Moonshadow (Moonshadow #1)(84)

When he reached roughly the middle of the lawn, he went down on one knee by the tracks, placed his hands on the ground, and bowed his head. Something she didn’t know how to define rippled out from him. The tracks melted back into place, and the torn turf knitted back together. By the time he stood, the sodden lawn looked unscarred again.

Sophie bent her head, hiding her mouth in a fistful of blanket as she watched. He could literally reshape the earth. This time she didn’t even bother to run around in her own head to stamp out all the sneaky bits of awe.

As Nikolas turned back to the house, a creature appeared behind him, emerging out from under the nearby tree line, and raced toward him. It was a huge, werewolf-y looking monster, and it was followed by several more.

Many more.

Dread sucker punched her in the stomach as they kept pouring out of the woods.

The Hounds had arrived.

The men shouted a warning at Nikolas and lunged for weapons. Nikolas spun, saw the danger hurtling toward him, and sprinted toward the house.

He was fast, but the Hounds were too, lethally so. Other than his own inherent Power, Nikolas didn’t carry a weapon. Along with the others, he had set his sword harness aside to work on moving furniture and supplies.

Sophie was still wearing all her weapons, both the magical ones painted on her arms and the Glock, which gave her precious seconds on the other men. Dropping the blanket, she lunged into a sprint, pulling the Glock out from the waistband of her jeans. How far away would she have to get before the gun worked?

She reached ten yards, eleven, twelve. Nikolas was roaring at her in fury, but she couldn’t make out his words. That was okay; she probably didn’t want to hear them anyway.

Watching the Hounds bounding forward while she raced toward Nikolas was one of the most terrifying things she had ever seen. Every moment stretched into an intolerable infinity. As she ran, she aimed at the nearest lycanthrope at the head of the pack, and she started pulling the trigger.

Click. Click. Click.

Not yet. Not yet. Not yet.





Chapter Seventeen





When Sophie sprinted toward Nikolas and the Hounds, he couldn’t believe it. It was every bit as insanely courageous as when she had run into the pub, and by gods, when he got his hands on her, he was going to fucking murder her for it.

“Go back!” he roared. “Go back, you crazy goddamn woman!”

But she didn’t stop. Behind her, the other men exploded out of the double doors with weapons, and they raced toward him too. They would overtake Sophie within seconds, but Nikolas didn’t know how close the Hounds were behind him, and in this instance, fractions of seconds mattered.

He spun to face the threat racing up to him. Just then, Sophie’s Glock fired, and the lead Hound, the one closest to Nikolas, dropped like a stone.

Chest heaving, he stared at it. She was as good as she had said she was. She hit what she aimed at. Even at night, in the middle of a pounding storm.

More Hounds poured out of the woods. It was too late to formulate any kind of sophisticated strategy. Gathering his Power, he flung a morningstar, straight and hard, at the second closest Hound.

Like a bolt of horizontal lightning, the morningstar split the darkness and exploded in the Hound’s broad, furry chest. The force of it lifted the Hound and spun its body in the air before it slammed into the ground. It didn’t rise again.

Not many warriors could cast a morningstar. Morningstars were one of the deadliest weapons he had at his disposal, but they were a hellish drain on his energy and they took seconds to amass. Whirling back around, he raced toward Sophie.

Now she strode forward. She didn’t run. Sighting down the length of her arm, she held the Glock in a two-handed grip and fired repeatedly at the approaching Hounds. Even as he came up to her, he was counting her bullets, and he knew the exact moment she went out.

“You’re out!” he shouted in her face. “Go back to the house!”

Unbelievably, she dug in her jeans pocket. She told him, “Just need to reload.”

He cast a quick look around. Thanks to his morningstar and her marksmanship, there were four bodies lying on the lawn, but there were at least twenty or twenty-five more Hounds racing across the lawn while his men sprinted to meet them.

Gods damn it, he needed his sword.

“Nik!” The shout came from behind him. As he looked over his shoulder, Braden tossed his sword harness at him.

Nikolas snatched it out of the air. “Get behind me,” he snapped at Sophie. “Get down, low to the ground, and stay there!”

Miraculously, this time she did as he ordered, jumping to crouch low behind him. He pulled hard on his Power to amass another morningstar and flung it at the next closest Hound. It sizzled through the air and hit the Hound broadside.

Behind him and low to the ground, the Glock spat multiple times. Sophie had finished reloading, and he remembered what she had said when she had shown how she could assemble and load a gun without looking. Because you should be able to do it in the dark, if need be.

He was so furious at her for risking her life, but at the memory of that cocky, sexy little lift of her mouth, he felt a fierce grin break over his face.

At his best, he could amass four morningstars, perhaps five, before he was tapped out. And morningstars were no good at fighting in close quarters. Around him, Braden, Gareth and Rowan were armed with guns too, and the flat, erratic percussion of their firing punctuated the ominous roll of thunder from the storm. The rest of his men slammed into combat with the Hounds, so he drew his sword and dropped the harness to the ground.