10
Ryder
Ness’s touch disappeared.My beast snarled and told me to turn. I caught sight of Jackson’s vicious smile right before he yanked Ness back onto her feet. She grimaced and swung for him. Jackson yanked her off balance before her blow could land.
I lunged forward, but Jackson swung Ness between us. Her eyes widened, but pain pinched them at the corners. I reached for her with one hand while my hands sharpened into claws. She would need a haircut later, but it would be worth it.
Before I could touch her, Marcus slammed into my side. I swung around with my now-clawed hand and raked it across Marcus’s chest. I tore through his shirt and skin, but while I fought him, Jackson was getting away with Ness.
Jackson slipped away into an alley. Ness cried out, and I followed the sound of her voice. Marcus tried grabbing at me, but I ducked his grasp and darted toward the alley. By the time I got there, they were gone.
When I turned, Marcus had also vanished. Distantly, I heard Ness’s voice. She cried out with her arcana, a command woven into it.
“Let me go!”
I breathed a sigh of relief, the fight washing out of me. But when I didn’t see Ness running back to me, my fear came creeping back in.
They weren’t following her commands. How could that be? She’d done it the other day. There was no way her arcana had lost its power. We knew little about it, but people didn’t get immunity to arcana like that. Not from being exposed a couple of times.
Ness
These assholes were wearingear plugs!
I lunged to yank one from Jackson’s ear, but he used his handhold on my hair to throw me off balance again. I caught nothing but air before he began pulling me along again.
Marcus caught up and grabbed my other arm. Together, they nearly lifted me off my feet. Around and around, they led me from alley to building to alley. Here and there, I caught sight of the street through a window or at the end of an alley.
They were keeping me out of sight, I realized. With the earplugs in, they were immune to my command. So long as they ducked from building to building, they were covered from any outside threat.
Are they really that stupid, I thought? Ryder would still be able to track my scent. Shifters, even dragon shifters, had excellent senses. We were leaving a scent trail behind that Ryder would be able to pick up and follow.
“You stupid sons of bitches,” I grumbled. “Well, more likesons of a bitch, since you’re brothers.”
They paid me no attention. Those earplugs were top notch. I kept cussing the brothers out while they kicked open doors and shoved me forward. I called them all sorts of names and told them that their dicks were too small to be seen with a magnifying glass. I wasn’t one to body-shame, but these fools deserved it.
A cocky smile reached the corner of my mouth when I spun to face them. Marcus nearly rolled his eyes. He squared his shoulders and slapped me across the face. My head snapped to the side. Stinging pain washed over my cheek.
That pain brought my hound to the surface. She snarled furiously and demanded that I let her take over. I straightened and lifted my chin. The brothers had let go of me. In this narrow alley, I could shift and make a break for it.
Stay, a voice rang through my skull.
It hit harder than Marcus’s slap, and from the inside. Every bone in my body vibrated from the voice’s impact.
Go, go, go!I thought to myself. I tried to throw myself forward, but my body refused to budge. My muscles had locked in place. Though my hound tried to leap out of me so that she could take over, she hit an invisible wall that rippled like jelly.
Alvin laughed inside my head before fading way.
“Daft bitch,” Jackson said before palming my face.
He pushed me through another doorway before releasing me. Darkness swallowed us as the door closed behind them. Head reeling and heart pounding, I pulled myself up and pressed my back to the hallway wall.
“Ryder is going to find my scent,” I said in warning.
They watched my lips move. My words were simple enough that they likely understood even with the earplugs in. Marcus snorted. Jackson reached beneath the collar of his shirt and yanked out a cord with a small wood medallion hanging from it. Another sigil had been burned into the wood.
The air around me had been filled with other scents, like the dumpster at the end of the last alley we’d walked through. I hadn’t thought to check to see if the brothers had a scent. For a moment, I thought that I might have left a scent trail. Then I realized that I couldn’t even smell myself.
The sigil covered more than just one person at a time. That explained why they were keeping me so close. If they kept me in the spell’s aura, then my scent would be masked, too.