Page 5 of Magic Hunted
Wet cold lapped my face, half submerging me in an icy grip. An unrelenting current pummeled into my back and pressed my stomach against an unforgiving wall. I jerked back to consciousness, choking on a mouthful of water, finding myself snagged in the spindly branches of a fallen dead tree caught in the strongest part of the current in the middle of the river. The roar of a waterfall thundered close downstream. It was a miracle I hadn’t been swept into the deluge. The current swirled around my legs, threatening to rip me from my precarious position and drag me down.
I gripped a branch to heft myself up. Pain throbbed through my muscles, every movement weighted by heavy limbs. A spider skittered along a twig, running for cover in the white mess of a web it had made for itself. Drops of water clung to the web, refracting the sunlight in a flash of silver.
A sawing grind rose from my ribs, no doubt cracked from the impact of my fall. Or perhaps it was from Titan’s torture. Either way, it didn’t matter. I hope he thought me dead and gone. There was no way I could have survived the fall, nor the impact of hitting the water. I’d seen too many people thrown off the top of the castle to misunderstand my fate.
My mother’s curse had saved me. Her death magic had worked to reanimate me, but I’d still suffered. My body throbbed from where I’d hit the river and my lungs burned from the water I’d coughed up. I paid the aches of my body no heed because this was my first real chance to disappear. I would stay dead to Titan and finally I would be free.
All I had to do was get out of panther territory and make it to the wolves. I had to stay in the shadows and keep away from any panther shifter I saw. Unfortunately, panthers regularly roamed the jungle.
There was a good reason I stayed clear of them. If I found my mates and they forced the Change, Titan would feel the ripple of magic it released from the grimoire hidden inside me. One touch would be all it would take for him to bring down the stronghold on me. Nothing would stand in his way to get the grimoire and the shifters unlucky enough to be my mates would add to the death tally against my already black soul.
Wolf territory would keep me safe. At least, safer than here. Safe and free were the only things I wanted from my life. I pulled my aching body toward the embankment using branches until the current no longer caught my legs. My foot struck a stone on the riverbed, signaling it was shallow enough to stand. I lurched to my feet, my wet clothing heavy on my frame, staggered free from the water and collapsed on the bank. I rolled onto my back, panting and trembling with the effort. Gods, dying hurt.
A flash lit the darkness behind my closed eyelids. I cracked open my eyes to see another sparkling golden dome across the canopy over the dragon’s territory. My breath stuttered in my lungs, held tight with an invisible grip.
Oh gods.Another piece of the grimoire had been unlocked.
My mother’s parting words floated through my mind from that fateful day.
“Haera. Sweetheart. You are strong, my dearest. That is why you’ve been selected with the most important task of all. Reunite the other sections of the grimoire so it can be brought back together. Find your mates. They will protect you and the grimoire above all else. Go now, sweetheart, and remember I love you.”
She embedded the grimoire inside me before she ran herself through with a sword moments before Titan broke into our house. I escaped out a window, watching from the shadows as Titan stepped over my parents’ bodies as though they were trash.
I closed my eyes, letting the cold mud beneath my body cushion me. Hot tears bled from beneath my clenched lids. I wouldn’t cry. I screwed my fists in the mud and gave into my daydream where I was in our living room and my mother was singing in front of a crackling fireplace. My fathers were in their favorite arm chairs listening to her and I was surrounded with love and safety. I could almost hear her now. I drifted, caught up in her song, my dream nearly becoming a reality until I jerked awake to the raucous cry of a bird and the rustle of leaves as it darted from its tree perch up into the sky.
I tracked it against the pinks and purples of dusk.Dusk!Shit. I’d been unconscious longer than was safe. The jungle was alive with the sounds of birdsong and the pitch of insect call. By now, I should have been halfway to the wolves and begging forgiveness from them.
I groaned as I rolled to my feet, swaying with fatigue. I staggered toward the safety of the underbrush. I might have reanimated but my body hadn’t miraculously healed. I lifted my damp shirt to reveal black and blue ribs. A tear in my pants revealed a bloody gash along my thigh that throbbed with each step.
A brush of leaves was my only warning before three sleek black panthers melted from the verdure. Head and shoulders larger than any of the other shifters, they pinned me with lethal golden eyes. They slunk soundlessly across the leaf debris. Their powerful bodies moved in perfect synchronicity, muscles bunched with each confident step, sleek fur so dark it was almost black in the dying light.
I knew exactly who they were. Every panther in the territory did. These weren’t any panther shifters. They were thealphas. Ashir was the alpha of alphas. Nature’s apex predator who ruled all panther shifters. With light blue eyes, tanned skin and thick locs tied back from his face, he was lethal. Dias’ piercing green eyes would fulfill my dreams. Savvas with his caramel eyes that looked like they glowed and mop of unruly hair was their gentlest bond brother—gentle being an objective term.
These men were the pinnacle of the panther shifters. They defined strength and power, and were as lethal in their human forms as they were in their animal shapes. Used and abused by Titan as much as I was, they lived a hard life. Compelled to do his bidding, these alphas did what they could to protect their people because it was the only thing they could do.
Titan had no doubt sent them to do his dirty work and track my body. Covering his loose ends.
My stiff limbs didn’t work the way they should and I stumbled backwards. The breath stuttered from my lungs as I fell into the shallows, water splattering everywhere.
“Don’t come any closer. Don’t touch me,” I rasped, holding out a hand as though that would stop three powerful apex predators.
In an instant, three naked men replaced the panthers. The scent of ozone burst around me and my mind faltered as they rose upright.
“That’s not what females usually say to you, Ashir,” the panther with the unruly curls said.
My mouth watered at the sight of their perfectly sculpted flesh and tight rippling muscles. An interplay of dips and ridges from their broad shoulders, thick thighs and toned calves. My gaze bounced from one set of perfect abs to the next. I took in their slim waists, tapered hips, the defined V of muscles that led my eyes lower still. I lost all sense when my gaze fastened on the display of thick, heavy cocks.
Their scents mingled in a mouth-watering flavor of oranges, damp earth and cinnamon, washing around me and caressing my senses, teasing parts of myself I’d never known existed. Something bloomed inside, an awareness awakened. My abdomen fluttered and a sweet heaviness pulled between my thighs. I tensed as my core throbbed with one, big, heavy pulse.
Oh gods, no.
“She doesn’t look as though she’ll put up much of a fight,” Dias said, a line appearing between his brows.
“That’s because we’re dazzling her with our cocks,” Savvas smirked. My gaze locked with his sky-blue eyes. He held it, unwavering and intent, until a small frown formed between his brows.
I choked on air. “Hardly.”
The comeback was all my short-firing brain could come up with, because the reality was, despite the obvious danger I was in, their cocksweredazzling me. They consumed my focus, made my mouth water and my fingers twitch with the need to caress and discover…and what the hells is wrong with me?
