decks had gone dark, with emergency lights springing to life here and there. A lone siren began to blare.
Sven cursed and went for his armband, which he’d folded into the shape of a phone and stashed in the pocket of his tux. “Fuck. Nothing!”
Suddenly, horribly, the glow started to draw in on itself, rising up from the deck, taking on shape and details, becoming… “Oh, shit,” Cara breathed. “Do you see…”
The blob was stretching and elongating, growing ears and a long tail even as it darkened to shadows and two burning eyes that glowed gleaming red. It was the hellhound that had attacked her at Aaron’s funeral!
“Get ready to run when I say the word.”
“I can’t.”
“Cara—”
“No!” She wouldn’t risk leading it down to the others. “We need to stop it here!” She scrabbled in her bag for the gun, though jade-tips had barely made a dent the last time.
As if spurred by the sight, the beast roared and charged.
“Leave her alone!” The air turned suddenly scorching as Sven lunged upright, summoned a huge orange-red fireball, and unleashed it with a yell.
The magic slammed into the creature, encircling it with fire and driving it back and down. The thing gave a hideous mewl of pain and collapsed as the flames flared higher, growing so bright that Cara had to squint and then turn away.
Sven stood planted in front of her with his hands balled to fists as if he would’ve fought the thing with his bare hands rather than letting it get to her. But before she could think about the spreading warmth that ran through her at the sight, new horror kindled. “It’s regenerating!”
Lightning lashed the sea around them, bringing thunder and wind, and letting them see that the creature wasn’t just regenerating. It was getting bigger.
“Motherfucker,” Sven said. And braced for the fight.
We’re dead. That was all Sven’s brain could cough up at the realization that they were out in the middle of the fucking ocean without backup or additional weapons. His shield was good for now, and he would try again with the fireball spell, but already he could feel the drain on his magic. He had burned too much of it sending the skull back to Skywatch.
The hellhound snarled as lightning flickered behind it, painting the scene with St. Elmo’s fire.
Gods help us.
Cara came up beside him with her puny little pistol, eyes hard and determined. Her dress glittered in the blue-white lambency of the storm, her hair trailed from its twist in tendrils of white and black, and his magic haloed her with sparks of red-gold. In that moment, she looked like a goddess, and so damn beautiful it made his chest ache.
He wanted to hold her, have her, protect her. But he couldn’t—
Join. You are more powerful together than apart. This is as it was meant to be. The nahwal’s voice echoed in his head, followed by her soft gasp. She turned to him, eyes wide and scared, even as his pulse thudded with mingled shock and excitement.
“You heard that?” he grated.
She snapped her mouth closed and nodded. Then she held out her hand, palm up, to offer her scar. “Do it.”
There wasn’t time to weigh the options; hell, there weren’t any options. He needed the kind of boost that came only from another mage… or a lover.
He took her hand as the beast struggled to its feet with a gurgling roar that called thunder and a howl of wind. He scored her palm and drew blood as the creature started stumbling forward, its eyes locked on his faltering shield. Then he took her hand in his, aligning them blood-to-blood, and hoping to hell this wasn’t a huge mistake.
He felt the jolt of a low-level blood-link, but needed more than that. Way more. Calling his magic, he reached for the barrier and whispered, “Pasaj och.” But nothing changed. It was just the two of them and his nearly tapped-out magic.
“Hurry!” She gripped his hand, urging him on. “Kill it!”
He called a fireball, but it wasn’t much, wasn’t enough.
“It’s not working!” she cried, voice cracking.
He shook his head. “I don’t know—”
You to her and her to you. The bond must form or all is lost! And for a nanosecond—the briefest of instances, there and gone so quickly he almost missed it—pounding restlessness flared through him and he flashed back on a hot, baking desert floor burning his feet as he raced along, searching for the one who would complete him. Those were the dreams he’d had last year, the ones that he hadn’t realized were coming from Mac. But how… “That’s it!”
His magic wasn’t searching for a mate; it wanted a familiar. He was a coyote, after all.
Heart banging against his ribs, he tightened his grip on her and concentrated, not on his magic or the barrier connection, but on his bloodline mark. He focused on it, poured his magic into it, and opened himself to the soul bond he shared with Mac, even though the coyote was too far away for it to function. The magic pooled, searching for a target, then zeroing in on her.
His magic found her, recognized her, wanted her. It arrowed from him to her and back again, and his body convulsed as something tore inside him. Then blazing heat fired in his veins, burning down to his soul and then outward again, shooting down his arm to his bloodline mark.
“No!” he shouted, afraid the magic would burn her, hurt her, but he couldn’t call it back, couldn’t shut it down. Then the power raged through him, coalesced into a huge fireball that hung in the air, bleeding flames. And for a brief instant he saw double, perceived double—hell, he was double, sensing things not just with his own faculties, but with Cara’s as well.
Connection. It burned through him, forging new pathways in his soul. He could feel her terror, but also the determination that was overriding it to put her at his side, facing the creature with nothing more than a Glock nine. Through her senses, he could feel the heat and sizzle of his Nightkeeper magic, which she shouldn’t have been able to sense. And through both of their eyes, he saw the hellhound gathering for a leap.
“Now!” she shouted, or maybe he did. It didn’t matter as he launched the fireball with a tremendous heave, straight at the onrushing creature.
Boom! Magic detonated on impact, wreathing the beast in flames. The hellhound screeched and reared up, snapping. But this time the fire raged higher and hotter as Sven poured more magic into the fireball, keeping the attack going. “Die, damn you!”
The magic kept coming and coming—from him, from her, from the greater power they somehow made together. He didn’t question it; he used it, searing the beast, charring it. On one level there was dull horror and the too-familiar stench of burning flesh. On another, he knew only that he had to protect Cara and the humans below. Nothing else mattered… and if deep down inside he put her ahead of the masses, and went against the writs in doing so, he was fucking fine with that.
The creature struggled horribly, resisting death with keening cries until it finally collapsed with a shudder. Still, he kept it burning, holding on to the magic while lightning lit the night sky, and the wind whipped around them, pitching the huge ship from side to side. He burned the beast to cinders, but before he could call it done, the noise of the storm changed, rising to the scream of an unrushing funnel cloud.
“Hang on!” He grabbed Cara and shielded them both, but the twister didn’t head for them. It went for the creature’s ashes instead, sucking them off the deck and back up into the storm. The wind howled and lightning flickered, but even as the answering rumble of thunder trailed off, the storm was breaking up, dissipating.
Between one eye blink and the next, it vanished, leaving no sign of disturbance save for a slow roll beneath their feet and a rising clamor coming up from the decks below.
“Gods.” Cara let out a shuddering breath. “The creature got stronger.”
“Yeah, but so did we.” And it was only just beginning to hit him how much stronger they had gotten together… and what it meant.
She looked at him then, and her eyes held a gleam that stirred his already stirred-up blood even more. But before she said anything more, shouts sounded from the staircase just as his armband pinged, doubly
