"You can't do anything?"
He shook his head. "Unfortunately, you'll understand why soon."
My breathing came faster, and I tugged at the ropes holding me. This couldn't really be happening.
Ash didn't say anything else, just put a hand on my shoulder while I tugged at the ropes holding me.
Wood scraped across stone, and I looked over, half expecting to see Alex coming in a door. Instead, four people walked in. Three men and a woman. I had never seen the woman before. She had silver gray hair and avarice gleaming in her slate blue eyes. She wore a long black dress and moved with stately precision as she came to stand by my head. The woman gestured to Ash and, though he tightened his jaw, he moved to my feet.
I wanted to scream, tried, but no sound came out.
"No need to make any sound," she said, voice cool. She touched my shoulders, and my body relaxed, though I tried to fight my bonds again.
I screamed in my mind instead, trying to struggle, trying to get my body to respond to me.
Either she saw some of the panic I felt in my eyes, or she knew what I was going through, because she smirked at me. "You'll get used to it. Well, the demon will anyway. You'll be gone. After tonight, you won't have a care in the world."
I had to do something. But what?
The three men, one I thought I recognized from one of my fights with the Andersons, and two I wasn't sure if I'd seen before, took places around me. One stood by Ash, and the others by my sides.
Heart racing, mind screaming in fear, I tried to fight, tried to do something. I made a desperate grab for my magic, and for a moment it fluttered in my grasp despite my panic. I formed the shield spell Nikolai had taught me, but before I could manage, the woman put her hand on my chest. Heat and pain seared through me, and I screamed in my mind, though my body didn't move.
"Enough of that," she hissed.
I tried again before the pain even receded, but this time, I felt nothing, no magical response, no ability to move my body, nothing. No, not nothing. Buried deep, beneath whatever the woman had done to me, I found my connection to my guys. The bond I had forged just a short time ago. I could access that.
Still able to see and hear what was going on around me, I saw the mages and Ash join hands. Their magic flowed, silver, amber, green, magenta, light blue, into a circle surrounding me, the colors melding. The woman chanted, though I didn't recognize the language.
The magic penetrated me, and I couldn't stop it. It shoved at me, pushing me away, pushing me deeper, trying to shove me out of my body.
Still struggling, though I knew I wasn't going to be able to fight them, I resisted. Pain built until it burned through me as if molten metal had replaced my body, and still I fought. They pushed me, but instead of being pushed out of my body, I sank further down into the pack bond.
I could sense when the guys realized something was wrong. It was like I sat there with them in the cabin, screaming though they didn't hear me. All four of them bolted upright and shared a horrified look. Ed grabbed for his phone. Doc raced for his truck. The others followed.
For a time, I lost the sense of them, trying to fight the mages. My guys were coming. Maybe they would be here in time.
Blinding pain worse than anything I had yet experienced threatened to jolt me out of my body, and I clung desperately to the thread of connection with my guys.
They had reached my dorm. Nikolai pounded on the door.
Doc gripped the handle and twisted. I could hear it snap as the door opened.
Victoria lay on the ground, and Nikolai went to her side while the guys checked the room for me.
The mage pushed some magic into Victoria, and she groaned. She lived!
Fire lanced through me, and I screamed. All of the guys jerked, looking at each other. I could taste the sour flavor of their panic. They didn't know what to do.
I got the sense that Nikolai ordered Allan and Ed to take Victoria back to the cabin.
They didn't want to go. Nikolai explained something.
My connection with them faded as I was again shoved away. I scrabbled at the threads of energy that connected us, knowing somehow that it was the only thing keeping me from being destroyed.
I struggled against the mages trying to force me from my body. I was slipping. Alone again. The threads tying me to my body frayed. Pain shattered through me as the threads snapped one by one, slowly releasing me from my physical form. I had hoped they would reach me in time. It looked like I was lost.
My grip on the pack bond failed, I slid, blackness about to claim me.
Wilderness wrapped around me. The crisp mountain breeze turned into a raging torrent and pulled me away from the brink. The pine littered forest tickled my paws as I ran, scented the air, stalked deer…
Ed, and then moments later, Allan, wrapped their energies around me, gripping me tight, holding me close, filling me with their love and need for me.
I clung to them.
Their presence anchored me to myself and then let me reach for Doc and Nikolai again.
They were still trying to get to me on time.
The three of us watched, experiencing things as Doc and Nikolai did. Doc slammed on the brakes, almost losing control of his truck and barely remembering to put it in park
