“You little bastard,” Sebastian growled. He stomped down, but Cat neatly avoided his boots and sent the remote skittering under the bars with a flick of his tail.
But it gave Sebastian a chance to finally catch him. He lifted Cat up, holding him in a stranglehold even as Cat writhed around and bit at this hand.
Logan wasn’t going to give him a chance to do whatever he was thinking of. He ate up the space between him and the remote in two long strides and snatched it up off the floor.
Please work, please work.
He pressed the button.
The gate groaned in protest, like it thought it had already done its job for the day. There was no explosivewhooshas the bars pulled back into the ceiling at breathtaking speed; they rose slowly and creakily.
But theywererising, and Sebastian saw it. He dropped Cat like a hot potato—Cat hissed and flailed before regaining his dignity in the air and zipping his way back to Iz—and took off.
There wasn’t enough room yet for them to make it under the gate, but there would be in just a few seconds. He looked at Iz. With her mother still in chains, they would probably have to split up. As much as Logan wanted Iz at his side, he would have to—
Elizabeth Benoit spoke before either of them could. “I wouldn’t dream of keeping you from catching that man. If one of you is thinking of staying behind on my account, don’t you dare.” She raised her head, and Logan could see so much of Iz in her forceful courage. “Run. Catch the bastard.”
That was all the permission Iz needed.
The moment the door was up high enough for them to slide under it, they were back out in the tunnel. Logan’s blood was pounding so hard that it felt like all he could hear.
Was the portal still there? What would happen if Sebastian had already gone back through it and closed it?
Don’t think, just run.
As he raced down the tunnel, he flowed into his hellhound’s body. His run became a hellhound’s almost gallop-like gait, and he felt the cool stone beneath his massive paws.
It was an instinctual shift, as natural as water running downhill. His instincts were clicking along faster than his brain, processing what his human self hadn’t had time to consciously put together. He had been down this tunnel once already, and he knew its size. It would be tight in places, but his hellhound would still have room to maneuver. Sebastian would have enough room to shift too, but it wouldn’t help his speed much, not when he couldn’t fly. Dragons weren’t that fast on the ground.
He could still use his dragonfire, though. Hellhounds were tough, but they didn’t have a dragon’s near-invulnerability to fire. If Sebastian used it on him, he’d roast him.
Iz thought of that at the same time he did.
>
Speaking of instincts, he spared half-a-second to admire hers: in the midst ofeverything, she’d remembered that their telepathic link had come back now that he was in hellhound form, and she had thought to use it to warn him so she didn’t shout out his vulnerability in a way Sebastian could overhear. God, she was good.
> he said, still running full-tilt. >
The agonizingly slow raising of the gate had given Sebastian far too much of a head start, and he’d bolted at an impressive speed. How long was the tunnel? Emergency situations made time stretch out like taffy, so he wasn’t sure how many minutes it had taken them to reach the cavern, and they’d been moving slowly and cautiously then—he had no idea. All he knew was that if Sebastian went through the portal and slammed it closed behind him, they were screwed. If they gave him time to reach some other trap as sinister as the shiftsilver deposit prison, they were screwed even worse.
And if he let Iz race intothat, and it didn’t involve dragonfire—
He couldn’t even stand to consider that. He had to shield her.
His hellhound picked up a whiff of ozone, like the aftermath of a lightning strike. The scent made his nose itch.
Magic,his hellhound said in a low growl.The portal is still open.
Good. He lowered his head as he barreled forward, ready to charge and knock Sebastian down.
Then he came around a sharp corner and saw that he wasn’t going to get the chance. Sebastianhadshifted, and there was no way to knock a dragon anywhere he didn’t want to go.
Sebastian opened his mouth, fire swirling down in the darkness at the back of his throat.
Logan’s mind touched Iz’s, or maybe his hellhound reached out to her dragon. Like his shift, it felt like it was beyond anything he’d decided to do.
He didn’t use words, he just showed her what he was about to hit. It was a warning, a goodbye, and an apology all in one.