Page 20

Darius's hand hardens against my back, protective instinct warring with professional restraint. His hands curl into fists, a telltale sign that he's fighting every impulse to wade into the violence.

"Not our fight," I murmur, my delivery betraying me with an unpolished edge.

His gaze snaps to mine, catching something in my expression that makes his pupils dilate. The air around us crackles with more than only supernatural tension.

The vampire's fangs sink into the shifter's shoulder exactly as spell-laced smoke grenades explode across the dance floor. My glamour dissolves, auburn hair bleeding back to black as the acrid odor burns my nostrils.

"Setup," Darius hisses, his hand finding my wrist.

Masked figures in ceremonial white pour through every entrance, their movements so perfectly coordinated they scream military training. The patrons who moments ago amusedly tracked the bar fight now scramble in a disarrayed panic, their bodies propelled by an instinctual, chaotic need to escape.

A witch in ceremonial robes raises her hands, the air around her fingers warping like a heat mirage as dark energy gathers. I throw up a shield exactly as her hex slams into the spot where we stood, concrete exploding in a shower of debris.

"Behind you!" I shout as another attacker lunges from our blind spot.

Darius spins, his fist connecting with the masked figure's jaw hard enough to snap bone. The satisfying crack echoes over the chaos, but three more take the fallen one's place.

My magic answers a primitive call. A sound like tearing silk rips through the club as argent energy shears from my palms in jagged bolts. The first attacker drops and convulses as astronomical energy courses through his nervous system. But the power keeps building, a white-hot intensity that pushes against my ribs, desperate to tear its way out.

"Serenity." Darius's voice emits a warning I recognize too well.

A heavy, cold weight settles behind my sternum as the magic rises, straining against the force threatening to tear free. A vampire rushes us from the left, fangs bared. I draw my athame in a fluid motion, channeling raw power down the blade to deliver a sweeping strike.

The binding spell fires clean, hitting the vampire square in the chest and pinning him to the far wall. A pearly light constricts across his body, a searing web of energy pinning him in place. The execution is clean and flawless. For exactly two seconds, I think I've finally figured this out.

Then the magic keeps pulling.

Energy floods through my veins faster than I can channel it, the sharp taste of raw, unbridled magic flooding my mouth. I try to clamp down, try to choke the flow back to a manageable trickle, but it's like sticking my thumb over a fire hose. The pressure builds behind my sternum until my vision blurs at the edges.

The shockwave detonates outward—unfiltered energy that sends every supernatural being within twenty feet flying backward. Tables shatter while the bar's mirror explodes into glittering fragments. A crack splits the concrete floor from my feet to the far wall.

I stagger, my ears ringing and hands shaking. I had it. For one beautiful, stupid moment, I had it—and then it swallowed me whole.

"We need to move." Darius grabs my hand and yanks me toward Lynn's office.

We fight our way through the chaos, moving back-to-back as more attackers converge. Darius fights like something unchained, every strike calculated for maximum damage. A fierce protectiveness bleeds into his expression whenever someone gets too close to me, his natural instincts overriding organized restraint.

A demon blocks our path, sulfur radiating from its pores in nauseating waves. Magic flows through my rings, and I fashion a banishment that should send it back to whatever pit spawned it.

The spell works too well. The demon collapses inward in a massive implosion, tearing away a chunk of the floor and leaving a crater lit by lingering, raw energy.

"Your magic is escalating," Darius observes, his tone maddeningly calm despite the supernatural riot surrounding us.

"Tell me something I don't know."

We reach Lynn's office to find her already gone, but the hidden panel behind her desk stands open with a narrow tunnel that disappears into darkness. The acrid smell of old stone and stagnant water drifts up from the depths.

"After you," Darius says, but his grip on my hand never loosens.

We plunge into the underground maze, concrete giving way to brick as the tunnels spread beneath Chicago's oldest districts. Our footsteps echo in the darkness, punctuated by distant sounds of the battle we left behind.

"They knew exactly where to find us," I say between ragged breaths.

"Lynn's been compromised, or someone's been tracking us longer than we realized," he replies as we navigate a particularly treacherous section where water seeps through cracked walls. I force my erratic magic to settle by sheer force of will.

We emerge twenty minutes later through a grate hidden beneath an overpass, the brilliance of the city lights flooding the night and scouring away the grime of the underground. With the club area compromised, the original sedan is a liability. Instead, Darius leads me straight to the contingency coordinates he’d pinged to Kellan the moment things went sideways. Waiting in the shadows is an empty backup vehicle, its engine already running after a remote start, ready to vanish into the city.

I slide into the passenger seat, the taste of adrenaline stuck on my tongue. Darius drops behind the wheel and enters Lower Wacker without a word, headlights slicing through the orange sodium haze. His knuckles whiten around the steering wheel. My fingers continue to vibrate with magic I barely kept leashed.