Moira moved to help me stand, and we spared only a second to hug each other. Both of us were shaking, but the feel of her arms wrapping around my body, holding me tight, steadied me. We could do this. Weweredoing this.
I pulled away, my hands resting on her shoulders as I searched her eyes. “I memorized the route they took. If you can do something about the door, I can get us out of here.”
Moira smirked. “I’ll do you one better. I’ll handle the doorandthe security system.”
Her eyes began to glow as her lips whispered the words of her spell. I knew better than to interrupt her while she was casting, but curiosity tugged at me. I wasn’t familiar enough with witchcraft to know exactly what she was doing, but as she continued to speak, the air grew warm and thick around us. If it was possible for air to be malleable, that’s what it felt like. As if Moira had found a way to shape and bend it to her will.
Just when the heat began to feel unpleasant, it evaporated as quickly as a bubble being popped, leaving absolutely nothing to suggest it had ever been there at all.
“Okay,” she murmured. Faint blue smudges marred the pale skin beneath her eyes, alluding to how much it had taken out of her to cast her spell. “The glamour should hold until we get out of here.”
“Glamour?”
“I created a time-loop, essentially. Anyone who comes to check on us will see the two of us sleeping in our cell like a couple of good little prisoners. But we should hurry, just to be safe.”
Shock washed over me. The Belladonna coven was insanely powerful, but seeing Moira in action and hearing the extent of what she could do... I was finally starting to understand just how powerful they actually were.
“Of course you did. Okay, let’s do this.”
Moira pressed her palm to the door, whispering under her breath as she magicked the lock open. The red welts around her wrist were hard to miss. Together the two of us made our way out into the hall.
Closing my eyes, I called up the map of the maze of hallways in my mind as I snagged her hand and led her back the way we’d been brought inside.
Left turn, twenty steps, right turn, seven steps, left turn...
We were almost there. It was too quiet. Too easy. Twelve more steps.
“Where do you two think you’re going?” The low, gravelly voice belonged to a man I hadn’t heard before. His rough London accent and the scent of stale beer and grease on his skin had me on edge. This was a man who didn’t care what he had to do to get by. He had Moira by the arm, his eyes glazed and dark.
“Get your hands off her,” I snarled.
His laugh morphed into a smoker’s cough, deep in his chest, wheezing. Moira’s frantic gaze locked on mine, and I could sense her plea from here.Do something.So I did. I let go of all the control I’d worked so hard for and let as much of my wolf out to play as possible. My vision ran red, fingers shifting to razor-sharp claws. He didn’t see me coming until his guts hung outside his body.
“You?” he gasped, releasing Moira in a feeble attempt to use both hands to hold his entrails in place. To put them back where they belonged.
“Me.” From the massive amount of blood pooling on the floor, I definitely hit an artery. Even the best surgeon in London wouldn’t be able to put him back together in time to save his life. “You’ve got something... just there,” I said, pointing to the bit of intestine that had escaped his hold as he crumpled to the floor in a twitching heap.
“If I wasn’t so disgusted, I’d be turned on right now,” Moira whispered. “You’re a beast.”
I shrugged, flipping my hair over my shoulder. “He had it coming.”
Moira pulled open the door, and the two of us walked into the early morning light. “God, girl, you’re gonna need a shower... maybe two. I think you have blood in your hair.”
“Worth it,” I said with a grin, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze. “Thanks for your help in there. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
She raised a brow. “Me? Did you seeyouin there? You’re a one-woman weapon of mass destruction. You killed that guy in like, two seconds flat.”
I grinned. “Yeah, I was pretty awesome, wasn’t I?”
For someone who’d been treated like a useless waste of space her whole life, being able to take him down, get us out of there, and not fall apart made me feel like maybe coming to Ravenscroft was a good thing after all.
Footsteps pounded down the alley, sending my adrenaline spiking once more. I shoved Moira behind me, already prepared to defend her when two familiar faces came around the corner, staggering to a halt.
“Noah?”
“Sunday? What the hell happened to you?” He raced forward, his eyes dark with fury. “Where the fuck are they? I’ll kill them.”
“Already taken care of,” I assured him.
“You should’ve seen her, Thorne. She was like an animal. She diced him up without flinching,” Moira said as Ash wrapped her in an embrace.
Noah’s eyes remained wild as he looked from my blood-splattered body to Moira and back again. “Did she now?”
“She did,” I confirmed with a nod. “I have plans with my boyfriend this weekend. I wasn’t about to miss them.”
Without warning, my limbs began trembling with fierce intensity, teeth chattering as adrenaline finally left my system. Oh, shit. I was lightheaded, nauseated, and there was no chance I’d be upright much longer.
Noah seemed to sense my shift in attitude, concern flickering across his face before he scooped me into the cradle of his arms.
“Well, my little warrior. Your boyfriend has plans for you as well, and they start right bloody now.”