After softly clearing his throat and running a hand through his hair, he disappeared around the side of the building. It left Emmett and I together. I watched him with keen interest.
This man was the missing piece of their trio, and they’d been lacking the level head, kindness, and pure physical strength while he’d been out of the field. Maybe he would have been able to wrestle Freya’s secrets from her, one soft-spoken word at a time. He was nothing like Shan’s abrasive, demanding personality, or Caspian’s mushy and sensitive soul.
“Did either of you know it was my memories she wiped?” he asked after Caspian had been gone a few minutes.
I shook my head, having heard about his memories during my eavesdropping. If Freya had known, she would have mentioned it. She likely found out at the exact moment he did.
“That’s a crazy coincidence. Then again, I guess not. She’s been at the centre of this the whole time, and we’ve been investigating her.” He half-grinned, shaking his head. “When she finds outwhywe were investigating the murderer, she’s going to be upset.”
My ears twitched and swiveled, urging him to speak more. Emmett noticed and shook his head. “When Freya hears about it, it’ll be from one of them. Probably Shan, who will never admit out loud that she turned him into a short-sighted idiot.”
I sat primly as he lapsed into silence, stiffening a few minutes later when there was a shuffle of feet behind me. Emmett leapt up, his enhanced senses catching the same thing. Every hair on my body stood on end when a group of ten men appeared at one end of the alleyway, another ten men at the other, boxing us in.
So much for a covert mission.
ChapterEight
EMMETT
They didn’t wait for us to explain ourselves before attacking.
I shifted into my bear form before they reached us, ripping through every stitch of clothing I’d been wearing. My bellow was an attempt to warn Caspian if they hadn’t gotten to him first, but I noticed the shimmer of a barrier around our group. I imagined it blocked sound and would stop us from running outside its confines as well.
Below my feet Oswald hissed, a shield appearing in front of him and flickering in and out of existence. From my understanding of familiars, their powers were solely to help their bonded witches. Not themselves. He was too far from Freya to keep himself protected for long.
None of the attackers bothered with him, luckily. They were too focused on me, the giant bear knocking over nearby dumpsters. My limbs were bulky and hard to manoeuvre in the small space, but I swatted one man hard enough to send him flying. He hit the wall with an unpleasant sounding crack.
After that, they focused on attacking me from a distance.
Arrows embedded themselves in my torso, fireballs singed my fur, and I tried to hope I would at least be able to escape this alley somewhat intact.
The hope fizzled out when a witch with vibrant orange hair pointed a wand at me and drew a series of runes in the air. I couldn’t dodge, and on my own I was incapable of breaking the spell once it hit. Shifters didn’t have natural magical abilities. Shan was the one who broke spells and created shields, but he wasn’t here.
Giving one last stand, I rammed my head against an archer, swiping at another and leaving a giant scratch on his arm. Then every muscle in my body froze. It was a familiar sensation, since Freya had done a similar spell on me when I’d caught her mid-murder. Since I’d been hovering on three legs, I dropped like a rock onto the dirty cement ground.
Oswald hissed, but I couldn’t see him from where I was lying. The only person in front of me was a man with a long and wicked-looking knife, stepping hesitantly forward. He grinned at me when I only glared and didn’t move, pressing the knife against the fur at my throat. I refused to close my eyes. I’d watch him kill me and maybe I’d find him in my next life and make his life hell.
With my eyes wide open I conjured up an image of Caspian in my head, praying to any listening gods that he’d gotten away. I wanted him to be the last thing I saw before kicking the bucket, but an imagined imitation was going to have to do.
Blood was trickling down my fur, the blade sunk a couple of inches into my skin, when the witch woman’s voice called out. “Wait.”
Instead of retracting the blade, he pushed it further into me. He glanced at the witch but stayed focused on me, so either she hadn’t been talking to him, or he didn’t care to listen. The pain was making me dizzy when the blade fell away, and I refocused on the man who’d been holding it. He was lying on the ground now, a hole burned through his chest.
She’d been talking to him, apparently, and didn’t like to be disobeyed.
Caspian’s image faded from my mind and I slowed down my breathing, letting out a long breath. My racing heart wasn’t keen to calm quickly after I’d come so close to death.
The head of bright hair appeared in front of me, far too close as she frowned over my wound. A faint warmth spread when she placed her hand to it and chanted, and my pain faded. Having someone unfamiliar do magic on me made me uncomfortable, but I didn’t have control of my mouth to protest. Being healed would give me a better chance of escape later, so it might be to my benefit in the end.
I’d started to regain control of my limbs when another man stopped in front of me, looking down with a grin. The most noticeable thing about him was the bright pink tropical print shirt he was wearing, like he’d just returned from a gods damned beach vacation. “This is my lucky day,” he proclaimed, slinging an arm across the witch woman’s shoulders.
She wasn’t pleased with the action, shrugging him off. “Possibly,” she said. “I’m only assuming, but that familiar looks like the few pictures we have of hers. This guy could be on the team with Shan and Cas. We haven’t located Caspian.”
“Your assumptions are correct more often than not, Amabella. I’m thrilled to have more gifts for Freya. She’s truly getting spoiled today. Is Clement looking for the incubus?”
Amabella nodded and I tried not to give anything away. In bear form and with my muscles struggling to move, controlling my expressions was easy. Ensuring nothing came through in my eyes was harder.
“Clement is no longerlookingfor the incubus,” someone said from behind me. “I have him.”
