In the darkness her feet hit something that made a metallic clatter as it bounced across the floor. She was no expert, but she thought the things she’d almost stumbled over were bullet casings. A lot of them.
Her heart pounded like a drum as she tried to move faster. After she’d run through a dozen rooms, each one dirtier and more cluttered than the last, Kat finally stumbled into a large open area where Connor and his pack mates were, along with…well, hell…at first, she wasn’t sure what it was. It looked like a pile of moving debris. But then she made out the vaguely human form and realized she was looking at some kind of simulacrum—a collection of random debris shoved together to look like a person and then magically imbued with movement and behaviors meant to imitate true life.
She’d never had a reason to try and make a sim like this herself, but what else would be made out of wood and trash, running around trying to kill a pack of werewolves?
It took several seconds for the reality of that last part to sink in—along with the image of Connor standing over the unconscious bodies of Zane and Alyssa with blood soaking his uniform—before she started running forward to help.
One of the sims was trodding ponderously toward Connor and the two injured people he was trying to protect. As she watched, her favorite belly scratcher put a bullet through the thing’s head. As expected, it didn’t do much. Then again, shooting something in the head when it didn’t have a brain was a waste. Why did people want to treat every supernatural thing they met like a zombie? It was almost offensive.
Then she realized that Connor seemed to be out of bullets and had dropped his weapon to extend his extremely long claws. While she had to admit that they looked good on him, Kat felt the urge to point out that if putting a bullet through the creature’s head didn’t do anything, a set of claws probably wouldn’t be any more effective.
Wiggling her fingers, Kat solidified the air around the sim and sent it flying toward the nearest wall as fast as she could. Channeling that much magic in her exhausted state damn near knocked her off her feet, but it was still nice seeing the thing explode into chunks of kindling as it hit the concrete wall. Unfortunately, as soon as the wood, metal, and cardboard stopped drifting to the ground, the sim began to reform. That positively sucked. But seeing the bits of cardboard fluttering around abruptly reminded her that there was a way to end this before anyone got hurt.
Or at least, more hurt than they already were.
“There’s a stone token in the center of its chest!” she shouted, taking another wobbly step forwards on legs that were suggesting she sit down right where she was. “You need to rip it apart and find the token. Once I destroy it, they can’t reform.”
Connor and the rest of his trapped pack mates all turned and stared at her. In between fighting the sims, of course. Kat could see the doubt on their faces and had no idea how to resolve the situation in the short amount of time they had available.
“Do what she says! She knows what the hell she’s talking about!” Landry yelled before turning on the creature closest to him and unloading an entire magazine of bullets straight into the thing’s chest.
While painfully loud to Kat, the hail of bullets was effective, bits flying as the creature’s upper torso turned into Swiss cheese. The sim was close to completely breaking in half and stumbling backward when Landry surged forward and shoved his clawed hand into its chest and started rooting around. A few seconds later, he came out with a round flat piece of stone, two or three inches in diameter, dozens of blood-red runic symbols carved into both sides. Landry studied it for less than a second before turning and tossing it in Kat’s direction.
Kat didn’t pause to think about the possibility of being too weak to do it, but simply reached for the magic around her, then pushed it out toward the token.
“Perdere,” she murmured softly.
With the simple destruction spell, the air between her and the fast-approaching piece of stone began to ripple and swirl with darkness. The stone slowed and then stopped, hanging there in midair. It began to vibrate as Kat poured more magic into the stone even as her vision started to dim.
A moment later, the token shattered into a hundred pieces, the remains drifting to the ground leaving little more than dust on the floor. Half a second later, the sim who’d been trying to re-form collapsed into pieces, chunks of metal inside it making a loud clanking sound as they struck the concrete.
The rest of the werewolves went after the three remaining sims, the violence they displayed almost terrifying. But then stone tokens came flying at her all at once and she stopped worrying about how dangerous werewolves could be.
Kat channeled as much magic as her exhausted body would allow, and destroyed the three spell-worked pieces of stone before they reached her.
Her legs turned to jelly from manipulating so much magic in her condition, and her insides weren’t far behind. She would have dropped to the floor, but the thought of needing to use more energy she didn’t have to get back up was too much to think about.
The three remaining sims disintegrated, wood flying everywhere, but she was too tired to care. At least until Connor appeared in front of her, concern clear on his face. There was confusion there, too, but she ignored that. The same way she ignored all the other werewolves who were gathering around the two of them. They weren’t important right then.
Connor was so damn gorgeous, it was sinful. Regulation-cut dark blond hair, hazel eyes, a strong jaw with the perfect amount of scruff and the sexiest dimples any man could possess. Yes, he looked tired, and more than a little bloody. But she knew he was okay, and oh-so-scrumptious.
Taking a few careful steps forward, Kat threw herself into his arms, dragged his head down and captured his lips with hers. Connor seemed a bit surprised at first, but he figured out the plan soon enough and started kissing her back. And like she’d always imagined, damn, could the man kiss. And the way he tasted should have been illegal.
Kat wasn’t sure how long they made out, but she was vaguely aware that she was getting a little dizzy. Purely from all the magic she’d been using, of course. Nothing to do with forgetting to breathe.
When she finally pulled back from Connor’s magically perfect mouth, she couldn’t hide the smile crossing her lips, even though she was definitely starting to swoon now. “I’ve been waiting to do that for nine months and it was just as good as I imagined.”
“Um, don’t take this the wrong way,” he said slowly, his arms still wrapped around her. “But do I know you?”
A part of Kat was disappointed he didn’t recognize her. Then again, she had looked a little different the last time he’d seen her. Taller…hair definitely different.
“I would certainly think so,” she said with a lazy smile. “It’s not like I let just anyone rub my belly, you know.”
When Connor looked even more confused, she decided to cut him a break.