Magic Binds (Kate Daniels 9)

Hold on, Baby B. We are coming.

• • •

WE TURNED ONTO the narrow side road leading to the Keep. Curran stepped on it. The car accelerated. Wolves appeared from the brush, running parallel to the vehicle. The woods ended and we shot onto a mile-long stretch of open ground between the trees and the tower of the Keep. The heavy metal gates stood shut.

Curran braked hard. The vehicle skidded and stopped two feet from the gray wall. I got the hell out of the car. The wolves sniffed me, a wall of fur and teeth separating me from the gates. The lead wolf raised her head and howled.

The gates opened enough for us to pass through, and the four of us marched inside. Robert, one of the alphas of Clan Rat and the Pack’s chief of security, stepped out of the main entrance, waiting for us.

“Anything?” Curran asked.

Robert shook his head. “Not a whisper. No sign of attack, no unusual movement, nothing.”

We hurried through the Keep’s hallways to the medical ward, passing through pair after pair of sentries.

“The magic is down,” Robert said. “If an attack comes, it will be via an agent. There are exactly six outsiders in the Keep right now: two teamsters who delivered a shipment and the four of you.”

Ouch.

“What was in the shipment?” Curran asked.

“Paper,” Robert said. “My people inspected and cleared it.”

The shapeshifters guarded the medward door. If Sienna hadn’t called me to warn me, I wouldn’t be in the Keep, I wouldn’t be holding Baby B, and no attack would come. The future was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Baby B is being targeted because my father saw the future with me holding her,” I said.

“Why is the baby important?” Robert asked.

“It’s an anchor. It’s something that has to happen for the right version of the future to happen,” I said.

“What’s the right version?”

“The one where we don’t all die,” Curran said.

Robert’s eyes narrowed. “I take it Roland prefers a different version.”

“If I walk into that room and attempt to hold Baby B, I will provoke an attack.”

“If you don’t walk into that room, the city will burn,” Curran said.

“I take full responsibility,” Robert said, and nodded at the guards. The woman on the left swung the door open.

Andrea sat on the bed in the middle of the room, fully dressed, holding Baby B. Raphael stood behind her. Jim and Dali stood to the left, and the two renders, Pearce and Jezebel, to the right. Mahon loomed by the left window, behind Jim and Dali. Desandra stood by the other window, behind Pearce and Jezebel. Doolittle sat in his wheelchair in the corner, out of the way, with Nasrin by him. Everyone looked grim.

The doors shut behind us. Sixteen people, including me. I trusted every single person in this room. I would fight to defend every single person in this room.

There were too many of us here. Jim always erred on the side of caution.

“To end the threat, Kate must hold the baby,” Robert said. “Holding the baby will provoke the attack. But not holding the baby will have catastrophic consequences for the future of the Pack.”

Andrea’s face was hard and her eyes harder.

“If the attack comes,” Robert continued. “If at all possible, we need to take the attacker alive. There are important questions that need to be answered.”

Raphael’s eyes shone with a deranged ruby light. Robert was crazy if he thought he was taking anyone alive.

“Do we have your permission, alphas of the bouda clan?” Robert asked.

Pearce and Jezebel took a step forward at the same time.

“Yes,” Andrea said, looking at me like I was a striking cobra. “You have our permission.”

Twenty feet separated me from Baby B. I took a step toward Andrea.

The room tensed. Everyone was looking at someone else. Muscles bunched on Pearce’s frame. Mahon had somehow grown larger.

Another step.

Someone do something, damn it. If you’re going to attack, do it now.

Another.

“Cough-cough!” Desandra said.

Everyone spun toward her. Pearce launched himself into a leap, midway in the air recognized that he’d been had, and twisted, landing clumsily on the floor by Desandra. Jezebel exhaled and spun away from the wolf alpha, her face slack with suddenly released pressure. Behind me Derek swore.

“It was getting too tense.” The alpha of the wolves shrugged.

I’d strangle her after this. I didn’t care if Jim objected.

“Would it kill you to not be an asshole for thirty seconds?” Andrea growled.

Desandra winked at her. “I don’t know, I’ve never tried.”

Jezebel ripped a knife out of a sheath and lunged at Baby B in Andrea’s arms. I shot forward, but it was too far. I saw the knife slice through the air. The distance it had to travel was so short and the space between me and her was so long . . .

Dali jumped in front of the knife, just as Andrea rolled back, pulling Baby B out of reach.

The knife slid into Dali’s chest.

Raphael sliced Jezebel’s throat. The impact of the strike spun her.

Dali made a small gurgling noise. Blood poured from her mouth. The blade had hit her heart. The angle of the knife was textbook perfect.

Jim’s face snapped into a jaguar’s muzzle, the transformation so fast it was instant. Before Jezebel finished turning, he grabbed her throat, thrust his clawed hand under her rib cage, and disemboweled her.