Vitality flowed through my veins as her power merged with mine, and we clenched down with a strength I’d never had in human form.
He fought, but I was stronger by far. He bit into my hand, but I held back the scream that tried to escape and pressed harder, trying to muffle his sound.
Finally, he weakened and began to slump.
Normally, I would never have been able to support the weight of a two-hundred-fifty-pound man, but with my wolf’s strength, I pushed power into my legs and was able to lower him gently to the grass.
As his head rolled to the side, I finally let myself have a full breath.
The chanting pounded against my eardrums. It was eerie and insidious and sent a shiver down my spine.
While I quietly positioned the sentry on the side of the road, my fingers brushed the grass, and I paused in surprise. Something was wrong with it.
In the pale light streaming through the trees, the grass seemed peculiar. Since I was concealed in a cloud of shadow, I slipped my phone out and flicked the screen on to illuminate it. The grass was a faint green and infested with some kind of strange moss or lichen.
Something about it made me feel deeply uneasy. A thought came to my mind unbidden: Corpse grass. Welcome to the land of the dead.
It wasn’t the voice of Jaxson or my wolf, but rather a young woman’s voice. With all the apparitions that had haunted me, I didn’t have time to contemplate the source.
Putting the grass out of my mind, I left the damp cloth over the biker’s nose. Hopefully, that keeps him down for the count, I told my wolf.
I rose and peered through the trees, but I couldn’t make out the source of the dull light ahead. I’d need to push on, so I stepped out of my cloud of darkness and waved Jaxson forward. The wound on my hand where the sentry had bitten me burned, but I could feel that it was healing.
After a moment, Jaxson crept out of the shadows and joined me. “Nice work.”
A tingle of pride ran down my spine. I hated it, but I yearned for his praise and delighted in his approval.
Turning quickly to hide my blush, I pushed the cloud of shadows ahead of us and led Jaxson along the edge of the road. Finally, we neared a clearing, and I lowered the veil partway so we could both see the source of the light.
A dozen chanting bikers ringed a blazing bonfire in the center of an open field. Tumbled and broken gravestones cast long shadows over the infested corpse grass like dark arrows pointing back to the fire.
And at the center of it all was Dragan. He had a new body and a new face, but I could sense his familiar, twisted presence all the same.
A deep melancholy pressed in on me. I’d known it would be him, but some part of me had hoped that I’d truly killed him in the Dreamlands, that the man here was an impostor.
I craned my head and stepped slightly to the side, immediately gripping Jax’s hand. “There are two people bound at his feet. This is a blood ritual.”
He bared his teeth and squeezed my palm. “Then we’ve got no time to lose.”