Mak lunged. They collided with bone-shattering force, wolf against daemon, phantom fire crackling between them.
An alarm blared through the chaos, summoning all defenders to rally to the pack’s aid.
Kaal and Boaz shifted, flanking left, Zev and Rigo right.
They fought as a pack, shifting, striking, retreating, and assaulting again. Thesachemstruck back with vicious intent at one point, sending Zev skidding across the deck.
Kaal and Mak circled, driving in from opposite sides.
The Sauvage guards, armored in gunmetal gray, unleashed pulse rifles from the dock cover, firing plasma rounds and ion darts that tore through the sachem’s hide, which only just slowed.
Still, the entity laughed, a sound like tearing steel.
Kaal’s claws raked over the monster’sflank, buying Mak a breath to recover.
It took Mak’s fangs locking on the creature’s throat and Kaal’s talons ramming into its spine, with Boaz thrusting an electro-spear into its chest, to drop the monster to its knees.
Blood and spectral smoke hissed from its wounds as it laughed, gurgling and broken. Its eyes, burning red, fixed on Mak.
‘Who sent you?’ Mak growled, panting, fur matted with gore and grime. ‘Why?’
Thesachemcoughed out a ragged breath.
‘You’re the mark, Sauvage. You stand in the way of many great men,’ it rasped. ‘They need you gone, to make way for a new order.’
Then it smiled, a terrible, miasma-soaked grin, and collapsed into ash and violet motes, dissolving into the wind.
Mak stood in the silence, chest heaving, jaw clenched, the creature’s warning lingering long after the body had vanished.
Chapter 16
SABA
Saba caught the sound of Koda tearing away late in the night.
The door downstairs slammed shut, and when she peeked through the curtains, she saw him, racing away and disappearing into the shadows.
Something was wrong.
A knot formed in Saba’s stomach, unease settling over her like a suffocating shroud.
Suddenly, she caught more movement in the dark and jolted.
The unmistakable silhouette of a man, not Koda, was walking towards the front steps.
She strained to make out the figure moving through the shadows beyond the garden, but the darkened bushes and distance obscured his features.
He prowled with unhurried purpose across the gravel drive toward the lodge’s front door, the crunch of his steps cutting in the quiet.
Saba’s breath caught when a shard of moonlight fell on his face..
Zolan Asivan.
Why he was here this late at night was beyond her.
Unless he had news for her.
The entryway lights lit his lean, angular, handsome face.
