You’ll begin to forget the land of the living and seek only to join the dead.
If time wasn’t the same, how would I know when a day had passed? And would time pass differently in Magic Side?
I was about to ask Stephanie when she held her finger to her mouth, then pointed ahead.
We froze, and I silently cursed the loss of my keen wolf senses. What the hell was it?
I watched the point she had indicated for a minute. There was nothing at first, and then something large moved between the trees—a dark shadow, like a massive cat. For a second, a pair of red eyes stared back at us, and then, with a blink, they disappeared in a swirl of mist.
I glanced at Jaxson and mouthed, Is it gone?
He nodded but put his finger to his lips, then whispered, “There’s something else.”
My muscles tightened, and I scanned the woods. I couldn’t catch any scent, but I sensed a signature. Evil.
Familiar.
An impact drove the air from my lungs, and I hurtled backward. My shoulder slammed into a tree, and my jaw cracked shut with the force. I dropped to my knees in the thinning mist and sucked in a painful lungful of air as I looked up.
A massive, hairless man had Jaxson by the throat. The Crusher—the murderer Dragan had possessed at Bentham.
I’d cut out his soul atop the roof of the prison.
Jaxson rammed his foot into the brute’s gut. The Crusher gasped and hurled my mate aside.
A wolf leapt forward and bit the Crusher’s arm, but he swung her away.
Stephanie? I hadn’t even seen her transform.
With no claws to rip the murderous bastard apart, I called my magic. My skin went cold, and energy crackled along my arms.
He spun on me. “You bitch! I could feel you ten miles away, the moment you entered the Deadlands. You cut out my fucking soul!”
With that, he charged.
I darted left and released a blast of dark energy.
He staggered but didn’t stop. My pulse thudded in my ears, and my breath came in short and ragged gasps.
Jaxson was on him then, tearing at him with his claws.
The Crusher spun and rammed my mate into the ground with a single blow, then kicked him in the ribs, sending him flying.
Faster than I’d ever seen someone move, the beast of a man was on me, with his hands pressing the area around my ears.
Pain exploded through my head, and my knees went limp.
“I told you I’d haunt you, that I wanted to feel the slick pieces of your skull slip between my fingers. I just never thought I’d have a chance like this.”
I screamed—and then the pressure released, and I dropped to the ground.
Jaxson ripped into the Crusher’s side with his bloodied claws, while Stephanie sank her teeth into his leg. But the glint of madness in the brute’s eyes told me he didn’t feel it at all.
With a gasp of pain, I staggered deliriously to my feet and unleashed my magic. This time, I shaped the shadows with my mind, forming them into black chains that wrapped around him. Like a black serpent, they looped around his arms and body and began to constrict. He bellowed, but I let the rage and anger take me, and I tightened the chains.
He’d caved in the skulls of at least three innocent women in Magic Side and two prison guards. He’d almost done the same thing to me on the roof of Bentham, and he’d wounded Jaxson so badly that it had taken all the magic I’d had left to bring him back.
My skull still throbbed from where his hands had been. He wouldn’t be my personal poltergeist through this life and the next.
He would never hurt my mate again.
With my own shout of rage, I pulled the chains tight, and just like the stone lions, I crushed him.
The sound of it made my gut churn, but I didn’t relent. When it was all over and there were no more haunting gasps, I released the spell of shadows.
His lifeless body dropped to the forest floor, and the red drained from my vision.
My thoughts immediately went to Jaxson. He was standing to the side, watching me with a dark expression, and he nodded.
I didn’t know what that meant, but I ran to him. “You’re hurt.”
The shadows on his face vanished, and he gave me a weak smile. “A few broken ribs, but I’ll heal quickly. I got off much better than last time—except for my ego. The question is, are you alright? You can’t heal anymore.”
Relief surged through me, and I pressed my cheek against his chest, listening to the beat of his heart. “Luckily, I’ve got a thick skull.”
To our left, Stephanie shifted back to human form. “Who the hell was that?”