Medea’s eyes widened at the horrific sight. “We’re dead.”
Urian, Blaise, Falcyn, and Brandor took positions between Medea and Brogan as the rabid dogs approached them.
There was nothing left of where Shadow had been overrun by them.
Not even a drop of blood. It appeared as if he’d been completely devoured. Every last bit. Body and soul.
Louder and louder, the barking and snarling grew. Brogan reached out and took her hand. Then, just as the twisted demonic dogs reached them, the shadowed earth shot up at a right angle, forming a wall between them and the demonic beasts. They slammed into it and howled out in agony. Swirling and twisting like smoke, the ground formed a giant hand that sent the animals scattering and running off into the dark.
The Crom came in the next wave, on his eerie ghost steed. Rushing and snorting fire, the beast seemed every bit as determined to add them to its menu. Just as it would have reached their position, the hand bent around and curved up to form a huge beast of a man.
“You have no power here!” Though the voice was distorted in its inhuman growl and pitch, Urian still recognized it as Shadow’s.
The Crom pulled his horse up short, causing it to rear and paw fire at the hand. “This kerling belongs to me!” The rasping voice came from Brogan.
Shite! Urian cursed as he saw that Brogan’s eyes were now milky white with no iris or pupil whatsoever. Her skin was ice cold to the touch.
The Crom had obviously taken her over completely so that he could speak through her.
Blaise growled low in his throat. He must have realized what was going on. “You’re not taking her!”
“B-b-b-b…” Brogan choked, then fell to her knees to clutch at her throat. It was obvious the Crom was commanding her to speak Blaise’s name and she was refusing to give him the power of death over the mandrake.
Throwing her head back, Brogan let out a blood-chilling screech. She pounded the ground until her fist was bloody and bruised.
“Stop it!” Blaise shifted into his dragon’s body. He let loose a blast of fire toward the Crom.
Engulfed by the fire, he laughed through Brogan’s throat. Then threw his whip of bones and skulls toward Blaise. The head at the end of it opened its mouth as if it were laughing at the mandrake.
Shadow caught it and threw it back toward the horse and rider. “Leave here or I will dine on you both!”
Yanking his whip free of Shadow’s grasp, the Crom snapped it in the air, shooting sparks of fire in all directions. Sulfur rained down over them.
“I demand my property!” He cracked his whip for Brogan.
Urian caught it again and yanked the Crom from his horse. Faster than Medea could blink, Falcyn was on him.
He grabbed the Crom and pulled him up from the ground. “Renounce your claim on the kerling. Here and now. Give her her freedom or I will rid you of your essence for all eternity!”
The Crom struggled for several seconds until he realized that Falcyn wasn’t about to give. More than that, he came to the startling and truthful conclusion that Falcyn indeed had the means and ability to carry out his not-so-empty threat. “Very well, my lord. I give the kerling her freedom.”
No sooner did Brogan speak those words than she fell forward to lie in a heap. Blaise returned to his human form so that he could rush to her side and pull her into his arms.
“Ro?” His voice quivered from the strain of his fear. “Speak to me! Say something!”
Brandor knelt beside them. “Brogan, please don’t leave me alone!”
Still, she didn’t move. She didn’t even appear to breathe. Her face turned pale, then blue.
Blaise cupped her cheek and cradled her against his shoulder. “Speak to me, my lady. I cannot live knowing I caused you harm.”
When she didn’t respond, Blaise choked on a sob and lifted her up. Her head fell back while Brandor took her hand and kissed it as if it were unspeakably precious. Tears fled down his cheeks.
Urian knew that love firsthand. He’d felt it the day Tannis had died, and it sucked to the outer reaches of hell itself. He wanted to scream and rage against the cosmos. It wasn’t right or fair.
Damn them all!
Shadow swirled past them to Brogan and lightly touched her cheek.
No sooner did he withdraw his hand than her eyes fluttered open. Lost in their grief, neither Blaise nor Brandor saw it.
Not until Brogan pulled her hand from her brother’s grasp and sank it deep into Blaise’s pale hair. “They can take me by force and break every bone I have, but only you will ever have my heart, Blaise. For it alone is mine to give.”
Laughing and crying, he pulled her to his lips so that he could kiss her.
Brandor quickly withdrew from them. And though it was obvious he didn’t like to see his sister in the arms of another man, he didn’t say a word as he moved to stand beside Medea. Facing the opposite direction.
Like Urian.
Snorting at their ridiculous actions, Medea wiped at her eyes. She drew a ragged, grateful breath.
More grateful than words could express that she was alive, Urian glanced at her with Falcyn, then over to Brandor. “Don’t we feel like the odd ones out?”
Shadow manifested between them and draped his arms around their shoulders. “I feel your pain, my brothers. I’m always the oddest of the odd.” He darted his gaze around them. “So which of you assholes destroyed my rope?”
*
When they finally reached their destination, Shadow slowed down. “We’re here.”
With his powers, he cut another hole into a small room from his shadow realm. Shadow stayed back while they walked through. Then he joined them and sealed the rupture tightly closed.
Medea gaped. “How do you do that?”
“That’s like asking me how I breathe. I don’t know. I just think it and it happens.” Shadow gave her a sarcastic grin. “It’s magick.”
Rolling her eyes at his sarcasm, she shook her head at him. “You’re a sick bastard.”
“Always.”
Urian stepped around them to scowl at the smear of blood on the floor. Even though there was no color in this room where they were—everything appeared as shades of black and white, like an old movie—he knew the looks of that. The smell of it.
“You’re wounded?”
Shadow paused at Medea’s question but didn’t answer.
Then they all saw it. The huge, gaping wound in Shadow’s side that was partially concealed by his cape.
Urian took a step toward him. “Shadow?”
His eyes rolled back into his head as his legs buckled. He would have hit the ground hard had Falcyn not caught him and lowered him slowly to the floor.
Yet no sooner did he pull back than the door opened to show a small group of fey. The rasping of metal filled the air as the Adoni unsheathed their swords. An instant later, they attacked.
Urian manifested his sword and shield and charged them before he attacked. With his skills honed by thousands of battles, he drove the fey back to cover them.
Brogan stayed by Shadow’s side to defend him as they dealt with this newest assault.
Of course the fey sounded an alarm. ’Cause keeping quiet would just be too much to ask. Wouldn’t it? Damn villains.
Urian glanced to Falcyn. “Well, this wasn’t how I saw these events unfolding.”
Falcyn snorted at his sarcasm. “I knew better than to get involved with Daimons and Dark-Hunters. This is what I get for coming out of my hole.”
With a grimace, Medea lopped the head off her fey opponent, then turned toward Falcyn before she engaged another enemy. “Stop whining, dragonfly! Why don’t you shift and set fire to them? Make this a little easier on us? Eh?”
“Simple spatial awareness. If either Blaise or I changed right now, we’d kill the lot of you, as we’d take up this entire room and you’d be crushed beneath us. Still want me to shift, love?”
Medea flashed him a grin as she kicked her opponent back. “Please, don’t.”
“Thought you might feel that way.”
Just as they finished off their Adoni and began to make sure there weren’t more, the door flew open.