Chapter 46: : Chapter 46

The writhing roots dragged my body downward through a long, snaking tunnel. I screamed as rocks ripped into my skin and tore my clothes. Suddenly, I was falling, and then agony shot up my spine as my body slammed into the ground.

Groaning, I rolled to my side. I was in a large, dark cavern. Small patches of bioluminescent moss cast a dim light, enough that my shadow magic let me see clearly in the dark.

Clutching my aching arm, I got to my feet and looked up. Far above, the hole I had fallen from was closing as roots filled the tunnel and knit together.

Panic fluttered in my chest, and I quickly searched the chamber for hidden exits but found none.

I was trapped.

At the far end of the cavern, another cluster of roots on the ceiling began to move. They slowly descended from the ceiling with Kahanov in their grasp.

He raised his hands, and three giant balls of light formed in the air, illuminating the dank interior cavern. “Ah, Savannah. Alone once again. This time, there’s nowhere to run.”

“Let me go, Kahanov, or I’ll fucking kill you.”

“Kahanov? Dear, no. You all keep calling me that, but Ulan hasn’t been here for a long, time. His body has been very useful, though.”

I backed away and extended my claws. “What the fuck are you talking about, and why are you after me, you asshole?”

He summoned the knife as the roots set him down, and menace and foul magic vibrated the air. “Your family killed my wolf, and so I’m going to take yours in return. I’ll be whole again, and then I’ll bring your family and the Order and the pack to their knees. They’ll beg the dark god for his mercy, but the only mercy we will offer is death.”

The dark god? An image of the black wolf in the sky outside of my aunt and uncle’s house filled my mind. But before I could process it, he lunged.

I spun away from the blade and suddenly extinguished the magic lights high overhead with my shadow magic.

Kahanov lurched forward, blinded for just a second.

I summoned the blade and struck.

Some sixth sense made him turn, and the tip only grazed his skin. He bellowed with anger and released a blast of green fire where I’d been—but I’d already moved away.

The blade vanished from my hands and reappeared in his.

He laughed. “You think you can hide in the dark, Savannah? You think that will save you?”

A stream of emerald fire poured from Kahanov’s hands like the jet of a flame thrower. He spun, sweeping it through the room. I dove out of the way, but the flickering light betrayed my location.

I rolled to the side and tried to scramble out of his reach, but the knife found my shoulder in the fading light of the flames. White-hot searing pain shot through my body, but it was the agony in my soul that sent terror through my veins.

My wolf howled, and a deep sense of wrongness flowed through me as the knife caught on something that wasn’t flesh—my soul.

Before he could strike again, I screamed as I rammed my claws into the bastard and sent him flying back across the room.

With my heart thundering in my ears, I crawled to my feet and stumbled deeper into the cave.

Kahanov looked down at the blood-covered knife in his hand and laughed maniacally.

“Come, now, Savannah, stop cowering in the shadows. I don’t need to see you to hurt you. I’m a blood sorcerer, and as long as I have your blood, I can torture you all I want.” Before I could react, he licked the blade, and the blood trickling down his fingers suddenly began to smoke.

Then it burst into flame.

I screamed in agony as the blood in my veins turned to fire. I staggered to my knees, gasping with pain.

, I begged my wolf.

She growled in my mind.

I tried to master it, but I couldn’t. It hurt too damned much.

Kahanov laughed again. “I’ve tasted your blood, and now I can sense where you are. Your shadows won’t hide you anymore, little wolf.”

The fire surrounding his hand went out, but the fire in my veins only worsened.

I lay gasping and choking as his magic incinerated me from the inside out. I had no idea how to fight this. His magic was living flames in my veins…

My breath caught. My aunt had taught me how to deal with fire. Could it work?

I steeled my mind and summoned my magic. The darkness trickled through me like ice water, slowly extinguishing the blaze within, just as I’d extinguished candles a thousand times before. Though the pain wasn’t all gone, my mind flickered with a momentary sliver of clarity, and my vision cleared.

Kahanov was almost on top of me—creeping silently forward with the knife out, guided by my moans and by the pull of my blood. But why sneak?

It hit me like a flash.

He thought I was just hiding with my magic.

That was an opening. Hope pounding in my chest, I let my cries of pain lure him in like a siren’s song.

Looming over my whimpering body, he raised his hand and rammed the Soul Knife down. His fist slammed into my chest…but it was empty because I’d summoned the blade to mine.

With a swift stroke, I drove the Soul Knife home, and Kahanov let out a blood-curdling shriek. I jerked it back to strike again, but the blade caught—not on flesh or bone, but on something deeper. Something primal.

Kahanov’s soul.

I twisted the blade and pulled with all my strength. His flesh cut easily, but his soul didn’t.

As he screamed, I instinctively poured my magic into the knife. The shadows drained from the room and flowed as billowing tendrils of black smoke poured into the blade itself. My arm went deathly cold, and the sorcerer howled.

And then his cry was cut short as his soul was severed, and the knife swung free.

I rolled away and tried to stand, but before I found my footing, a spectral shockwave rammed me back against the wall. My vision blurred, and the vibrations shook my head. Then an unearthly wail ripped through my mind.

The twisted form of a screaming face rushed toward me and dissipated into mist.

I’d seen that face before, but where?

The specter’s wail lingered in my mind like an echo in a canyon, repeating five words over and over:

My skin crawled with dread. What the hell was that? And what did it mean?

, my wolf said.

