Ezra pulled me down alley after alley. My lungs screamed and my legs burned. As I started to stumble, my stamina spent, he slowed his steps. Just ahead, the alley opened into a parking lot. For a second, I thought it was the same one where we’d parked our white sedan, but this one was empty except for two flatbed trailers at the far end.
Ezra scanned the lot, then pulled me into a jog, aiming for the street on the opposite side. Ten paces away from the shelter of the alley, he drew up short, pulling me to a stop beside him.
Four men strode into view, blocking the parking lot’s exit.
Black uniforms, guild logos on their chests, weapons in hand. More Pandora Knights mages.
Fifty feet away, they spread into a defensive formation, waiting for us to attack—and that was our only option. We couldn’t run back the way we’d come or we’d risk fleeing right into the larger group of mages who’d no doubt defeated Aaron and were chasing us down.
For the first time, I considered giving up. I imagined putting my hands in the air and letting them come. Running, fighting, escaping—it was so hard. The fear and panic and pain. I couldn’t take it.
But if I gave up, Ezra would die. Which meant I had to keep fighting.
Arctic cold rolled off him, and the ground turned white with frost. He was going to fight. He was going to unleash his demonic magic to save us—but he’d also be condemning us. We couldn’t run but couldn’t fight. What the hell were we supposed to do?
As despair gripped me, I started shivering—but not because of the cold emanating from Ezra. Something else hung in the air …
A shivering essence of threat.
Dawn had reversed itself. The sky was black as midnight. Shadows crawled along the ground. The Pandora Knights faded to indistinct silhouettes.
In the eerie silence, a sound reached my ears, so out of place it took me a moment to identify it: the slow clop of hooves on pavement.
The measured beat of a walking horse grew louder. Drawing closer.
From out of the swirling darkness, a ghostly equine shimmered slowly into view. Its steel-colored coat darkened to black on its legs, with an inky mane and flowing tail. Muscles rippled over its body, its powerful neck arched. Acid-green eyes glowed, pupilless and otherworldly, and its nostrils flared as it tossed its head.
A rider sat astride its back, clad all in black, his long coat flared across the horse’s haunches, a deep hood drawn up. No saddle, no halter, no reins. He guided the powerful creature with a gloved hand on its neck.
Death had come, mounted on his nightmare steed.
The stallion stopped midway between the mages and where Ezra and I stood in silent shock. It lifted a foreleg and slammed it down with a loud clang. Again, the horse struck the pavement, tail swishing and snapping, ears flat against its head. A throaty, aggressive snort rushed from its nose, puffing white in the chill air.
The rider’s shadowed hood turned toward the group of mages.
Black flames rippled and danced around the horse’s legs, and shapes appeared, stepping out of the darkness. Shaggy obsidian fur. Ridged muzzles and bared teeth. Burning scarlet eyes. Two ebony wolves prowled around the stallion, their snarls rumbling through the silence.
The black rider waited.
Twenty-five feet away from the unearthly specters, the Pandora Knights mythics didn’t move. Not even the best-trained mages from the top bounty guild in the city were brave enough to challenge this enemy. Not when the shadows coiled so menacingly. Not when the wolves snarled so hungrily. Not when the ethereal stallion smashed that powerful hoof into the ground again, shattering the asphalt.
With another toss of its head, the horse turned and broke into a quick trot—heading straight for us. I recoiled into Ezra as the towering beast drew level with us, its shoulder higher than the top of my head. The rider twisted toward me, and I looked up into a familiar face.
He extended his gloved hand.
Once before, he’d offered me his hand just like this. Under a gazebo in a night-swathed park, he’d told me to walk away … or to come with him and never return.
I hesitated only for a moment, then grabbed his hand.
Zak hauled me up, and I scrambled onto the horse behind him. Ezra swung onto its back behind me, settling into place more smoothly than I’d expected.
As I clutched Zak’s jacket, the beast leaped forward, hooves hammering against the pavement. With the vargs racing beside us, we thundered across the parking lot—then the horse’s pounding hooves deadened into silence as white mist engulfed us and we slipped out of human reality.
Chapter Fifteen
The stallion’s hooves beat the ground in a quick trot, the sound alternating between the dull thump of wood and the sharp crack of gravel. The horse was following a triple set of train tracks, heading east toward the sunrise. The gray water of the harbor rippled on our left, and on our right was a dirt bank with businesses and commercial buildings on its other side.
We’d left our pursuers behind—but we’d also left Aaron. There was no guild in the city less likely to seriously wound him, not when every member of the Pandora Knights knew who Aaron Sinclair was. An Elementaria guild would never risk the wrath of one the richest and most powerful mage families in North America.
But abandoning him had still torn my heart from my chest.
A guild catching Ezra was the worst-case scenario, I reminded myself, fighting my despair. Ezra using his demonic magic in front of witnesses was the second-worst scenario. Both would doom us.
The line of buildings on our right ended, replaced by a hundred yards of trees. The horse continued onward for half that distance, then swerved toward the twelve-foot bank.
I grabbed Zak around the waist as his fae steed surged up the steep incline like it was a gentle knoll. The horse cut into
