Page 35 of Silver Claw

When we arrived at Shadowfield, I didn’t bother waiting for the arm to lift so I could drive into the village. I slammed the car to a halt at the side of the road and was out and running without another word to Joe or even a hint of hesitation.

And as though he’d been watching for me, one of Voss’s wolves leapt in front of me, not ten feet away.

Joe had veered off at the entrance, and he was already gone. I thanked God for that. If he’d seen even a hint of a fight or someone coming at me, he wouldn’t have gone. Not right away. And if someone thought to stake him or incapacitate himsomehow, the sun might have come. The sun would have burned him. It would have killed him.

I shoved Joe from my mind and went at Voss’s wolf with every intention of killing him and doing it as quickly as possible. My demon blade was hot and familiar in my grip, the magic of it sliding up my arm and into my heart, and it felt like heaven. I missed magic.

Even demon magic.

Because now, demon magic was all I had. Anika hadn’t taken the spark that happened when I held my blade, or when its power slid into my flesh and bones and soul. She hadn’t wanted to touch a demon’s magic.

I embraced that demon magic with all my heart and soul, and I realized then that I’d always wielded the blade with caution. With my walls up. I hadn’t wanted to absorb the terrible power from it, as though that might somehow twist me up into a demon and pull me into hell.

Apparently, I was already twisted up into a demon. But no way was I going to hell.

I opened myself up to whatever the blade wanted to do to me. I eagerly pulled that power into myself, and yes, I felt the blackness of it in my heart.

I didn’t care.

My psycho loved it.

The wolf was shocked that I fought him as a woman, holding only a blade. He probably wondered why I would. He was dead before he could wonder too much.

Then there was another wolf, and then two of them at once, and then it was like half a dozen of them came at me. Voss had taken over every pack in Colorado. He had warriors to spare.

And that was a good thing for him, because I killed every single one that took me on. I didn’t stop to question how.

When I had a second to let my surroundings sink into my consciousness, I felt the battle Voss’s wolves had brought to Shadowfield. The viciousness and the savagery beat at my heart and my mind, because wolves learned early not to make a lot of noise when they fought.

Noise brought humans.

But the air was red with blood, and the ground was littered with dead.

And then, I saw Voss.

Or…something.

He was physically changed in a way that should have been impossible. He was his wolf, yet he was his man, as well. Standing on two legs with a man’s body, but larger and covered in fur. And his head was that of his wolf.

He was hideous, and he was wrong.

It was as though a demon had jumped inside him and was pulling and twisting him like a bone-and-blood-filled lump of clay.

He saw me coming and if a wolf could grin, that one did. He casually shot a stream of storm-colored power at a nearby wolf, one of Jared’s scouts. His power blasted a hole through her chest and she fell almost gracefully, immediately dead.

I groaned beneath the weight of that responsibility and the sorrow for not only the scout, or the other wolves who’d died there that night, but for the living who would grieve them.

I raced toward him without a thought for my safety. I had one goal.

Killing Gavin Voss.

When he sent a halfhearted stream of magic at me, I instinctively lifted my demon blade. And when the power hit the blade, it reflected it back at him harder and faster than I could even comprehend.

One second the power was coming at me, and the next, it was hitting him like lightning striking a tree. The flash nearly blinded me, and the crack should have split him right down the middle.

But his head was thrown back, his arms wide, his body seemingly held in place by electricity that refused to release him.

He jerked like a rag doll, and for a few seconds, he was helpless.