brilliant white light filled my vision.
Darkness, thick and copper-tasting, rushed in before I hit the bottom.
Twenty-Six
Midas stared at the smoking pit where Hadley vanished and swore his ribs cracked under the strain from his frantic heart. Tongues of fire licked the sky, and rancid debris rained down around them. Dirt and ash and bug. But there was no sign of her.
She had leapt into the void, curls streaming behind her, and she was gone.
Gone, gone, gone.
The bitter word chased itself around his head, constricting his thoughts to a single panicked channel.
Whirling on Bishop, who held his thumb pressed down on a small detonator, he snarled, “What have you done?”
“What she told me to do.” His voice came out flat and tired as he pointed. “Make her sacrifice count.”
The leathery bird landed near the pit as Midas watched, hopping here and there for a better vantage.
A wellspring of hatred so old he had forgotten its savor rushed through his veins. Not since his time in Faerie had he raged until his body vibrated with so much caustic magic it rose in a blistering wave that threatened to burn him alive. Embracing the beast’s strength and righteous anger, he lunged through the gap left on the scorched earth.
The call to the hunt he meant to issue strangled in his throat as he leapt for the bird and sank his teeth in its hide. He slung his head with vicious precision, ripping out chunks of meat. The man didn’t shy from the violence, and the beast relished the kinship with his other half, both of them hungry for vengeance.
Rough fur and hard scales brushed his sides as his packmates joined in, but he snarled a warning.
This kill was his, and his alone.
“Wait.” Bishop shoved him aside without fear of his teeth or claws and plunged both his hands into the meaty pulp. A slash from his pocketknife, quick and cold, and he withdrew the heart. “Be right back.”
Midas shook his head to clear the roaring in his ears. He couldn’t have heard Bishop right.
Be right back.
Shadows swallowed him at the edge of the woods, the heart still beating in his hands.
He left her. Without hoping. He just…left. Without trying. Left. Without checking.
Midas eased back from the carcass, his sense of self returning, and allowed his packmates to feast.
“I don’t understand.” Smythe clutched a giant roach wing to his chest like a shield. “What happened?”
The temptation to rip out his throat for caring more about a bunch of mutant pests than Midas’s mate itched in his teeth, but he kept his jaw clenched against the urge to revisit his arena days as more than distant memories.
Time stretched, elastic where it bound Midas as he sat on