His face was lit up by the bright light of the portal, golden hair ablaze as if he was backlit by a halo. My heart squeezed with love for him.
“I’m ready.”
We stepped through together and landed on dark rocks slick with water. The wind howled, and the air had bite.
“What the fuck?” Grayson said.
The crash of waves mingled with the moaning of the wind, and the sea churned below, dark and forbidding.
“It’s an island!” Uri called out from above us.
He was on a higher outcrop of rocks just above us, and then he vanished.
“Uri!” I ran toward the rock face, scrambling to get up it.
“I’m all right!” His voice was whipped away by the wind. “I can’t jump, though. The wards must be tampering with my ability.”
Unease prickled my nape. I held out my hand and summoned my scythe, waiting for the tell-tale heat that signaled its arrival.
Nothing. “Um…Grayson, I can’t access my scythe.”
But Grayson was rubbing his chest, his expression grim. “My Loup…It feels…distant.”
One of the Magiguards ran toward us, her black ponytail whipping about in the wind. “Magic is down,” she said. “Looks like a suppressor spell is woven into the wards.”
Fuck. “This is bad.”
“It is,” she said. “But if we don’t have magic, then neither do they.”
They, the perpetrators. “An even playing field?”
She gave me a closed-lipped smile. “Exactly. Use the guns, stick together, and let’s get this done.” Her gaze dropped to my hip. “Put the tracker on.”
I flipped the switch on my radio. “Done.”
“It’ll take a couple of seconds for the signal to transmit, but we can get moving. I see a track up ahead. I say we split into two teams and follow the trail, sticking to cover.”
“Sounds like a good—”
“Fee!” Uri cried out.
My head jerked up to see a man a few feet away with a gun pointed right at me. I caught movement in the periphery of my vision—Grayson leaping toward me to shove me out of the way. But I didn’t need my outlier powers to know it was too late. There would be no bullet dodgery for me this time.
The slug hit me hard, and the world went black.
Cora
Hunter’s pacing is driving me insane.
“Will you please stop pacing.”
“It helps me think,” he says.
“You know what helps me think? People who don’t pace.”
“They’ll be coming for me any minute,” Hunter growls.
“Uh-huh?” I cross my arms under my breasts and look up at him from the ground. I’m leaning against the wall, legs stretched out in front of me. “You said that an hour ago.” He glares at me, dark eyes like obsidian shards. This is Fee’s other fated mate. “I would never have put you two together, you know.”
“What?”
“You and Fee. I’d say this fated mate shit was bollocks, but then Grayson is also her fated mate, and that kinda makes sense to me, so there’s got to be something to it.”
He goes very still, his eyes narrowing. “What did you say.”
His voice is lower, almost threatening. Thing is, he doesn’t scare me. Only one entity does that, and he’s not here. “Grayson is also Fee’s fated mate. You guys are in something called a Tribus.”
His brows flick up as he absorbs this. “They’ve completed the full mating?”
“Pfft, I dunno, they mate…a lot.”
His mouth tightens, and his hands curl into fists at his sides. Maybe I shouldn’t goad him.
“This explains things.” He begins pacing again.
I want to kick him. Instead, I fix my gaze on the cell door. Any minute now. “Run me through the plan again.”
“I get into the lab and get hold of a vial of super juice and inject myself. Then I kick ass, get to the door where I believe the wards are being powered from, and shut them down.”
“Uh-huh. And you know all about magic wand wards, right?”
He glares at me again.
“Oh, for fucksake, I’m not trying to needle you. It’s a genuine question.”
“No,” he admits. “I know nothing about magical wards.”
“So, let’s amend your plan. You kick ass, then you come get me out and we go to the room together, and I shut down the wards.”
“That could waste precious minutes.”
“And so could you not knowing how to deactivate a ward.”
“And you do?”
“I’ve been doing my research. Reading the books. I think I’ll have more of a shot at it than you.”
“Fine. Be ready.”
The echo of boot falls tells us that our time is now.