hard on my back with Freddie safely caught on my front. The kid sits up, like he’s just as shocked as I am that I managed to catch him. He stares down at me and takes the thumb out of his mouth. “Good job.”
I blink up at him, trying to get the breath to come back into my lungs. “Thanks,” I wheeze.
Freddie looks up suddenly, his eyes widening. “DADDY!” He scrambles off of me faster than I can move, and launches himself at the person standing on the other side of the stage.
Hearing his son’s voice and no doubt his running steps, Collins automatically opens his arms. Freddie leaps off the stage toward him, and his father catches him effortlessly. The kid buries his head in the crook of his father’s neck, and Collins wastes no time hurrying away.
My attention gets snagged on the rest of the audience, where Rockhead and Aberrant are currently staring each other down. It’s obvious by the state of everyone that they were fighting too, but now everyone is watching their alphas, Rockhead on the left, Aberrant on the right, as they wait for further instructions.
“You broke pack law! We have every right to wipe the fucking floor with you and your mangy mutts!” Alpha Rourn screams.
He and Hugo are standing head-to-head right in front of the stage, so much fury coming off of them that it’s clogging the air and making every damn shifter in this place want to shift and cower. Several of them have.
“We didn’t,” Hugo says with a shake of his head. I can tell that he wants to reach over and rip Rourn’s head right off, his arms flexing to hold himself back. “You broke pack law. You kidnapped a child from my pack,” Hugo says, his voice steady yet so full of rage that it makes the hair on my arms lift up. “We have every right to come here to retrieve him. It’s us who should wipe the floor with you.”
Alpha Rourn seems to be at a loss for words for a moment. He knows, just like everyone else in attendance, that Hugo is right. If my alpha took this information to the council, or even Alpha Leader Lutzo, Rourn could be removed from his position of power, and Rockhead could be disbanded.
Finally, Rourn seems to shore himself up, taking on a look of arrogance rather than anger. “We didn’t take the kid. It was the troupe master.”
“You allowed it.”
Rourn doesn’t deny it. “Fine. Just take your shifters and get off my land,” he says with a sneer.
Hugo stares him down for another beat before looking over his shoulder at the rest of the pack. With a nod from him, Aberrant starts to disperse, and Hugo looks at me.
I get to my feet and see Jetta panting, standing in the center with the troupers all either knocked out, dead, or given up. She’s looking up at Heathcliff, who’s looking back down at her, and my gut twists. Not out of jealousy, but out of elation.
Because we did it.
She fucking did it.
We survived this fucked up situation and saved Freddie and Cliff. I’m so busy watching the two of them share a private look that I don’t even notice Kaazu coming up from behind the curtain until it’s too late.
One second, my heart is fucking soaring with pride, and the next, it’s plummeting in horror.
Kaazu steps up to Jetta in her blind spot, lifts his cane, and with a single bolt of electricity, lights her up.
Her small smile turns into an expression of utter agony and her mouth opens up in a scream that stabs my goddamn heart.
Her spine arcs back and her body levitates, her mouth and eyes shooting wide open as they light up with the power shooting through her whole body.
Kaazu cuts the magic off with a laugh, his eyes gleaming, and Jetta falls.
She falls hard. Right on the corner of the square.
Little pops of light are snapping over her skin, but she looks up in horror and a scream tears out of her throat—not for herself, but for the person behind me.
I have a split second where I see the beam slam down on one side, and Cliff goes flying off. He tries to scramble for the rope, but he’s not quick or strong enough to grab it, so he slides right off the edge.
And I react.
No thought, other than the fact that I need to catch this dude before the death magic does.