“Maybe.” He would need to get closer before he could be sure.
“Why have wards on a feeding den?” Thierry shook his head, his brow furrowed. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Dominic agreed, but it didn’t change anything. Whatever was going on inside that house, they were there to put a stop to it.
“Let’s go.”
They descended the slope at an angle while keeping to the edges of the moonbeam. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stiffen at being so exposed, but unfortunately, the layout of the property offered little in the way of cover.
As they neared the corner of the house, he motioned for Saint, Kennedy, and two of the wolves to go left, then sent Thierry and the other two sentries to the right. Next, he focused his attention on the wards.
Definitely a barrier spell, useful at keeping out humans and maybe a few low-level Otherlings. Even this close, however, they felt feeble, not nearly substantial enough to offer any sort of meaningful defense.
Chapel crouched beside him, her back to the house. “Can you bring it down?”
He glanced at her, but he didn’t waste breath with a response.
Redirecting the current of magic that coursed through him, he sent it down his arm so that it sparked from his fingertips. With a careless flick of his wrist, he sent the excess toward the outer wall, testing the integrity of the barrier.
The reply was immediate.
Gold and red light rippled over the estate as the wards heaved, then collapsed, disintegrating with a faint pop. An instant later, alarms howled, ugly and urgent, followed by the sound of scraping metal as thick slats began sliding over windows and doors in a slow-motion cascade.
“Fuck,” Dominic muttered under his breath. Then louder, “Go! Go! Go!”
Saint and Kennedy hit the back entrance hard, slipping inside before the shutters finished closing. Another wolf vanished through a side door just as steel slammed down behind him.
Swearing again, he grabbed Chapel and shoved her ahead of him. “Move!”
They ran, boots digging into the soft earth as the house sealed itself with methodical precision. Inside, he detected movement, vampires reacting to those who had managed to breach the walls.
“There!” he growled, pointing to an open window ahead of them.
Turning on a burst of speed to outrun the security slats, Chapel dove through first, crashing through the glass and sending shards raining down around her. Dominic followed,hitting the floor hard and rolling to his feet as the metal slabs slammed down behind him.
For a heartbeat, time stopped, then everything exploded into chaos and violence.
Vampires rushed them in waves—too many to count, not enough to matter. Instead of taking the time to shift, he lifted a hand and crushed the first group into the wall with a concussive blast that shattered drywall and bone alike.
Screams reverberated through the vast rooms, punctuated by the thundering of footsteps and the guttural snarls of wolves. Furniture toppled and splintered as bodies crashed through empty halls.
The scent of blood and something wilder hung thick in the air, but beneath the stench, he detected something familiar.
Shifters, weak but alive.
He didn’t know where they were being held exactly, but he could sense their closeness. And there were far more of them than there should have been.
Pivoting, he released a second blast as more vampires rushed forward, fangs bared, eyes wild, their speed blurring the edges of the room. Limbs bent at impossible angles as the bloodsuckers slammed into the walls before dropping to the floor with wet thuds.
Saint appeared beside him, claws out as he tore through a couple of vampires with brute strength instead of magic. In the entryway, Kennedy ducked beneath a swiping arm, coming up with a serrated blade that gleamed as it sliced through flesh, spraying crimson across the wallpaper.
Claws, fangs, magic, blood. The pack moved as one, weaving through the chaos with practiced precision.
Dominic’s magic flared and receded, carving through the melee. Bodies collided. Bones crunched. Skin ripped.
In the mouth of the corridor, a lanky bloodsucker lunged at Chapel, only to be slammed aside with a well-placed dagger to the temple. Wrenching her weapon free, she swiped the blade against her outer thigh before diving at the next threat.
Shouts and snarls blended, ringing through the halls as the battle progressed in every direction.