Soul Resurrected (Sons of Wrath, #2) (13 page)

The boy’s arm fell away from his eyes. Silver.

“Oh, fuck, Gavin. He’s … lycan?”

A growl rumbled in the boy’s throat.

Gavin broke the last of the chains and both men backed away as the boy rose to his feet, still in human form.

“Hey,” Calix spoke calm, “it’s okay. We’re not going to hurt you.”

The boy’s stare shifted between Gavin and Calix, focused, as if he either didn’t speak English or didn’t believe a word they said.

“Who are you?” Gavin took a cautious step forward.

The boy stiffened tight against the wall, still clutching Calix’s hoodie against his chest.

“You may not believe me, but you’re safe now.” Hand outstretched, Gavin took another step toward the boy.

A hiss reverberated off the walls and the boy bared his fangs. His skin, though bloodied, carried the glisten of flawlessness.

“Kid lycan. How the hell does this happen?” Calix crossed his arms over his chest.

“No idea.” Gavin lowered his proffered hand. “Never stumbled upon one before.”

The boy jumped toward them, the clang of his shackles beating against the wall. Neither brother moved. Instead, they held both palms up and stepped closer.

“Were you bitten recently?” Gavin reached out for his arm and the kid swiped at him, his claws elongating. Like a rat cornered, his eyes held a threatening stare.

“This shit’s getting old. C’mon, Gavin.” Calix leaned toward his brother and whispered in Demonic, “
Grab him
.”

A burn streaked across Gavin’s back, chasing the sound of this shirt tearing. He swung around and came face to face with an adult lycan. As he snapped out a hand and grabbed hold of the adult’s neck, the beast snapped its jaws and thrashed a claw across Gavin’s face.

Gavin slammed the wolf to the cement floor and pulled his dagger from his holster. A spray of sparks lit the darkness as his blade hit cement in Gavin’s drag of it through the beast’s neck.

Before Gavin could stand, two more beasts lurched toward him, their bodies beating against one another in a fervor to get to him. He slashed the dagger across their chests in one fluid move then kicked one’s haunches from beneath him and held the bastard facedown with his boot. With a gun to the gullet of the other, Gavin shot twice.

As the beast’s tarry blood spewed onto his shirt, Gavin clutched the nape of the other and, with a twist of his wrist, cracked the spine away from its body, before throwing himself toward the two wolves keeping Calix occupied in the corner.

Stalking from behind, Gavin threw his arm around one of the lycan’s mid-section and hurled it against the concrete wall.

Dust and cement crumbled as it hit the bricks and scrambled back to its feet.

Gavin dodged a claw and grabbed hold of the beast’s arm. A sharp tug ripped the limb away from its body. “Oops,” he said, tossing it aside.

The lycan barreled into him, knocking him back a step. Its teeth found Gavin’s stomach, but hardly penetrated the demon’s thick skin.

Gavin wrapped his arms around the wolf’s back, lifted it off the ground, and smashed it to the floor. Lodging his boot in the lycan’s back, he bent forward, pulled his second Glock from his chest harness, and shot the head clean off its body.

Calix pushed to his feet from the finished-off lycan he straddled and examined the blood on his jeans. “Goddamn. Their blood gets all over everything.” He turned to Gavin. “At least we found the wolves.”

Gavin glanced around the dark cellar. “Where’s the kid?”

* * *

“Well, well, look at you, slayer.” Zeke strode up to Calla, his arms crossed over black blood spattering on his chest. “Not bad for your first hunt.”

“This isn’t my first hunt.” Calla lifted the body of the wolf and piled it where Zeke had tossed the other one behind a bush.

Out of sight.

“No?”

“Granted, I didn’t get to do it much. The houses were pretty much cleared out by the time we arrived. Sometimes there were stragglers, though.” Calla thought back to those homes, the families torn apart and eaten alive by the wolves. “I enjoyed killing them.”

Zeke shook his head. “I love watching you Alexi girls fight. Damn, you’re some tough chicks.” He lit a zippo and tossed it onto the pile of fur then shot her a wink. “And
nothing
turns me on more than a tough chick.”

Back to man-whore mode.

Calla grinned and stood mesmerized by the flicker that burst into flames. “Do you burn them on every hunt?”

“No. Sometimes we don’t get a ch—” A black object knocked Zeke flying out of view.

Calla’s head snapped up. “Zeke?”

“Ah, fuck.” His hoarse voice told her he’d been hit hard. Maybe had the wind knocked out of him, which only left her wondering,
by what
?

Keeping her eyes on the surroundings, she backed up to where he lay tangled in the bushes against the building. “You okay? What was that?” She chanced a glance down at him.

An open wound on his chest seeped bright red. A sliver of white chased after, zipping the wound closed and leaving a half-fissured scar that began to fade to the color of Zeke’s flesh. Beside Zeke lay a crazy dual-edged ax, like something out of the medieval era. Intricate carvings adorned the outside of it, dotted with Zeke’s blood.

“Calla, go. Now. Get the fuck out of here.” The sudden urgency in his voice sent tingles up her spine. He rubbed a hand across the fresh skin, grabbed hold of the ax beside him, and shoved to his feet. “Move!”

“What is it?”

Zeke swung the ax, knocking another identical ax out of the way with a metallic clang that rang through the air.

“Oh, shit!” Calla ducked and spun to see a massive figure stalking toward them, about ten feet tall and moving with purpose.

Covered in black carapace, with a horned helmet like some kind of evil Viking, its eyes glowed red against the dark sky.

Stifling a shiver, she tugged on Zeke’s arm. “Let’s go!”

“No. It’s a bounty hunter, Calla. From our realm. Paybacks for Logan and Calix kicking Ryke’s ass. Cocksucker sicced one on them. He’s probably after Calix.” Zeke shook his head, attention still fixed on the figure moving toward them. “How the fuck you make the mistake of mixing up the two of us, I don’t know.”

