Shadow Kissed (Magic Side: Wolf Bound Book 4)

Savannah

I sprinted through the forest, no longer taking time to move with caution. Grunts and snarls and the sounds of battle raged behind me. Fear for Jax and Sam tore at me, but I gritted my teeth and kept going even as my instinct urged me to turn back.

Everything depended on me getting the moonstone to the final orb. Failure wasn’t an option.

I darted through the widely spaced oaks, the leaf litter soft under my boots. Though it was easy going, I had virtually no cover.

The glow up ahead grew stronger as I neared. It couldn’t have been more than a quarter mile from Jax and Sam.

I jumped over a fallen trunk and slowed as the orb came into view. Like the one in the middle of the pond, this one was floating above a stone turret, but in a small clearing. Lichen covered the stones, and bluebonnets colored the grass around it.

“Thank God,” I whispered, counting my blessings. I really didn’t want a repeat of Lady in the Water.

My breathing sped up, but I steadied it as I crept forward, moving cautiously. At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but then the hair on my arms rose, and a chill worked down my dampened back. The forest was dead quiet, the light mist blanketing any sound, but someone, or something, was out there.

Stalking me.

What do you think, Wolfie? Shadows pooled around my fingertips.

In the trees. Forty feet to our right.

I felt it then. A signature, or rather, the lack of one. It was like whatever was moving toward us was blocking its magic, and in its place was a hole. A big one.

A shudder worked through me. Fuck this.

I touched the moonstone tucked in my bra for good luck. The Moon’s magic seeped into me, and I delighted in the surge of euphoria and energy, as if my batteries had instantly been filled.

Go time. I sprinted toward the tower with its floating orb.

Before I could cross the distance, a shape shot out of the other side of the clearing in between me and the tower. I jerked to a stop, my heels digging into the grass as I spun.

It was a man. He was masking his signature, but the way my instincts were blaring told me he was freaking powerful…whatever he was.

He cocked his head as his piercing light eyes took me in. Dangerous was written all over this guy. He stood over six feet tall, his face chiseled, and his body lean and taut. He didn’t look over thirty years old, but I sensed he was far older.

Bad news, Wolfie growled.

No shit.

Delight flashed in his gorgeous eyes, and his lips pulled up in a devilish smile. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I’m looking for a new toy, and I happen to bite.”

Who the hell was this guy?

A howl cut through the forest, drawing the man’s attention. A signal, but not from Jaxson or Sam. One of Dark God’s wolves was calling for backup.

We were running out of time.

I summoned my magic, and icy shadows streamed down my arm. I collected them in my free hand and hurled them at the man. Like a net, they fell over him, shrouding him in darkness.

Then I took off, my boots tearing up the damp grass. I made it to the stone turret in seconds and leapt onto the side. It was a good two to three feet taller than the one that was submerged in the pond, but my claws dug into the stone, and I pulled myself up to the top of the tower in three heaves.

A whoosh of wind blew below, and a hand gripped my ankle, pulling my foot out. I slipped, hitting my left knee hard. Pain cascaded down my leg, and I screamed as claws tore into my ankle. My kneecap throbbed, and I dug my claws into the stone, anchoring myself as I peered down.

The man from the clearing was staring up at me with an amused and lethal expression. Fucker.

I twisted sharply and kicked him in the face with my free leg. He snarled, but his grip on my ankle released.

I released a burst of magic. A shadow billowed from my hand like a lance and rammed into his chest. He collapsed into the undergrowth with a bellow of pain.

The world seemed to turn upside down.

The forest beside me erupted as if a comet had struck, and an unearthly growl sent a cascade of shivers through me.

My head whipped up in time to see the Dark God step from the wreckage of trees. His dark hair whipped in the wind, and the tattoos on his bare chest burned with lethal light.

His signature of smoke and searing heat pulsed outward like a solar flare. Gritting my teeth, I fought against the urge to cower. Fighting it went against everything that felt right, and Wolfie whimpered.

“I warned you, Savannah,” the Dark God growled.

In that moment, I knew that our time had just run out.

For a second my mind froze in terror. Then I desperately grabbed for the stone tucked in my bra. Before I could pluck it out, the Dark God threw his hand up. An enormous tree ripped from the ground and slammed into the turret.

