“Yes, please do. Where—”
“Here you go!” Astrid had already come up to them, Evan in her arms.
“Oh, baby,” she cried as she took him. She kissed his forehead. “I love you. Stay safe.” Her heart was wrenching as she handed him over to Cross, but she knew it was the right choice. The hybrid took him and disappeared.
“He’ll be fine,” Astrid whispered. “We sent Annaliese there too. Lily will take good care of them.”
She knew that, but she couldn’t help the tightness curling in her chest. “We need to stop these mages.”
Her father went off to see to everyone. They had some mage prisoners and dead bodies to take care of, plus a few minor injuries on their side, not to mention, Joanie. One of the members of the Lycan Security Force had taken her away in cuffs, strangely silent as she kept her head down and refused to look at anyone.
Isabelle watched Ransom as he stared after his mother. God, the expression of anguish on his face made her want to reach out and comfort him, but she was too scared. Instead, she stood next to him. Both remained silent, the tension between them stretched tight like a rubber band.
“Ready?” Cross reappeared moments later. Everyone was assembled around the helipad. “Hold hands, everyone.”
Her father took her left hand. On her right, Ransom cautiously took the other one.
“He said to hold hands,” he murmured.
She nodded, but kept her lips shut tight as she tried her hardest to ignore the rough, warm texture of his large hand around hers. The coldness of Cross’s magic wrapped around her, and she closed her eyes. Half a second later, the asphalt that was under her bare feet was now replaced with grass. When she opened her eyes, her Lycan senses adjusted to the darkness.
“It’s just over there,” Cross said, pointing to the ridge on their left. He touched his ear and winced. “Okay, gotcha, Lizzie,” he said into the communicator. Lizzie and the rest of her IT team were sitting in a van somewhere nearby, forwarding orders from Lucas and Mika and giving intel. “Dad’s already in. The dome is being dismantled as we speak.”
“Let’s move out,” her father ordered, and they all marched to follow him over the hill, trudging up until they reached the top and were able to look down.
“Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle!” Julianna burst out. “What the hell—”
Isabelle could see why her sister looked astounded. Up ahead of them, a humungous red dome made of pure light was stretched over a massive field. However, it was slowly shrinking, revealing hundreds of people under it. They all stood in neat rows, unmoving, like they were hypnotized.
“It’s the necklace,” Astrid explained. “They must have used Reed’s blood to supercharge it so they could control the humans and Lycans.”
Thunder broke through the silence in the air. But it wasn’t thunder. No, it was Lycans—hundreds of them—racing into the field from the east side.
“We need to go now.” The muscles under her father’s cheeks were already shifting, and his eyes glowed with his wolf. “They’ll need our help.”
“You know the plan,” Astrid reminded them. “I'll remain in human form and work as support to coordinate the fight and take anyone injured to safety.” She turned to Zac. “I love you, baby. Go get ’em!”
“Love you back.” With a savage growl, Zac shifted into his brown-blond wolf.
“You better get back to me in one piece, MacDougal,” Julianna said to Duncan as she was ripping off her shirt.
“Och, darlin’, don’t I always?” Her brother-in-law laughed and kissed his mate full on the mouth.
Her and Ransom’s gazes crashed, but she quickly turned away. There were more important things now, and they would have to save whatever it was that needed to be said for later. Quickly, she shifted into her wolf. While she was in tune with her Lycan side, she hadn’t really shifted this much since she was a teenager and learning to control her wolf. It was kind of freeing in a way. Her wolf was gorgeous, with glossy black fur and brown patches on its legs and belly. She told herself when this was all over, she would spend more time shifting. Her wolf liked the sound of that.
Fully transformed, she dashed into the fray with her companions. Up ahead, she could see that the red dome was gone and replaced with a dark, shadowy fog. Moving over five hundred people was simply not feasible, even with Daric and Cross working non-stop, not to mention, if any of the humans were to escape before they were doused with a forgetting potion, they could reveal their secrets. So they had decided to keep them where they were and put a protective shadow barrier around them, care of another of Delacroix’s witch relatives, so the mages would not be able to reach them for whatever ritual Magus Aurelius planned.
The Lycan forces were still outnumbered based on the surveillance they had conducted. The mages and their human troop numbers combined were over two thousand, while the Lycans and the witches and warlocks were three to four hundred. However, the idea was to draw the enemies into two different spots away from the hostages so they could put the next stage of their plan into action.
Isabelle had little experience fighting, but she did have the advantage of being a wolf, plus her super speed. Her wolf ran head on toward a group of humans, growling at them and dodging the bullets they shot at her. She could sense Ransom’s wolf beside her, following in her steps, then overtook her as he leapt at the group. Her wolf was miffed that it didn’t get there first, but nevertheless jumped right in, ripping and tearing at everything it could get its teeth and claws on.
A buzzing, piercing sound made her flinch. But neither the mages nor the humans noticed because it was set at a frequency only wolves could hear. That
