Sensing another cur approaching behind them, Harley silently slid behind a tree, her gaze still trained on Salvatore as he held out a hand toward the curs. Even from a distance she could feel a painful pressure filling the clearing.
She didn’t have a clue what he was doing, but she suspected the curs weren’t going to be happy.
She was right.
With agonized whines the animals fell to the ground, their fur-covered bodies writhing. Still Salvatore continued to hold out his hand, his powerful compulsion hammering into the hapless curs.
Harley winced at the sound of bones popping. Somehow Salvatore was forcing the curs back to human form.
A painful process, if their howls were anything to go by.
Fascinated by the macabre spectacle, Harley nearly missed when the cur behind her began to move forward. Pressing herself to the tree, she shook her head in disgust as she recognized the man who was trying to sneak up behind Salvatore.
A red-headed, fiery-tempered cur, Frankie always had more brawn than brain.
And thankfully, that included ramming headlong into a battle without making sure he wasn’t about to be out-flanked.
Following silently in his wake, Harley pressed her gun to the back of his head.
“Hello, Frankie,” she murmured. “Miss me?”
With a foul curse, Frankie whirled around, murder in his eyes. “Bitch.”
Before he could guess her intent, Harley hit the idiot on his hard head with the butt of her gun, the force sending him sprawling onto the ground, knocked out cold.
“You have no idea.”
“Done playing?” Salvatore asked, a faint smile curving his lips.
Harley shrugged. “What now?”
“Now we leave.”
She waved her gun toward the unconscious curs. “What about the Three Stooges?”
“I don’t think they’ll be in the mood to follow us. At least not for a few hours.” He moved to grab her hand, tugging her through the trees.
“What did you do to them?”
“Just a little reminder that I’m their king.”
“Little?”
“They’re still alive, aren’t they?”
Harley grimaced. “I thought you didn’t have a God complex?”
He chuckled, lifting her hand to brush his lips over her knuckles.
“I don’t like to lose.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” She pulled her hand from his grip, unable to concentrate when he was touching her. Or at least, she couldn’t concentrate on what she needed to concentrate on. Ripping off Salvatore’s clothes and taking the gorgeous Were in the bushes wasn’t going to help them escape. “So I assume that was the infamous Briggs?”
Salvatore’s smile widened, as if he could read her mind.
Jackass.
“A projection of him.”
Harley had heard of the trick, but she’d never encountered anyone with the magical power to perform it.
“He wasn’t really there?”
Salvatore knocked aside a dead tree leaning across the path, leading her down a steep hill covered with leaves and loose stones. Absolutely perfect for sliding down and breaking her fool neck.
“A portion of his essence was bound in the spell, but his physical form wasn’t present.”
“He felt solid enough.”
“Si. It’s the risky part of such a spell. Although he’s far away, he can allow his spirit to become a solid force. It gives him the ability to travel at will, but it also makes him vulnerable to attack.”
“Then he was injured?”
“His physical body carries the wounds he suffered in spirit form.”
Satisfaction flared through her heart. She hated to waste a perfectly good bullet.
“I’m glad.”
Salvatore’s soft chuckle brushed over her skin. “My sentiments exactly.” Pausing, the Were sniffed the air. Then seeming to come to a decision, he continued down the hill. “This way.”
“The river?” she muttered.
“Curs hate water.”
Harley licked her suddenly dry lips. “So do Weres.”
“Which means the last thing they’ll expect is for us to travel by boat,” Salvatore pointed out, stepping through the last of the trees.
Harley’s steps faltered as she realized that Salvatore had led them directly to a small wooden dock where a shiny new speedboat was moored.
Damn.Like any sane Were, she hated the water.
No, it was more than just hate.
She was terrified of water.
There was no rhyme or reason to her fear. It wasn’t as if she could drown. And as far as she knew, she’d never had a childhood trauma that included water.
She only knew that the only good water was the kind that came out of a showerhead and then disappeared down a drain.
“You also claimed that they wouldn’t be able to find us if we were wearing the amulets,” she accused, biting her bottom lip as Salvatore nimbly leapt into the boat, and with a tiny surge of his power, had the motor running.
He glanced back to watch her far more cautious approach, his golden eyes sparkling with rueful amusement.
“Why did I know you would throw that in my face?”
“Do you want to be in the middle of a raging river when that demented Briggs attacks again?”
He paused, easily sensing her tension. “You’re scared of the water.”
Grudgingly she moved down the dock, climbing into the boat with an awkward stiffness.
“I’m not scared. I’m…”
“You’re?”
“Naturally cautious.” The boat rocked and Harley hastily dropped onto the padded seat next to Salvatore. “Have you even driven a boat before?”
He shrugged, reaching over to untie the line. “How hard can it be?”
Harley popped to her feet, her heart stuck in her throat. “No way.”
Salvatore pushed her firmly back into her seat, then before she could protest, he was pulling away from the dock and gunning the boat through the water.
“Don’t worry, Harley,” he said over the roar of the motor. “I’m not going to turn us over.”
“Capsize,” she gritted. “It’s called capsize.”
He laughed. “Fine. I won’t capsize us.”
The river was high and choppy, lashing at the boat as if determined to smash it to tiny bits. Harley’s stomach threatened to revolt, and she grimly latched her attention onto Salvatore’s finely chiseled profile.
In the late afternoon sunlight his skin glowed with a rich bronze, his raven hair whipping in the wind. He looked hard and dangerous and ruthlessly male.
“And what if Briggs makes a surprise visit?” she demanded.
He flashed a teasing grin. “Then capsizing will be the least of our concerns.”
“Not helping.”
“Cara, I don’t know how Briggs managed to find me, but I’m certain it will take him time to heal. This is our best chance to get to Styx.”
She clutched the edges of her seat. “I should never have come back.”
Salvatore kept his gaze trained on the gigantic barge that was headed in their direction, but Harley didn’t miss the sudden tightening of his hands on the wheel.
“Why did you?”
“Come back?” She shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“Not nearly so much as why you left.”
“Why wouldn’t I leave? You’re being hunted by a demented, magically enhanced Were and a large number of pissed off curs,” she smoothly lied. No need explaining her fascination with him was what truly scared the heck out of her. His arrogance had already reached epic status. “Only a lunatic would hang around you.”
“If that’s the reason you left, then you wouldn’t have snuck away while I slept.”
“I snuck away because I knew you would try to stop me. I didn’t want to argue.”
He snorted. “Since when?”
“Maybe you should just concentrate on driving.”
Caine paced the small clearing, halting before the three curs who knelt in the dirt.
He wasn’t surprised he was too late.
In fact, after he’d realized Giuliani and Harley had found the amulets he’d hidden in the tunnels, he was shocked the fools had stumbled across them at all.
Unlike his soldiers, Caine hadn’t run blindly after prey he couldn’t track. Instead, he had called for the witch who had made the amulets, knowing she could cast a spell to reveal their location.
At least their general location.
Magic was never an exact science.
Which was why he preferred not to depend on it.
“Forgive us, master, the Were overwhelmed us,” Tio, the cur nearest to him, muttered, his face pressed to the ground. “We failed you.”
“His power,” a second cur, Drew, muttered. “Shit. I never felt anything like it.”
Caine’s jaw clenched. He didn’t like to be reminded of Giuliani’s power. Or how easily he could enforce his will on curs.
“Just tell me what happened, you idiots.”
In unison the three soldiers climbed to their feet, the two naked curs still trembling from Giuliani’s attack while Frankie was nursing a wound to his head that was swiftly healing. Harley’s work, no doubt.