“Do not waste your time at play.” The wind tickled the soft fur inside one of his ears. Dane ignored the bullets that sank into his hide and disemboweled a Hound with a swipe of his paw. “Bring her to me.”

Play. Taking pleasure in something didn’t make it a game. Dane bit the next Hound, crushing its skull, and spat out its vile blood. No idea what the drugs in it could do to him.

He could smell Cyrus’s little mage now; her terror made her scent strong enough to cut through the blood around him. He wasn’t playing, but neither was he about to suffer a Hound to live. He killed one as it fired a gun into his chest, shrieking in terror. The wounds seared and sickened him, then began to heal.

Another smell reached him on the high winds, cedar and roses and ancient things. Hesham and Mahesh. They sapped the power of a mage’s magic, stifling it completely. He had known their scent for years but had only recently come to hate it. He could forgive mercenary alliances, but not that they had tried to take his place with Lindsay.

A thump of blades cutting the air made him snarl. The helicopter was huge and black, too large for the helipad. Cyrus’s wind should have been enough to ground it, but there it was, preparing to lift off. A rush of icy air caught him in the face, drawn from far out at sea, and the sky darkened. He crouched low to the ground. The wind felt wrong.

More Hounds were coming, spilling out of vans, clambering up from the beach and onto the boardwalk. He had to stop Moore’s people from taking that girl. The rest would have to wait. If he could take her from her captors, he might be able to get her to safety, as he had done with Lindsay. He dodged the slicing arc of bullets firing from a large gun mounted in the back of a van and folded his wings back tightly.

Keeping low to the ground, he ran for the helipad.

Already, the helicopter was beginning to lift. Dane could see the lurch as it broke free of gravity for the first time. Two tall, thin men—Hesham and Mahesh—hurried toward the helipad. The brown-skinned young woman in the blue dress hung limp between them, her feet dragging on the ground, one bare and one still in a white shoe. He pushed hard into the wind that fought him back, and all he could think was that Cyrus had lost control of the air. Gunfire staggered him, shattering one of his paws and leaving him to struggle on three legs while his magic healed him. Overhead, an immense spiral of black clouds roared.

The limousine driver opened the back door and helped an auburn-haired woman out. Moore. She had come and Dane wanted nothing more than to tear her to shreds. But he had to focus. The human part of his mind was full of questions—where was Lourdes, where was Jonas—but the beast forged on, slapping away an ATV that came too close, using it to clear a path ahead of him as he gained a dozen precious yards.

Another woman, this one with long, dark hair, slipped out after Moore and took her by the arm, hurrying her to the helicopter. Where the hail of bullets had failed to deter him, a lightning bolt smashing a crater into the walkway ahead gave him pause. The dark-haired one was a weather witch; she must have been the reason Cyrus was struggling. He looked behind to see the Hounds closing in, maneuvering to trap him while the helicopter escaped.

Dane summoned up all his strength for a dash down the last hundred yards of the boardwalk. The wind lifted him and slammed him to the ground, into a streak of rifle fire. He scrabbled onto all fours, spreading his wings. The helicopter was already rising. He could see Moore through the open door, and the other woman next to her. A wave of the dark-haired woman’s hand and lightning ripped down again.

There was nothing he could do, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying. As Moore escaped, the Hounds turned on him, some with guns and some with blades. There had to be at least thirty of them, and many human soldiers as well. He had survived worse. Pursuing him kept them from turning on Cyrus.

The rain came down like a wall of wet night and the Hounds hunted him, their bullets tearing into him faster than he could heal. Dane charged the nearest cluster, determined to keep them busy for as long as possible. And then something else came. Dane heard a sickening thud like a bomb going off, and the darkness was washed away in a flood of eerie red light.

The Hounds turned from him and began to howl. Dane dropped the one he was killing to face the new threat. A breaker of fire swept down the boardwalk, consuming everything in its path. There was nothing he could do but run like a terrified cat. As he cleared the far side of the helipad, the burning wave broke over the boardwalk. The howling reached a crescendo, and was gone.

When Dane turned, everything stood as it had been. The rain pounded down, a natural rain now, and washed away the smoke. He let the form of the beast slide away before Lindsay’s illusion disappeared, but he kept the core of it in him so that he could follow his nose back to his people.

He found Noah waiting for him, pointing him toward the van and the car. Lindsay was probably in the back of the car, with Kristan in the driver’s seat. The van door was open, waiting for him. He couldn’t make the words to thank Noah for his intervention. He limped to the van, trying to make sense of what had happened to them.

In the passenger seat of the van, Cyrus was pale and still, his breath coming slowly.

“I called Negasi. He’ll meet us at the house,” Ylli offered from the backseat. He was almost as white as Cyrus, a bedraggled and terrified little bird. “I don’t know what happened. He said some other mage took the wind from him.”

“She did.” Dane started the van and turned it to follow Kristan home. He couldn’t hear anything through the static in his head, his mind turned to a channel left blank with disbelief. He reached over and found Cyrus’s hand, fumbled until his fingers were on Cyrus’s pulse. It fluttered there like a broken butterfly, clinging to life all the way home.

At the house, Dane carried Cyrus to his room, where Negasi waited. The healer helped Dane undress Cyrus and wrap him in warm blankets while he tried to give Cyrus back some strength. When they had done all they could, Dane could hear that familiar heartbeat again, but it did nothing to comfort him now.

He left Cyrus in Negasi’s capable hands and went to his own room, where he closed and locked the door. If anyone spoke to him or if he replied, he couldn’t have said. He sat in the chair at his desk and took out a sheet of paper. He meant to write Ezqel, but the page stayed as empty as his mind.

Chapter Five

The drive home was silent. Even Kristan knew when to keep her mouth shut. When they stopped in the driveway, Noah disappeared into the house before Lindsay could say anything.

Lindsay didn’t find Noah upstairs, nor Dane. What he found instead was a locked door. Noah wouldn’t lock Lindsay out of his own room, so it must have been Dane. He’d think about that once he found Noah. Lindsay checked the back porch, but still no Noah. Finally, he found Noah in his old room, the room he hadn’t slept in since the incident with Kristan. Lindsay hadn’t been ready to let him go; he could relax at night when he knew Noah was sleeping.

The room wasn’t big, only enough space for a bed and a dresser. Noah had, at some point, shoved the bed over by the window and he sat there now on the window ledge, smoking a cigarette. A half-empty bottle swung gently as he tipped it back and forth, watching the amber liquid wash up the sides. After a moment of thoughtful contemplation, he took a drink.

Lindsay didn’t bother asking Noah if he was all right. Of course he wasn’t. Noah hadn’t been all right since he’d come here. At best, today hadn’t helped.