Page 13 of Ruin

“No, but I’d like to know where you got that.”

“I’ll explain when we aren’t about to get ripped to pieces.”

He grunted, and pushed past me. I let him, settling in beside Shannon.

“Still Mr Personality, huh?”

She rolled her eyes. “You have no idea.”

I grinned and followed her.

Owen led us up stairs and down corridors. It was obvious he knew the prison layout like the back of his hands. I wondered just how many times they’d been back here, fighting the Weres—or maybe looking for Connor? We burst through some double doors on another floor and began running towards the louder gunfire.

“Myles!”

My heart clenched as I saw Reed’s mate firing into a dark corridor where shadows moved. He was flanked by an organised group of five men.

“Pull out!” Owen yelled. Myles glanced at us, then pulled back, yelling his own commands. The corridor in front of him heaved with movement. I skidded up next to the handsome, dark skinned shifter.

“Ember?” Myles’s eyes gleamed like emeralds in the darkness of his skin. His face was thinner and he had lost the glimmer of health he’d once had, but that didn’t stop him being beautiful.

I grinned, my heart aching at the grief I saw in his eyes. “Yeah.” Lifting the bow, I let an arrow fly. Magic made it glow as it shot forward. I grabbed Myles’s wrist. “We need to get out of here!”

He nodded and followed me as I sprinted up the next set of stairs after Owen and Stone. My lungs burned, still not fully recovered from using Fire. I let Myles go past me, getting my breath back as I waited for B’nar, Blue and Alex, who were helping some of the women up the stairs, to pass me. Prime grumbled, but pushed a bit of power my way so that I could keep up with them. I really needed to figure out how to replenish my energy after using the power of my phoenix, or I was going to be useless not only in finding Connor, but in this war against Berith.

Once again, I burst out into another corridor, but this time frigid, snow laced wind rushed by my sweaty face.

Bloody hell! The outside!

The others were already running through the old door, which hung off its hinges letting flurries of snow into the corridor. I rushed after them, my boots slipping on the wet floor. The fresh smell of forest and snow hit me. Gods, I’d missed the smell of the outside world—myworld. Faerie was a beautiful place, but it wasn’t home.

Stone and Owen were crouched behind some storage crates, firing at the tower near the perimeter of a broken metal fence. I took a moment to peer at the compound. No planes graced the runway, but plenty of dead bodies covered the ground. Some were surrounded in fresh blood, others were just mounds of snow with a limb poking through the surface to tell me what it was. I wondered how often Owen attacked the prison. Berith certainly didn’t appear short of werewolves, that was for sure.

I saw my friends with the women. They were sheltering behind a large metal storage crate a few feet from the doorway.

“I’m going to them,” I mouth to Shannon who was with Stone and Owen. She nodded and gave me cover fire, darting out alongside as I ran for them.

When I skidded on my arse beside Alex, Shannon landed right beside me. I looked back. Stone glared at Shannon from his position. She scowled and stuck her middle finger up.

I chuckled, peering around the edge of the container. A guard stood in a tall watchtower picking off Owen’s men. We were isolated from the hole in the broken fence where Owen’s men had clearly got in. “Can you cover me?” I asked Shannon. She nodded.

“We’ll do the same,” B’nar said. “About time you showed up with that bow. My magic can’t reach that far.”

“Wow, that must grate on your ego,” I muttered, rolling my eyes. Blue snorted a laugh and B’nar shot her a death glare.

“On three,” I said, holding in my own laugh. I loaded an explosive arrow and held the bow ready. “One. Two. Three…” I stood tall trusting the others to have my back—and let the arrow fly. Seconds later the tower exploded, sending a plume of smoke into the air.

Owen was already moving even as the debris fell. “Let’s go! Round them up!”

Stone and Myles did. I was pleased to see Kawan amongst the soldiers that ran out from the building, bloodied and dirty, but alive.

He nodded at me, but now wasn’t the time for reunions. I nodded back and fixed my bow away, pulling my weapon instead. We ran through knee deep snow and out through the metal fence, into the forest. I was very aware we were leaving a trail of footprints for our enemy to follow, but there was nothing to be done about it.

“This way!” yelled Owen from the front. I followed his lead, B’nar, Blue and Alex staying close by my side as we helped the poor naked women through the snow. We were soon faced with a raging river of ice cold water.

“You’ve got to be kidding me? We can’t shift, none of us can, and we’ll freeze if we get in there. My baby will die,” said Selina, shaking her head violently.

“Yeah, well, no choice if you don’t want an army of those demon fuckers breathing down your neck,” Stone said.

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