“How did it find us?”

“We were baited. Now get the hell out of here.” His grim voice let her know he meant business.

Urgency wrenched her gut, begged her to leave him and run. “Come with me.”

“If I can fight him off,”—Zeke took deep breaths and crouched into a fighting stance—“Calix might be spared.”

“
Can
you fight this thing off?”

“I don’t know.” The upturn of his eyebrows gave her the answer she feared.
Probably not
. He gave her a forceful shove that knocked her forward a few steps.

She took it as her cue to run.

A blow to her ankles swiped her feet right out from under her.

She fell hard on her back, the wind knocked from her lungs. Pain exploded behind her eyes. Against the hard contraction in her chest, she opened her mouth for a drag of air.

The world spun for a moment, brought into focus only by the sounds of grunts reaching her ears. Her head lolled to the left and the sight that met her eyes turned her stomach.

Zeke engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the hulking monster spurred panic, as she lay unable to move a muscle. Punches to its body did nothing but force a howl out of Zeke. Whatever covered it must’ve been like an armored suit.

A swing of the ax and the beast gave only a quiet grunt. Zeke dropped the weapon and charged into the hunter’s mid-section, slamming it to the ground—a small success for the demon, who, as colossal as he stood beside his brothers, was shadowed by the bounty hunter.

As the beast lurched forward, Zeke dodged a thrown punch, lifted the ax beside him, and hammered it against the hunter’s chest. Chunks of body armor chipped away with each swing.

Calla glanced down at herself.

Her feet had been bound by what appeared to be heavy, iron bolas. She tried to twist one free but gasped at a sharp shooting pain. “Ah, dammit!” Tears formed in her eyes. A splintering sensation crawled up her ankle like the bone had split in two, and gritting her teeth against it, she sat up. Magnets held the balls of the bolas together. With a reach that sent sharp pain bulleting through her bound legs, she attempted to pry them apart.

They didn’t budge.

No.

Nausea gurgled in her stomach, as the sound of grunts and howls grew louder, but she dared a glance upward.

The bounty hunter had Zeke pinned against the building by his neck.

Oh, God. Oh, God.

Anything that could whoop Zeke’s ass could surely break her in half like a toothpick.

She tugged at her binds—until pain burst in the back of her head and rattled the bones of her face.

In the next breath, everything had gone black.

CHAPTER 11

A burning sensation slid along Calla’s back, her neck, and into her skull. As the bouncing of her head tore her from unconsciousness, fire seared into her flesh, tearing away at her skin, as if a set of claws ripped meat from her spine.

She opened her eyes to the night sky but struggled to focus on anything more than shapes flashing past her periphery.

The sky gave way to metallic beams, the moon peeking through small gaps, before her legs dropped to the ground, the force sending sharp pain to her skull. Wincing, she allowed her head to fall to the side.

Zeke lay beside her.

His eyes were closed; blood trickled out of one, down his temple and across his cheek to his lip. Purple bruises had punched through his skin, his face, leaving him almost unrecognizable. Matted, red-soaked strands of his blond hair lay plastered to his forehead.

Physically, Zeke was the biggest, most intimidating of them all. Yet, Calla’d never seen him look so vulnerable during the short time she’d spent with the demons.

A distant-sounding crunch tensed Calla’s muscles but they failed to move at her command. The lack of weight to her wrist warned of the lack of wrist-bow there, winding her nerves even tighter.

“Zeke.” Her voice summoned no more than a soft whisper.

He didn’t move.

Dead?

With a second sweep, she prayed for even the smallest fraction of recognition of their location. Just another abandoned building, judging from the inside.

Air rushed from her lungs with a sharp hoist of her body that shifted her perception until blood began a slow pool above her across the concrete she’d lay on, and sparse and patchy moonlight shone from somewhere below. The swing of his body in the corner of her eye told her Zeke’s body dangled and swayed alongside her own.

What’s happening?

A dark shadow crept along her periphery, and realization slowly filtered a wave of terror into her mind.
That beast.
The one that’d attacked.

Though pain thundered inside her skull, skewing her focus, she made a slow scan of her surroundings, teeth gritted against the ever-growing pressure at her crown.

Breathing out a sigh at no sign of the hunter, she strained her muscles to look up at herself. Her arms had been bound to her sides, her boots still shackled in the bolas, and a chain led from those and had been strung over a long rafter.

Tentacles of fear prickled her skin. She squirmed against her binds. Blood pooling in her head felt as if she’d self-implode.

A
thwack
at her back forced out every bit of breath inside of her and she stilled.

The beast came into view.

Calla gasped and arched away from its face.

Black orbs, sunken deep inside its sockets, stared back without the slightest hint of emotion. Killer’s eyes. They reminded her of a spider or shark.

The rest of its face remained hidden behind a shiny black coating, like a shell. The helmet on its head seemed to be attached to the shell, prongs—horns—protruding on top giving the beast a Viking appearance.

It tipped its head and reached out a deformed, claw-like hand, with tree-limb fingers contorted into odd positions. A hooked finger dragged across her cheek and her breath hitched, her muscles quaking. The tip of the nail gouged the corner of her eye, and warmth trickled down her forehead. From a small orifice that seemed to be some kind of mouth, a long slithery, red tongue curled out and touched her skin.

“Ah!” she cried out but fast clamped her lips.

As the tongue slid back inside its mouth, its hands gripped her crown and, with a quick jerk, turned her to the side.

She breathed heavily.
Oh, God. He’s going to snap my neck.

A chuff blew a tickle of hair across her ear and she flinched. The beast seemed to be assessing her, as it sniffed from behind and gave a harsh rub of its spindly fingers across her crown.