Page 54 of Moon Destiny

He lifted his hand and made a fist—and he didn’t open it until my eyes were bulging and my heels drummed against the mattress.

“Easy, Seren,” Rourke said. “We need her alive.” The for now hung in the air.

I focused on moving air in and out of my lungs…and wondered if Seren’s fist-squeezing trick might be doing permanent damage. I’d passed out a couple of times in the beginning before he’d seemed to get a better idea of how much oxygen deprivation I could tolerate before losing consciousness. Apparently, torture wasn’t a scientific thing.

Dots swam in my vision again, but they were red this time. And it was weird because there were only two. One floated in the air above Rourke’s head, and the other bounced before settling in the middle of Seren’s forehead.

“Sniper!” Rourke shouted. He launched himself at Seren, tackling him to the ground just as drywall exploded directly behind the spot where Seren had been standing.

There was a series of pops outside—like someone setting off a bunch of fireworks all at once.

I struggled to sit up.

The window shattered, sending glass flying everywhere. A second later, a huge brown wolf soared through the opening.

Hugh.

But this was Hugh as I’d never seen him. He hit the ground with bared fangs and eyes blazing with green fury. More shots popped outside, followed by men’s shouts and the deep, menacing growls of wolves. There was a battle raging outside, but it seemed far away compared to the one unfolding in front of me.

Seren jumped to his feet in a surprisingly agile move for such a big man. Hugh lunged toward him, but Seren swept his arm down in a swift arc. “Lapsus!”

An invisible force lifted Hugh’s body and hurled him backwards. He slammed into the wall, but came up snarling. Before he could lunge again, Seren raised both hands and squeezed them into tight fists.

Hugh staggered, his head dipping violently as his oxygen cut off.

Oh shit. I didn’t need to understand the ins and outs of magic to know Seren had been holding back with me. All this time, he’d been crushing one of my lungs. Now he was destroying both of Hugh’s.

I jumped off the bed just as Rourke made a grab for me. I dodged his grasp, scrambled over the second bed, and flung myself at Hugh’s feet. My knees stung as I slid over broken glass, but I barely felt the pain as I grabbed the ruff around Hugh’s neck.

“Breathe!” I pleaded. “Fight it!” But he was just as helpless as I’d been. Terror rode me hard, and I whirled. “Stop it!” I screamed at Seren. “You’re killing him!”

“That’s the fucking point,” Rourke snarled, his mask of civility off. His eyes glowed as he charged at me. At the same moment, the door burst open and a group of men in head-to-toe camouflage and tactical gear swooped inside. They pointed their weapons at Rourke, and the one in the lead bellowed, “Don’t move!”

Two things happened at once: Seren opened his hands and thrust them toward the newcomers, and Rourke drew a handgun from the back of his waistband. He aimed at Hugh.

I didn’t think. I just moved, throwing myself sideways so I blocked Hugh’s body. A bullet whizzed by my head. I hit the ground—and then everything slowed down.

The soldier leading the charge by the door collapsed on the ground, gasping for air.

Rourke whirled and ran to Seren’s side.

Chaos. Someone was shooting. The pops echoed in my ears.

Seren and I locked gazes. He lifted his hand and brought it down in a vicious arc. “Incisus.”

A line of agony streaked down my front. I opened my mouth to scream, but only blood emerged.

A roar shook the room.

The last thing I saw was Seren grip Rourke’s arm—and then they both vanished.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

HUGH

Brooke was fading again. “Help me!” I yelled to no one and everyone. There were plenty of people in the room now. On the floor behind me, Malcolm was in wolf form savaging the neck of the former SEAL Seren had tried to kill. He may have killed him yet, assuming Malcolm’s bite didn’t take.

But I couldn’t worry about that now. Seren had sliced open Brooke’s chest from the inside out, using a power word to manipulate her body down to the cellular level. I ripped open her shirt and snapped her bra. Her chest was open to the bone, the wound so surgically precise it was almost grotesque. The two edges of her flesh tried to knit together before my eyes.

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