~ Marx and Helick returned to Anax Corp to a message that the others were waiting for them. The first thing he noticed when he walked into Anabella’s office was Penny’s unconscious body on the sofa. He ran over to her, dropping to his knees. Her wolf was lying on Anabella’s couch, half of its body hanging off the side, the sofa too short to accommodate her full length.
“Penny?”
“I’m over here… too.”
Marx turned to see Penny’s spirit waving at him. He slumped on the ground in relief. “You stupid girl.”
“You grumpy old man.”
Penny smiled, and it reached her eyes. Locked up inside of the beast, he sometimes forgot how innocent she was. How determined she had been. Despite the trouble she brought raging into his life, M
~ Ava opened a portal for Penny. The werewolf’s massive size did not allow her to pass through the door of the office with ease. On top of that, Penny on an elevator was not going to happen. Ava left with Anabella and Philippe, Helick following behind her. Before the three could step into the elevator, she called Philippe aside. The other two left without them. “What’s on your mind?” Philippe asked her. She adjusted the books in her hand. “Do you still have the chamber? The one you built for Sven?” “Yes, I do.” “Did you tell the others about it?” Ava glanced towards the door leading to Anabella’s office. Vescovi and Marx were still inside. The last thing she wanted was for either to hear their conversation, especially Marx. Ava appreciated him fretting over her
~Ava had an entire speech rehearsed. She knew that the decision she made would not go over well with the others, so she wanted to break it gently. All that went through the door when Daniel woke up inside of Sven’s body and went wandering off. Now the wolf was out of the bag in a big way, and she had just to face it head-on. With the deed already done, Ava had no plans to undo it. Not now. The ‘later’ would have to wait. “I’m sorry,” Daniel said from inside of Sven’s body. “Woke up and saw that I was—” he looked down at the body in which his soul now dwelled. “I knew you were going to do it, but it took some time for the whole thing to—catch up.” “You OK?” she asked him. Ava folded her arms across her chest. She wanted to hug Daniel. Touch him for the first time. He had kissed her once, but that was a long time ago, and her memory of the moment was fogg
~Shea was standing out in the woods. Another busload of evacuees was offloading outside of the dome. Waiting to greet them was the Native’s Shaman. In a line, the humans walked up to him, and he marked each human before they stepped into the protective shield. Those who were vampires or werewolves stepped through, unmarked their link to the shield created by what they were. Ichiro came to stand beside her. “This is not moving fast enough,” she said to him. Shea was feeling antsy, her anxiety building with the savagery of the storm overhead. “And what if vampires attack us? The humans might need a mark, but those like us do not.” “If anything supernatural tries to attack us, they will trigger the traps. Ava has this place fortified enough to keep the odds in our favor if we are.” Shea chewed on her lips, una
~Shadows rained down on them, a swarm of soul-sucking black mist. Though they knew an attack was imminent, the abruptness of it caught them off guard. Vescovi stood in the lobby where the casualties were being bagged and taken away. Numbered in the single digits, the toll would have been greater if it weren’t for Sven’s—Daniel’s quick thinking. Because of him, the entire building was now shielded from a full-on assault from the shadows. The men and women who were on the outside at the time were the ones who got their souls ripped from their bodies. For those who suffered injuries, Martha tended to them. Some needed bandages; others had injuries that required magical help. The woman was efficient; organized and collected during the turmoil. Ava made a good choice with her. Ava’s other selection still gave Vescovi pause. He watched Daniel as he charmed th
~Helick was on the roof of the yellow school bus. With him were five other men. They were providing cover for the protective detail on the ground while guarding the civilians below him inside the bus. Hana was keeping the panic down, using her voice to lull the passengers. This far away from Pentorium Helick’s comm, all of their comms, were useless outside of speaking to each other there on the outskirts of Chaise Point. He only hoped Yuri made it in range to signal the others that they needed additional support. Less than twenty feet away, one of the buses they were using for transport was wrapped around a pole. The shadows came for them, a black tide of death. They were out running before shadows got smart, going for the bus’s tires. The blowout had the driver losing control of the vehicle coming to a stop when it rammed headlong into a utility pole. The driver didn’t make it. He was the only casu
~Getting to the portal was proving to be an impossible task. Kunz’s forces gave little ground no matter how hard Ava, Penny, and Marx pushed against them. With each life she took, each life she watched disintegrate into quick bursts of light at the hands of her allies, a gaping hole formed in her chest. She was supposed to be saving her people, not killing them. When did her plans come to this? When did it become her new home versus the old? Whom was she kidding? It was always like this. How was she to have one without losing hold on the other? “Listen to me,” she pleaded with the two shadows before her. “You don’t have to do this. Kunz is using you.” They came at her, ignoring her words. She kept them at bay, continuing to use reason. “You’re better than this.” “We are nothing,” one of them said. Its words sounded as if they were coming from insi
~Marx helped Ava to her feet. Anger heated her skin, her eyes swirling in twin balls of mist. “How dare you,” she said, striding over to him. Penny could not kill the man, and he could not harm her with shadow magic. Malik was never the one for physical combat, so all he could do was dangle there inside of the human form he had taken. “It—was—too easy. When did you grow a heart?” “Release him.” Penny brought the man down to his feet, taking her time as she pulled her hand from inside of him. He gasped in pain. Penny released his throat. Malik staggered away from her. He raised his hand to form a rune in retaliation. The rune he formed boomeranged, knocking him to the ground, the force bruising the side of his face. “Catching me off guard is one thing, fac
~It wasn’t the first time Marx was losing a member of his pack. When Lochlan died, he felt a rift in his heart. When Dempsey died, the rift was more of a fissure. This new loss felt like a tear through his soul. It left his insides feeling raw, a numb echo spreading through him. He laid on the ground, his mind unable to wrap itself around the loss, rebelling against the reality of what had happened. There had to be a mistake. Was that possible? Logic and emotion waged war in his mind. No, there was no mistake. One of his own was dead. All around him, the others crowded in, asking what was wrong. He couldn’t tell them. He couldn’t find the words. Soon, all their voices fused into an indistinguishable hum. They grew further away, the world around him seeming to dim. Over him, a familiar face materialized. Celeste. She stood there in all her beauty beaming down at him, the smile not extinguishing the s