Dominic landed hard, frozen grass crunching beneath his boots, the cold air burning his lungs.
It started to sleet. Needle-fine sheets blew sideways off the bay, stinging his skin and slicking the ground, turning the world into a blur of black hedges and silver glare.
Beyond the iron gates, the estate rose like a fortress, lit up for a celebration that had no business existing this close to civilized society.
He felt the wards before he saw them, a low hum that crawled under his ribs like a second heartbeat. The magic here was different from what he’d encountered in Savannah. It was layered, braided, fed by something ancient and…hungry.
Chapel landed to his left in a crouch, blades already drawn, curls plastered to her head. Thierry appeared on his right, silent and pale, eyes tracking the gate line, scanning for threats.
A few yards away, the air rippled as Saint and his team appeared. They didn’t waste time orienting themselves, but fanned out the moment their boots touched the ground.
“Sammy? Can you hear me?”
But he already knew the answer.
The emptiness where Sammy should have been felt like a wound that refused to clot. No tether. No answering presence. Just the knowledge that his mate sat inside those wards, dressed up like a doll and offered like a prize.
Dominic moved toward the fence line, sending out tendrils of energy as he tested the thin places where the perimeter spell had been patched instead of rebuilt. Runes flared, primordial sigils that glittered across the gates like lacquer.
Holding his palm against the pulsating barrier, he gathered his magic, concentrated it, and drove it into one of the weakened seams. He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.
The wards growled to life, stealing his breath as the opposing magic collided with his. Pain lashed up his arm and through his body, the resistance gnashing against him like a thousand shallow cuts.
Dominic braced and shoved everything he had at it.
The wards bowed and shuddered. Piece by piece the spell began to unravel as sigils fractured into sparks of gold beneaththe onslaught. With one final surge, the barrier collapsed, disintegrating into a shower of light.
He hadn’t just carved a path forward, though. He had revealed the obstacles hidden behind the magic.
Shadows gathered at the far end of the drive, moving too fast and too coordinated to be human. Halfway across the lawn, one of them shuddered and dropped to all fours, bones cracking as fur rippled over skin. Another guard doubled over. Then another.
Wolves, bears, and big cats raced toward them, eyes reflecting the floodlights that illuminated their arrival like a runway.
Behind them, something monstrous skittered between the trees on too many legs.
A tiger prowled the fence, head low and shoulder blades sawing, its tail slashing through the air with agitation. A growl rumbled from its throat, deep and ominous, when its gaze landed on Kennedy, singling her out as the weakest of the group.
Dominic smirked.
“Oh, okay.” The female sounded almost giddy. Then she flung her dagger to the side, almost as an afterthought, the blade finding its mark in a guard’s throat with deadly accuracy. “Here, kitty, kitty.”
Her body snapped and jerked as she strode forward, the shift tearing through her until an enormous gray wolf stood in her place. Ears pinned, hackles raised, lips peeled back in a feral snarl, she charged into the swarm of guards, eyes locked on the big cat.
Dominic lost sight of her when a demon separated from the horde and lunged at him with a stun baton that crackled with violet light. Irritated, he caught the end of it with his bare hand and crushed it, sparks spitting through his fingers.
Then he slammed his palm into the male’s chest and sent him sailing backward across the lawn. His boots carved deep groovesthrough the grass until he eventually hit the ground and stopped moving.
Two more guards rushed him, but before he could dispatch them, a blur of red streaked past him. Launching himself at the attackers, Boone twisted in mid-air, his jaws snapping around the neck of one as he slammed his hind legs into the other.
Chapel dove into the fight, all rage and slashing blades.
When a female guard stumbled past her, Chapel dropped her shoulder and plowed into her, using the momentum to throw her into the gatepost with a resonating crack.
Farther down the drive, Thierry moved like smoke, cutting through bodies before they even knew he was there.
He didn’t waste energy, every movement precise and lethal. Grabbing a suited male around the neck, he rammed him face-first into a nearby tree, then released him like he was nothing more than litter.
Moving as a unit, the pack cut across the estate like a knife through velvet. Angling away from the front of the mansion, they followed the stone perimeter wall around the side, toward the sounds of celebration at the back.