Runebinder (The Runebinder Chronicles #1)(16)

“Hello, Tenn,” she said. How her voice carried over the roar of destruction, he wasn’t sure. It took a moment, through the haze of Water, to realize there was no way she should know his name. “Leanna will be so delighted when I bring her your body.”

Fire opened within her, and the jar blazed red-hot.

Cold lanced through his chest, his heart screaming with ice and agony. His grip on Water and Earth shattered. He crumpled atop corpses and screamed as wave after wave of freezing pain shot through him, all aimed at his heart. All aimed at draining energy from his Sphere of Fire. His back arched. His jaw clenched in a rictus.

The agony stretched on forever. He felt everything, everything. Rage and hatred, passion and desire—they coursed through his burning, freezing heart in a deluge. He couldn’t stop screaming, couldn’t stop the fist from tightening around his chest. Everything turned to ice. Everything threatened to burn his world away. And he knew...he knew that this was how he would die.

He would become a Howl.

An incubus.

Then, suddenly, it stopped.

Heat flooded through his body as he fell limp to the ground. His muscles relaxed, heavy and wet and shaking with newfound warmth. A hand closed on his shoulder. He flinched aside.

“Tenn,” a voice called. Masculine, familiar. His eyes cleared. Jarrett stared down at him, his face bloody and eyes tight with worry. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s me. You’re safe.”

“What...” Tenn croaked. His throat was raw.

“Shh,” Jarrett said. “She’s gone. Can you walk?”

Tenn’s body gave another involuntary shiver. He shifted and tried to sit up; he failed. That was answer enough.

Jarrett lifted him to his feet. Tenn ached with cold and heat, every nerve tingling like he’d plunged from ice water into a sauna and back again. The world around them burned, but he barely felt it. For the moment, Tenn could only focus on the warmth of Jarrett, the solidity of the arms wrapped tight around his body.

“Come on,” Jarrett said. “We’re regrouping.”

With Jarrett still supporting him, Tenn hobbled through the streets. His foot kicked something. He glanced down and saw it was the woman’s head.

“What was...what was she?” he asked.

“A necromancer,” Jarrett said through clenched teeth.

Tenn wanted to speak up, to tell Jarrett that this had been a setup: Leanna was actively hunting for him. My sister Leanna has an interest in you, Tomás had said. If Tenn was wise, he would give up now. Or he would beg Jarrett for help.

Then he remembered Katherine’s limp body, and Tomás’s heavy promise. Another shudder ripped through his body as chills raced down his spine. He looked up to one of the few remaining buildings and swore he saw a shadow standing there, the barest silhouette of Tomás. Watching. Always watching. Waiting for him to speak up. Waiting for another reason to kill.

Tenn kept his mouth shut.





CHAPTER FIVE

THE TWINS AND a half dozen other Hunters waited by the shore. Devon was conscious, but he crouched on the ground with his head in his hands, looking at no one. The sky was a hazy pink from the flames, and Tenn felt the magic of Dreya’s barrier the moment he walked through. Regrouping. Right. It felt more like gathering for the slaughter. Storms stretched across the black horizon, arcs of lightning flickering over the endless water. How much of that was magic? How much was just nature being pissed?

Dark shadows oozed from the city as kravens and other nightmarish creatures swarmed the boulevard. Dreya’s shield was thin at best. Judging from the strain in her features, she couldn’t hold on much longer.

Jarrett helped Tenn sit down on one of the benches. A few other dirtied Hunters were there, but no one seemed too heavily injured. He prayed that this wasn’t all that was left of their troop. Not only because that was a lot of deaths, but because there were many more Howls to kill.

And because, in some unknown, twisted way, those comrades were dying and bleeding because of him.

An explosion rent through the air. Light burst from the city, followed by a tremor so great he nearly toppled from the bench. But it wasn’t the mushroom cloud billowing into the air or the scent of brimstone that made them cower—it was the power, the sheer force of magic, that ripped through the town like a bomb.

Tenn had seen power in his life, but never had he seen magic as great as that. Even the twins paled in comparison.

They stared in silence as the smoke cleared, weapons raised and pulses speeding. Air glowed brighter in Dreya’s throat as she reinforced the shield. There was a note in her eyes that scared Tenn more than anything else: fear. Something told him it wasn’t an emotion she experienced often.

“What the...?” Derrick whispered, Fire sparking around his bared sword.

A shape floated out from the ruins. The silhouette soared high above the crumbling towers and burning storefronts. Then a glint of light, a breath of power, as the stranger’s Spheres came into focus: Earth, Fire and Air. The energy radiating from them made Tenn’s frozen skin drip sweat.

“Shit,” Jarrett cursed. He looked to the troop. They were broken, bruised, barely able to strike the lesser Howls now spreading across the boulevard. Fear was plain on everyone’s faces. Even Derrick’s. Whoever this enemy was, they were far outmatched.

“We need to run,” Jarrett said. “We can’t fight this. Not now.”