Ilona Andrews - Magic Breaks

My muscles felt warm and loose under my clothes. We’d been running for nine minutes and the shapeshifters on all sides of me seemed no worse for wear. For them, this was jogging pace. For me it was a fast run.

In my mind I killed Hugh d’Ambray for the fourth time. Fantasy wasn’t as satisfying as the real thing, but thinking about sliding Slayer into his chest made me run faster.

The timing couldn’t have been worse. We were at less than half strength and Curran was gone. Hugh was a planner. He never left things to chance. Either he had a really good intelligence source within the Pack, which would be in line with his highly placed mole on the Pack Council, or he’d engineered this whole thing, which meant Gene and his Iberian wolves were in Hugh’s pocket and Curran had walked into a trap. Fear squirmed through me. I picked up speed. The shapeshifters accelerated with me.

Curran could handle himself. He wasn’t exactly a shrinking violet. If they were dumb enough to try to trap him, he’d come home to me covered in their blood.

Behind me an undead mind flickered into range. This one wasn’t loose. Someone was piloting it. Another vampiric mind joined the first. Then another. An escort to the border. How thoughtful of the People.

The vampires drew closer. I glanced over my shoulder and saw them, three nightmarish shapes, loping in a jerky but fast gait down the road.

I sprinted, squeezing every drop of speed out of my legs. The road turned and I saw the Mt. Paran Sinkhole, a football-field-sized gap like a giant’s mouth half-open in the ground. The sinkhole had been born during a strong magic wave, and Northside’s wealth made sure that a single-lane bridge had been built over it almost overnight. The moonlight bathed the stone railing and the six shapeshifters waiting on the bridge with three familiar-looking Jeeps.

One shapeshifter stood in front of the others. His jacket was off. He leaned forward, his dark eyes fixed on the vampires behind us with a cold predatory expression, his muscular body coiled like a compressed spring. I used to call Derek “boy wonder,” but “boy” no longer fit. He was nothing but hard muscle wrapping bones connected with sinew. His body might have been nineteen, but his eyes under the dark eyebrows were thirty-five. Well, I did tell Jim to put someone solid in charge of the backup unit.

A second shapeshifter perched on the bridge’s stone railing to the right of Derek. The light of the moon slid over his face. The bane of my existence. Figured.

Derek and Ascanio. As long as they were separated by the length of a football field, they got along just fine. Getting them into close proximity to each other was like bringing a lit match into a house full of gas fumes. It’s a wonder the bridge didn’t explode under the pressure.

The distance between us and the vampires shrank. The undead were gaining. The air turned to fire inside my throat. A moment and we pounded onto the bridge. A white line drawn in chalk crossed the stone—the border. We cleared it.

The leading bloodsucker was so close, if we stopped it would be on us.

Derek shot past us like a bullet out of a gun.

I glanced over my shoulder. The vamp stepped over the chalk line. Derek leaped and kicked the undead. His foot connected with the vampire’s head. The impact knocked the abomination back twenty feet. It fell, sprang back up, froze, and trotted back to the rest of the living corpses waiting for it on the sidewalk.

I kept moving past the line of shapeshifters, slowing to a walk. I really wanted to bend over but I was on display, so I forced my body to remain upright. Breathing is like riding a bicycle. You never forget how to do it, and eventually my body remembered that it too could breathe instead of biting the air and swallowing it down in great big gulps. I walked on, past vehicles, until the bulk of the Jeeps hid us from the bloodsuckers’ view. The rest of the group followed me.

My mind finally processed what had happened at the Conclave. Hugh d’Ambray had come for me. Everyone associated with me had just acquired a big target on their chest. He would kill them one by one or a dozen at a time, whatever it took. My memory replayed Hugh’s voice. “It’s his will. Let it happen.” My father had targeted the shapeshifters before, but never so openly. Roland knew I was here, and he’d sent Hugh to break the Pack’s back and pry me loose while he was at it. The thing I’d been dreading had come to pass. My friends would die because of me.

Acknowledging it was like dunking my head into a bucket of cold water.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. In my plans Curran was always with me. In my plans we stood together, we fought together, and we did it on our terms. Instead Curran had disappeared into some Appalachian wilderness, and I was stuck here, with a murder on my hands and fifteen hundred people to keep alive. I was the Consort. I had a job to do. I had to quash this war.

I would have to take it one step at a time. Step one: find the killer.

Jim matched his stride to mine. “What the hell was that back there? You almost let him goad you into walking right back to him.”

“I need you to find Curran. Hugh hates him and he likely knows exactly where Curran is. Best-case scenario, Gene is keeping him away from here. Worst case, it’s a trap.”

Jim bent toward me. His gaze met mine. “Hey. Look at me.”

I looked.

“Curran will be fine. He’s got this. They would have to have sent an army to North Carolina in order to bring him down. I have people watching Gene’s territory. Nobody came in or out.”

That’s right. Jim would have someone watching them.

“Hugh will try to fuck with your head. Don’t let him. Do your job. You’ve got fifteen hundred people depending on you.”

“Awesome pep talk.”

“If you want a pep talk, get yourself a cheerleader. Did you recognize the crusader with Hugh?”

“Yes.” I’d recognized Nick, alright. I saw him shoot Desandra.

“Why did we run?” a man demanded behind me.

I stopped and pivoted on my foot to face him.

It was one of Jennifer’s bodyguards. In his early twenties, he was large, with a head of wild blond hair, athletic. His eyes shone yellow, catching the moonlight. His lips trembled, baring his teeth. Right, all the lights are on and he’s exhaling aggression with every breath. Adrenaline junkie. Bad choice for a bodyguard.

“We had the numbers on them. We could’ve taken them.”

“Make him sit,” I told Jennifer. “Or I will and he won’t like it.”

Jennifer’s expression was blank.

“We look like fucking cowards,” the blond snarled. “We should’ve . . .”

Desandra shot forward, grabbed the blond by his throat, and slammed him on the stone surface of the bridge. His back slapped the rock. Desandra’s voice was a ragged snarl. “Do not question the Consort! Do not shame your clan in front of your alpha!”

The blond gasped, trying to breathe.

One does nothing, the other does double. I didn’t know who was worse.

Desandra pulled the blond up to his feet and stared in his eyes, her face an inch from his. “Look at me .”

The man stared at her, his face shocked.

“Jennifer is lenient. Search my face; do you think I’m lenient?”

The blond swallowed. “No, Beta.”

“Do you want me to demonstrate that I’m not lenient?”

“No, Beta.”

“When you earn the right to question the Consort, you can speak. Until then, when she gives you an order, you shut your mouth and obey, or I’ll rip out your tongue. I had it done to me once and it takes six months to grow back. Are we clear?”

The blond nodded.

“Enough,” Jennifer said.

Desandra opened her hand and ducked her head at me. “Our apologies, Consort.”