Page 47 of The Demigod Complex
At an unseen signal, both sides of wolves burst into a dead run, straight at each other. Before her eyes, both Tala and Marrok shifted, the action immediate, rending their clothes and accompanied by their twin yelps of agony as their bones realigned. In seconds, chaos reigned all around them.
Castor grabbed her and slung her onto his back. “Hold on tight.”
Before she could say a word, he took off. The glen, then the forest, blurred around her as his phenomenal speed took them down to the pond. He deposited her at the edge of the water. The only reason she didn’t protest was the fact that she’d needed to get to the pond anyway.
But now she couldn’t keep Castor with her. She tugged on his hand. “You have to knock the witch unconscious.”
He leaned down to plant a quick, hard kiss on her lips. “I know.”
And he was gone.
“We can’t use our powers.”
Leia spun around to find Calliadne and ten other Naiad sisters standing hip-deep in the pool behind her. “There’s a witch.”
Calli scowled. “I swear the Covens Syndicate is asking for a war.”
“I suspect this witch is being forced to cooperate with Kaios against her will.”
“You always were a smart girl.” Kaios stood at the edge of the trees, not ten feet from her. He must’ve guessed where Castor had taken her and followed.
Sounds of the violent battle above them echoed off the peaks of the mountains all around—snarls and growls, yelps of pain and howls of rage. She tried to sense the water, pull it under her control, but nothing happened. Castor had to find that witch. Soon.
She kicked off her flip-flops, her feet squelching into the mud as she stepped back. The water lapped at her ankles, then her knees, plastering her jeans to her legs. She waited for the buzz and flow of the water as it absorbed into her.
Nothing happened.
Kaios paced at the edge of the trees, not coming nearer the pond. “One night together. Was that too much to ask?”
The man was obsessed. “Way too much,” she snapped.
He continued his pacing. “You shouldn’t have attacked me in front of my people. People I intended to lead. It took me centuries to regain my status within the werewolf community.”
“Killing me won’t help. Even if you win today, you’ll be hunted down. The entire community of nymphs and the Banes and Canis packs of wolf shifters—and all their allies—are going to want your blood.”
Not to mention Castor bringing down the wrath of the gods.
“I’ve been alive much longer than you, little girl. Feuds pass, anger fades. I’m still here.”
The tips of her fingers tingled with an achingly familiar sensation.
Thank the gods. Castor must’ve been successful. Expression carefully neutral, she backed farther into the water, closer to her sisters. They had to time this right. They’d tried to drown him before and failed.
She hadn’t meant for him to live all those years ago. Not with the way he kept coming at her.
Leia gathered her power inside her, secretly whispering her will to the water surrounding her, using it to whisper instructions to her sisters. They communicated better fully submerged, but even being up to her waist, as she was now, helped.
“Do you want to know why I rejected you?” She needed to distract him a bit longer.
Kaios aimed a bored expression her way. “No. I want you to die.”
Without warning, he held up the gun she hadn’t seen in his hand, pointed it at her, and pulled the trigger.
A wall of water surged up in front of her and turned to solid ice in an instant. The bullet lodged in the block. She dropped it into the pond with a splash. Before Kaios could react, she and her sisters worked together. They tossed a wave up over him, and tendrils of water lilies wrapped around his legs and arms.
Werewolves might be incredibly powerful, but nature in her fullness was a murdering bitch that nothing could stand against.
They dragged him, kicking and screaming, into the water, pulling him to the center of the pond, where they forced him under. His screams turned into a gurgle of terror as his head submerged. They held him under for ten solid minutes until the thrashing slowed, his eyes rolled back in his head, and his struggles ceased. To be sure he was dead, they kept him under even longer, until the water reeked with the taint of death.
