Fated for Her Wolves - Tara West Page 0,49

focus on saving Tatiana.

Heaving shuddering breaths, his wolf-touched senses adjusted to the heavy cloud that pressed down on him, making him feel as if he was underwater. He emerged on the other side of the veil, into a dark, depressing place that smelled like sulfur and made his heart weep with sadness. There was a winged creature in the distance, soaring and then tumbling while a woman fought him.

He wondered for a moment where he was and what he was doing.

When he heard a familiar cry, he remembered he’d gone into the haunted forest to rescue his mate. He pressed onward, aware of red, glowing eyes blinking at him from behind skeletal trees.

Tatiana, he reminded himself. I must save her.

The winged demon and his hostage crash-landed not far away.

Tatiana!

EILEA BLEW IN THE DOORS and sprinted into the room when she heard Tatiana scream, but she was forced to back away when she choked on ash and dust. She would brave hellfire for Tatiana, but she could not expose her baby to such hazards. With a flick of the wrist, she cleared the dust. It spun like a cyclone and disappeared through a wide hole in the ceiling.

What had happened here? After the debris cleared, she moved cautiously over to the cell. Walking a wide circle around it, she stopped to sniff Katarina’s stolen human body. She was dead, one side of her skull crushed by a large stone. Eilea felt no remorse. The woman had been a psychopath, but she did not relish telling her stepsons their mother was dead once again. Where was Tatiana? Fear clenched Eilea’s gut when she scented but didn’t see her. Sitri had taken her, and there was no way she could follow after them with a baby in her arms. Eilea prayed to the Ancients that her stepsons would be able to save their mate.

The roars of dozens of Amaroki protectors and the sound of heavy gunfire was heard outside. Eilea’s worst fears had come to fruition. The shifters were at war with the demons and their human guards, and Tatiana was missing, no doubt Sitri’s captive.

She’d never flown before, but the magic that flowed through her veins was so strong, she suspected it might work. Whipping the air around her into a frenzy, she held her breath as she was slowly propelled off the ground, caught in a wind tunnel of her own making, her hair slashing her cheeks.

She landed on the roof of the castle behind guards screaming orders and reloading weapons as a storm pelted them with ice and snow. She knocked them to the ground. She discovered another cluster of guards, focused on the ground below as they shot into the wind, yelling monster and demon in Russian. They didn’t understand their real enemy was their demon commander, but she didn’t have the time to explain, especially when they might turn their weapons on her and her child at any moment. She blew them over the castle wall, too, cringing at their screams of terror as they hurled to their deaths. As a healer, it went against every fiber in her being to take another life, but she’d had no other choice. She couldn’t risk them killing Amaroki or her child, and she prayed to the Ancients no Amaroki had died trying to save her.

Holding tightly to her baby, she infused heat into his little body, pouring magic into him like she was a thermal blanket. He snuggled against her, searching out her breast. Sitting behind a castle turret, she helped him latch on, wrapping them both in a cocoon of protection.

The sound of gunfire abated, which meant the Amaroki would be here soon. There would be wounded who’d need healing, but her child came first. Tears fell while he drank from her. He was the perfect little cherub, with almond skin, chubby cheeks, and black tufts of curly hair. How could this perfect little angel have been born in the midst of such brutality?

TATIANA SCRAMBLED TO her feet after tumbling from Sitri’s arms. She barely had time to register her surroundings. Though this place was foreign, of one thing she was sure—they’d passed into the Hoia Baciu. Hardly believing her misfortune, she’d had to hold her breath as her captor dove into the thick mist. The leafless trees were skeletal and gray, and the heavy air was stagnant and smelled rancid, like a poisonous fog. There was no snow on the ground or trees, and the soil burned the