Tira shook her head, taking a small step closer. “No. I’m not trying to tell you anything.”
The other woman shook her head, her gaze returning to the fight, as if she had nothing at all to fear. “What use could you be to me? You’re not strong enough to fight. You have no practical magic.” The redhead tilted her chin up at Tira’s involuntary start. “Yes, I know about magic. I know that you don’t have enough for what I need.”
“Really? Then you shouldn’t mind this.”
From what seemed like too far away, Duke saw Nic and Kaine pause at a doorway up the hall.
Duke heard the sounds of fighting and knew he wasn’t going to be fast enough to catch Nic before he headed into the fight.
And sure enough, with a snarl, Nic disappeared into the room, Kaine hot on his heels.
Dread hit him in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t have Tira’s Gift for foresight but he didn’t need it to know something was going to go wrong.
Intuition had served Duke well for years. But Nic had long ago forsaken cool rationality for impetuous action.
And Duke was damned if he was going to let it continue. Not now, when it wasn’t just Nic’s life on the line.
Tira was in that room. He could smell her. Whatever she was about to do scared her but she was determined to do it.
Duke poured on speed, not giving a shit if the eteri kept up or not.
Nic and Tira needed him.
Just before he hit the door, Duke stopped and pulled the knife from the concealed sheath in his boot. Then he stuck his head around the corner.
Kyle and Dan had four men pinned down in a corner near the door. They seemed to be holding their own.
Nic and Kaine—
Shit, they were in trouble. A behemoth with a length of chain in his hands stood between the wolves and a woman with red hair and Tira, who had one hand on the other woman’s arm.
Without stopping to think, Duke ran for his partners, knowing he was going to be too late as the man swung the chain.
The heavy weight caught Kaine across the chest, flinging her to the side like she was a rag doll. She hit a metal desk so hard the metal actually dented then she fell to the ground with a whimper and lay there unmoving.
Before Duke could move, the eteri ran for her, putting himself between her and the behemoth. John managed to get an arm up to cover his face before the other man swung the chain again.
The chain caught John on the biceps, making him flinch in pain but he held his position above Kaine.
At the same time, Nic attacked, teeth bared to bite the guy’s leg. Duke knew Nic intended to hamstring the guy but just before his teeth would’ve sunk in, the guy kicked out with his leg and sent Nic sprawling.
Leaving room for Duke to attack.
His fear for Tira lent strength to a roundhouse that should have, at the very least, made the guy take a couple of steps back.
But when Duke’s fist connected with jaw, he felt like he’d hit a block of concrete.
And when the guy hit him back, Duke swore he’d been hit with a sledgehammer.
The guy had power and he wasn’t just talking about strength.
Duke smelled it on him, but it was weird. Perverted.
Duke had a second to think What the fuck? before the guy pulled back and hit him so hard he fell back a couple of steps.
He rotated his jaw, tasted blood and tried to shake his brain back into place.
Shit, this was bad.
And getting worse, because the guy’s second punch knocked Duke into the wall six feet away.
And the world went dark.
Tira never took her eyes off the woman even though she knew Duke, Nic and Kaine were taking a beating behind her.
She had to maintain the connection with this woman, no matter what.
Her vision had made it clear that her life, and Duke’s and Nic’s, depended on this.
She already knew she wasn’t going to like what she saw. Death clung to this woman like a stench. But not one Tira could smell. More like a sensation, an almost tangible force around the woman. Something ate at her internally, something dark.
But Tira was no empath, not like Nica. She didn’t sense any illness in the woman.
What she sensed was…
Run. You need to run. Now.
Blessed Goddess, the absolute certainty that she should get as far away as possible from this woman was almost overwhelming. The muscles in her legs jerked and twitched with the impulse.
No. She planted her feet. No more running.
This woman held answers her people needed. And she’d get them.
She had to.
Keeping their gazes locked, she grasped the woman’s arm more tightly and stared into cold eyes.
The vision hit her almost immediately.
They both sucked in a breath, the woman’s eyes widening in shock as Tira’s Gift flowed into her.
Images burst like flares in Tira’s head while dark emotions slithered through her veins.
Impotent rage. Overwhelming fear. And a deep grief that colored everything in shades of crimson and black.
Tira couldn’t process the information fast enough. She wasn’t sure what she was seeing, couldn’t make her brain focus on any one picture.
But even as the vision entangled her brain, her gaze remained locked with the other woman’s.
Tira saw the woman’s realization of what was happening, saw her disbelief and her anger at the violation of her most private thoughts.
It was a violation, one she didn’t make lightly. But this woman had declared war on Tira’s family and friends.
And even though Tira couldn’t make sense of the pictures in her head now, she knew she’d be able to later. She’d be able to sort through them when she went into a meditative state.
The woman’s secrets would be revealed.
Somehow, the redhead knew this. Or suspected.
Either way, she fought to break Tira’s hold on her. She screamed, the high-pitched squeal loud enough to hurt Tira’s ears.
Tira tightened her grip to maintain contact as long as she could, taking in the images as fast as she could.
Only when pain exploded in her temples did she release the woman. And as she crumpled to the ground as the world went dark, she had a millisecond to hope she woke again.
Nic howled as Duke hit the wall so hard it splintered the drywall.
And when Duke didn’t get up, Nic’s first instinct was to attack.
But he knew that wouldn’t work. If he wanted to get them all out of here in one piece, he needed to do more than attack. He needed to think.
Behind him, he heard Kaine huff as she shifted and unsteadily pulled herself to her feet. The eteri remained in front of her, shielding her from another attack, although the amount of power this guy seemed to have defied logic.
He was big, yes, but he shouldn’t have been able to knock out Duke with one hit.
Not without magic. And whatever magic the guy had, it was perverted. That sense of wrongness Nic had felt since entering the building came from this man.
He had unnatural strength so Nic knew he wouldn’t be able to overpower him.
But if he could just …
As if the eteri had read his mind, he stepped in front of Kaine, who was still shaking her head and trying to get to her feet.
“Hey, asshole,” John taunted, “why not pick on someone your own size?”
The eteri drew the guy’s attention away from Nic for a few short seconds, just enough to allow him to attack.
He aimed for the guy’s left hamstring, opening his jaws then biting down, through thick cotton and into skin until he heard a sickening crunch and the metallic taste of blood.