Jen tried to think past the pain in her arms. Whether she was hallucinating or not, she knew one thing for certain: Nikos wasn’t quite what he’d said he was. No, that wasn’t right. He’d never said what he did. But it was clear that he was somebody important, among these people who . . . Her mind skidded to a halt there, crashing against the memory of a huge red dragon coiled around her, ready to squish her to death.
She grasped at the facts that she could be sure of. Foremost: Nikos was being forced to do something he did not want to do. Between Nikos and Mikhail, the glow in the ground brightened. Whatever that artifact was, Nikos was trading it for her life.
She gritted her teeth against the scream of sheer rage that wanted to rip free. She absolutely hated being used against him, hated it as much as she loved him—yes, loved him—for the fact that he had not even hesitated, though they had only met a few days ago. And yet in some ways it felt like they’d always known one another . . .
She was beginning to haze out.
Pay attention. Nikos had sacrificed something for her. She didn’t know what it was, or who these assclowns were, but one thing she was sure of: she would not let Nikos down if she saw any opening for changing things up.
Yes!
As the glow in the ground brightened, Long Cang’s grip on Jen loosened. The man-dragon had stilled, watching intently, poised to act. Then another shock rang through Jen when a glowing pearly bubble the size of a baseball slowly emerged from the ground. It rose, inch by inch, as Nikos held his hands about a foot from either side of it.
Then his hands began to move very slowly toward the sphere.
“Take him out,” Long Cang whispered to Keraunos. “Don’t let him touch it.”
Yet another shock jolted through Jen as Keraunos blurred, his outline broadening out into the shape of an ice-blue wolf. Lightning flickered over his entire body as he readied himself to spring.
All the meaning in the world narrowed to one need: to protect Nikos.
Now, Jen thought. She tore herself from those slackened fingers, and leaped first.
She made it two steps, almost reaching Nikos before the world went white.
Then dark.
TWELVE
NIKOS
The moment he saw Keraunos, Nikos knew that Medusa was making a move. That was the bad news. The sort-of good news was her sending an assassin after Nikos. It had to mean that she herself was still prete
nding to be a friendly tourist back on the island.
The raiju, a blue-white wolf whose qi was bound to electricity, was infamous as an assassin. Young as he was, he was also a high level martial artist. His skills and his uncontrollable lightning were deadly to humans and most shifters. He wasn’t as deadly to mythic shifters, but as a fighter, plus the lightning, Keraunos was a serious threat.
The message was clear: Nikos needed to get home, or there would be collateral damage, because Keraunos didn’t seem to care what or who he went through to get to his target.
But first Nikos had to get Jen away from Long Cang. Pride burned in him when he saw the shifters Jen had already taken down, both clearly heavy hitters. But beneath that pride was a gnawing worry: she had no idea what she was up against.
A step at a time, his unicorn murmured within.
The trade was no contest, as far as Nikos was concerned—no artifact, no matter how powerful, was worth a life. Especially his mate’s.
He risked a single glance at her, and met a steady gaze. No accusation, which he’d dreaded seeing, though some might say he deserved it for waffling so long about telling her the truth about himself—he should have done that the day they met! No anger in her eyes, even. That is, not aimed at him. Her gaze met his and he knew she was right there beside him in spirit, despite the questions he hadn’t dared answer, despite the pain she was in.
The ferocity of his love burned through him. His mate! He was terrified that she would act the moment she saw what she thought might be a chance, because she was as gallant as she was brave. But she didn’t know how very dangerous it was—she, a human, stood between a red dragon and a raiju, the lightning-wolf of the Japanese islands.
Nikos would exert himself as long as he dared to preserve the oracle stone until he figured out a way to rescue his mate. He’d surrender the oracle stone if he had to. Mikhail understood that without any words between them. What happened if Cang got the oracle stone would be Mikhail’s and the celestial empress’s business.
His plan right now depended entirely on stalling for time, in the hope that Joey could get his team here before Cang tried to break the standoff. Joey had said they were trustworthy and determined, but the only fliers among them were not fighters. That meant the fighters had to cover the ground, slower than flight.
Nikos activated his ring and sent his consciousness down toward the oracle stone. The only way to extract it without digging down was extremely tricky. He had to ease the stone just far enough out of this dimension to bypass the rubble, and all from a distance, which meant holding it mentally. If it slipped beyond this unstable between-state, who knew how many dimensions it might skim through. And if it dropped into this one, it might lose itself in the rubble—without Mikhail’s protective ward, depending how it was bound.
He glanced to either side as he steadied himself. Impasse still. The two Jen had disabled were more than compensated by Keraunos. Behind Jen stood a snuffling hellhound. And of course there was Cang.
“I don’t see anything happening,” Cang drawled, and tightened his grip on Jen.