Blue glanced over her shoulder at the small army now approaching.
The fae commander stopped on the other side of the shield and fixed his gaze on Blue. His lips stretched into a cold smile. “You’re mine, human.”
Blue rolled her eyes and gave him the finger. “In your dreams, motherfucker.”
Even in this dire situation, I had to laugh. She had the biggest balls of anyone I knew. “Yep! Let’s go. He’s got too much of a hard on for you to risk fighting it out.”
Blue nodded and winked at him. “He surely does.”
Keeping my weapon in my hand, I jumped over Waib’s twitching body, knowing Blue would follow. We sprinted into the dark forest towards the stinking bog that Som had used as a landmark to form his portal.
There was a huge explosion behind us.
“Damn! That guy’s already destroyed the shield. Jump!” Blue yelled.
Together we leapt into the swirling portal. My wolf growled as power tried to rip her spirit from me. Fire—my other spirit, the one that hibernated deep inside me, didn’t like my wolf’s distress, not one bit. My first wolf spirit had returned to the Mother Wolf when I was eighteen. Fire and I had sacrificed her to give me a chance to escape the people who had taken Connor. Now I housed a lovely white wolf, one I had taken from a murderer that very same day. Fire never liked travelling through the bridge between worlds. I sensed she couldn’t tell whether my human body was dying each time I did it. I had to admit, leaping from Faerie to Earth, and vice versa, was painful enough that I could believe my soul was being ripped from my flesh. My lungs squeezed so tight I couldn’t breathe, and an icy cold seeped into my bones, reaching so deep I was sure it was trying to freeze me from the inside out. With a yell, I battled the effects of the portal and fought to keep my wolf inside me. She whined and dug in her claws.
Blue watched me carefully. She was totally human and had no shifter power to control in the portal. The lack of duality made it as easy for humans as it was for fae to go through the portals.
The tarmac of Som’s lockup loomed ahead. My feet slammed into the ground, but I had done this hundreds of times, as had Blue. We hit the ground running, and I held my weapon out steady. It was programmed to stun, the setting that had taken Waib down. With my thumb, I flicked it to kill and ignored my ebbing discomfort from the leap as I turned to face the portal.
If that fae showed his face, he’d get a bullet between his teeth—no matter how gorgeous he was. I doubted even a fae like him could move fast enough with his magic to stop it.
“No, Em! You go and find Som! I don’t know where that slimy shit has gone, but something doesn’t feel right. He’s normally here by the time we get back, waiting to shut the gate down!”
Blue grabbed another gun from behind the storage crate where we hid extra weapons and stood with her feet apart, a weapon now in each hand, trained on the swirling vortex. Her stance was solid, and her expression fierce, ready to take down anything—or anyone who came through.
I didn’t want to leave her, but she was right; Som was never absent. My eyes drifted to the storage building across the yard. Underneath it was our escape route.
“Fine! But if that fae is the next one through, you shoot him between the eyes and then run! You hear me? He’s got an army at his back, and we don’t.” I grabbed another weapon.
Blue flicked her attention to me and nodded her agreement. “Go!”
I held one gun in each hand and ran up the rickety wooden steps of Som’s place. My stomach clenched, but I forced myself not to look back at my friend. I knew deep down she wouldn’t run; she was even more stubborn than me.
Not one for carelessness, I stopped and pressed my back against the wall. Slowly, I opened the door of Som’s warehouse office. My senses sharpened. He never left it unlocked.
The stench of blood and bowel contents hit me first. I wrinkled my nose as my guts fizzed and bile splurged my throat. Grimacing, I swallowed the vile stuff back down and made my way inside. Carefully, I missed the squeaky floorboards