Kahanov rolled over and gasped. “You bitch!”

His voice was somehow different with traces of an accent that hadn’t been there before. Blood covered his chest and trickled from his mouth, and he began to crawl toward me like a deranged animal.

I backpedaled and leveled the knife at the creep. “You should be dead. I cut out your soul!”

“Not mine. Dragan’s. And now, thanks to you, I’m free of him and bleeding to death.”

Dragan?

. The twisted, screaming face. I seen it before…in my aunt’s old clippings.

But Dragan was dead.

My mind reeled. I pulled my knife back, preparing to strike the moment he came near. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“The bastard’s ghost possessed me. Ironically, he was the one who needed you alive. I don’t.”

None of this made any goddammed sense. “But…I just freed you!”

“What would you have me do, then? Let you drag me back to Bentham?” He chuckled in the darkness. “Thank you, Savannah. You’ve been useful. And now, the only thing I need you to do is die.”

With a freakish burst of speed, Kahanov—the Kahanov—summoned the blade and charged toward the sound of my voice, lashing out recklessly like a rabid animal. Before I could call it back, the Soul Knife sank deep into my leg, and I gasped with pain. But at least it wasn’t the soul-wrenching agony from earlier.

With a snarl, I twisted away, wrenching the hilt from his hand. Then I spun and rammed my elbow into his face and sent him flying back.

Blood gushed from the wound in my thigh.

Kahanov staggered unsteadily on his feet and grinned with maniacal glee. He raised his hand. “Now this ends.”

The blood still pouring from the knife wounds in my back and leg began to burn my skin. I looked down, and to my horror, the flowing rivulets began to writhe and take shape, bubbling and expanding until they had shifted from trickles of blood into a pair of crimson serpents.

I yelped and staggered back as the two blood snakes wrapped around me.

Panic clouding my thoughts, I tried to tear them away, but the serpents reared back and lashed out. One sank its fangs into my breast and the other into my back. Agony racked my body, and I stumbled into the wall.

I seized the one on my chest. It wrapped around my hand, and then it struck my face with unbelievable speed. Pain shot through my right eye, and half my vision turned red.

I stumbled to the ground in agony. My mind swam, and I couldn’t think.

, my wolf said as she suddenly seized control.

She didn’t ease the transition but rather shifted in a single fell swoop.

Fur sprang from my skin, and my back twisted. My jeans and sweater tore, and my face lengthened into a muzzle as my fangs erupted. Unimaginable anguish ripped through my body, and in the span of two breaths, I’d transformed from girl to monster.

The snakes had lost their hold during the transformation. With lighting reflexes, my wolf clamped the larger serpent in our jaws and bit down. The snake’s head was severed, and its body exploded in a spray of red.

Before the other snake could bite, my wolf dashed through the darkness. Even limping, she moved with utter silence.

Kahanov spun around slowly, listening and searching the darkness of the cavern.

As we crouched down, a pebble scrapped beneath our foot.

The sorcerer’s head whipped toward us, and he unleashed a torrent of flame.

But my wolf didn’t dodge it. With a howl of pain, we leapt through the inferno. Fur burning, we hurtled through the air and rammed our paws into Kahanov’s chest, slamming him down onto his back.

He sank the Soul Knife into our belly, but my wolf ignored the pain. With a savage movement, she bit down on his throat.

And tore.

The metallic tang of blood coated our mouth, and I gagged as Kahanov’s body twitched and then went deathly still.

My wolf rose, and we leaned against the wall, panting.

The horror of the moment was replaced by a new fear.

, I said.

My wolf weakly shook our head.

Our She didn’t wait to argue with me.

Agony tore through me as the shift began. My back arched and popped, and I howled as every wound we had taken cried out in agony. My forelegs lengthened into arms and hands, and my bloodstained fur withdrew into my skin.

Soon, I was human again, trembling and naked on my hands and knees. I had deep knife wounds in my gut and thigh and shoulder, but I still had my soul.

The world spun, and I hauled myself to my feet with a root and looked at the body of the sorcerer. Kahanov…or Dragan. Both. They had died as they had lived—stained with blood.

“Thank you,” I whispered to my wolf as hope and sorrow overwhelmed me.

She whimpered.

For a second, doubt chilled my skin, but I shoved it away. Jaxson was still alive. He had to be. I knew it somehow in my soul.

The room rumbled, and dirt trickled from the ceiling. The place looked like it was going to cave in.

I looked up at the dense cluster of roots at the top of the chamber—the way I’d fallen in. “How the hell do I get out of here?”

, my wolf said weakly. Joy raced through my heart. She still had a little strength for snark.

“Here goes nothing.” I grabbed hold of the roots, then began to haul myself up.

I would never have been able to make the ascent without my claws and new werewolf strength. Even so, I was gravely wounded, and it took the last reserves of my strength to reach the top.

Hundreds of thick roots blocked the way, so I summoned the knife and began to hack.

Silent, unearthly screams echoed through my mind. The roots recoiled and slowly began to wither as I sliced through their flesh and souls.

I buried my sudden guilt for the screaming roots and envisioned each as a blood-red snake. Teeth gritted against the pain and exhaustion, I hacked my way through with abandon, even as I felt the roots wrapping around my feet.

He was pulling me to him somehow, like I was tethered to him by an invisible thread wrapped around my chest.

It was just the delirium of exhaustion, of course, but it gave me strength and dragged me onward all the same.