Branches tore into my skin, and the impact sent me hurtling off the top of the tower. The breath was blasted from my lungs as I crashed into the hard earth of the meadow.

I groaned. Why wasn’t this pillar the one inside the pond?

Chest aching, I picked myself up off the ground and desperately scrambled for the moonstone where it had tumbled from my grasp.

Sam and Jaxson charged into the clearing around the orb, and I shouted, “Watch out!”

A wave of magic tore through the forest, ripping trees from the ground. It crashed over them like a tsunami of dirt and branches.

Jaxson and Sam pulled themselves from the wreckage as the dust settled.

The Dark God approached, his movements precise and calculated like a predator’s, exuding limitless power and confidence. “I gave you a chance, alpha, to save your world! And yet you let this sorceress bind the wolves of your pack? You are far more corrupted by human thought than I ever suspected.”

His presence washed over us, and Sam dropped to her knees, a scowl cutting her face, while Jaxson staggered back, and I fought the urge to submit.

“Fuck you,” Sam said, glaring at the Dark God. She was still on her knees, but she betrayed no sign of fear. She was pissed.

“I remember you.” The Dark God’s jaw tensed, his eyes blazing with fury as she unslung the riot gun and aimed it at his head. “How could I forget. A little wolf with a bite. But if a moonstone did not stop me, what do you think you will do?”

I couldn’t help the shudder that worked down my spine, but Sam was unaffected—amused, even. She smiled as she peered through the scope, then said, “It will fucking hurt. Go to hell.”

A crack erupted from the gun, and a second later, an explosion knocked the Dark God several feet back. A fog of wolfsbane enveloped him, and he bellowed with savage fury.

The smoke burned my throat, and I couldn’t help coughing even as the Dark God emerged from the smoke. Glass was embedded in his chest and arms, and his face was filled with, rage, vitriol, and a lust for revenge.

“You will pay for that, little wolf!” He was on her in a second—faster than I’d seen any creature move. She screamed in agony as he ripped into her shoulder with his claws and kicked her to the ground.

“What does pain matter to me?” he snarled.

Jaxson raced forward, and I gritted my teeth and summoned every last ounce of magic I had. Shadows raced across the forest floor, gathering at my feet, as I felt the familiar cool energy course through my veins with every pump of my heart.

My fear of him was gone. I was enraged. At Kahanov, at Dragan, at the Dark Wolf God and his buddies.

For everything that had happened to Jaxson, Sam, and me.

Rage fueled my magic, and ribbons of darkness whipped out from my hands, wrapping around the Wolf God like black chains. My soul strained as I pulled them tight.

The Dark God snarled and struggled against them. “You’ll find I’m not so easy to bind as your wolf!”

“She just has to hold you steady!” Jaxson growled. He seized a long, shattered branch and charged forward with it like a lance. The Dark God roared in pain as it sank into his chest, and his eyes turned bright blue. Jaxson released the branch and tore into him like a savage animal with his claws. Blood poured across the Dark God’s skin.

Then, with a thunderclap, my shadow chains shattered. I staggered back, and the release of power snapped my hands back like rubber bands.

The Dark God unleashed a blast of power that sent Jaxson and Sam flying backward. He snapped off the branch that Jaxson had lodged into his chest, and then broke it in two. After inspecting both pieces he lunged forward and rammed one of the pointed branches through Jaxson’s right shoulder, pinning my mate to the ground.

He broke the second piece, and in a blur of motion, slammed it through Jaxson’s other shoulder. My mate growled and blood pooled at the corner of his mouth. His pain was my agony, and I was blinded by white-hot rage.

Nothing else mattered—the pylons, Magic Side, my own life. I was going to rip that fucker’s heart out.

I pulled out the moonstone and bolted toward them with a ferocious snarl, ready to blast the asshole to kingdom come. But I skidded to a stop as the Dark God placed the last remaining piece against Jaxson’s throat.

“One shove, and I can end him,” the Dark God growled. “So, it’s your fate to choose. Try to chain me, and your mate dies. Drop the moonstone, and he lives.”