The thunder of my bike was as loud as the wind whistling past my ears and tearing at my hair. The Wayfarers shielded my eyes from the streaming headwind while the motorcycle's fairing reduced air drag. I was pushing the Ducati as hard as I could along a pitted road rising up a mountain. Water splashed beneath the bike's tires as I leaned low to race around corners, kicking through the gears, to hurtle up short straights. My blades shivered against my back from the bike's vibrations on the uneven asphalt. Strapped alongside my spine was a second sword, a bastard-twin to the wyrmblade, and forged from pure adamere.

Two thoughts had occurred to me as I'd traveled through the fuck-knows-where backroads of America. The first I'd discarded as soon as I'd thought it. Sure, my bike had a locator, and my brothers would eventually find me. But there wasn't much I could do about the fact that I didn't have my phone on me—incinerated by Nelle back in the woodland—and with no way to contact my brothers, I couldn't let them know what I might discover.

The second thought had occupied my mind almost the entire ride.

I'd ridden for a few hours now, following the threads that bound Nelle to me, the whispering caress of her becoming stronger with every mile I chewed through that brought me closer.

I'd crossed the line. I knew that. Deep down I'd lost myself to her, given in to whatever this thing was between us. I could lie through my fucking teeth and say I was following her, hunting down whoever had her for my family, because we needed her.

But...

It was more than that. This feeling inside me wasn't foreign, but I'd hidden it away for so long that its intensity very nearly overwhelmed my senses as it was dredged up from the darkness I'd shoved it in. And though right now wasn't the time to unravel what the hells I was going to do about it, I'd had plenty of time on my bike to do so. I knew I was on the edge of something so powerful and intrinsic my entire world would be rocked. Deny it, I couldn't. I'd fallen for her. More than fallen for her. I'd fallen into her. Just as I'd feared, and exactly as the Uzrek had teased out as he'd sifted through my memories. Its ancient cruel laughter echoed through my mind—Such a strange fear to have.

As if it had been inevitable.

I'd held her in my arms as she died. I knew it wasn't her, but fuck, that had broken me.

I had to find her.

I had to free her from whoever had stolen her.

It was early morning, the sunlight strong and beating upon the worn wet road that twisted around the edges of the mountain. It had been raining recently and water cascaded in thin streams down the mountainside to spread across the road as it coursed downward.

Bloodlust for whoever the fuck had stolen Nelle burst through my veins, tightening my fists on the bike's handlebars. Weaving a series of sharply cut corners, I leaned the bike over so low my knee was barely an inch from the puddled road, righting the machine to punch into a short straight. West. We were still traveling west.

If I had to guess, they were heading to the Carpellean Mountains.

Danne Pelan.

I was going to fucking shred him. I'd tear him apart with my own hands.

I was close. I could feel Nelle. Her panicked heartbeat was a ball ricocheting against a wall, faster and faster and faster. Her fear raked my skin, my bones, my heart...

Where is she, where is she, where is she—

But, I could see nothing. Just the empty roadway ahead. On one side of where I was traveling was gnarled oak and wild pine growing along the mountain's slope and on the other was a carpet of muddied greens that rolled downward and plunged into a gorge. From the chasm came the distant sound of a fast-churning river.

Nelle had to be close. Really fucking close.

Yet, I couldn't understand why I hadn't reached her, or at the very least, caught a glimpse of the convoy.

I blinked, sharpening with awareness. For some strange reason, I had drifted to the other side of the road as if I'd intended to pass a vehicle.

What the fuck?

I was alone on the road and there was no reason to use the other lane.

No reason...

Just as the answer teased the edge of my mind...

...sunlight glinted, then fractured and reflected off a point mid-air.

Magic.

Gods-fucking-dammit!

Whoever possessed Nelle had erected a magical shield to keep themselves hidden.

And if I was anybody else, a mortal, or even someone from one of the other Houses, I wouldn't have spotted it. The dark magic would have kept softly urging me to unconsciously turn my bike aside and skirt around them without me realizing what I'd done. I'd have bypassed my little bird and lost her forever.

If I'd been anyone else.

But I wasn't.

Nelle and I were bound together and I could feel her.

Feel the heart-crushing terror and black despair that was tearing her apart.

If she was hurt...if Danne...and I couldn't voice the foulness, couldn't bear to think it...

My breath caught in my throat tight. Blistering rage slashed through my blood. There would be no mercy for Danne Pelan. Not this time. No one was going to beg me to spare his life.

Easing back on the throttle, I dropped speed and realigned the bike to coast along the center of the lane. In a swift, smooth motion, I swiped a small knife from my bandoleer, palming it. Leaning back, I hurled it right at the shield.

The adamere dagger sliced through the air, fast, deadly—

Struck the shield—

And held.

A loud crack resounded and sparks flew. A ripple washed across the invisible sphere making it shiver and shudder like a mirage. For a brief moment, I glimpsed the magic fizz like forks of lightning, skittering all over the dome.

But—

The forcefield punched back and shunted the dagger's blade free.

As the knife fell, striking and bouncing off the asphalt, disappearing behind me as I sped onwards, the magical defense encircling the convoy smoothed over once again. In my field of vision, all I saw was the illusion of the road ahead and the slight glint of reflected sunlight.

Ah, fuck this!

A furious snarl rumbled deep within my chest. I let go of the bike's handlebars and sat upright, my hand moving in a blur of flesh as I palmed blade after blade. Yanking my arm back to sling it forward. Whiplashing knife after knife through the air, burying the blades into the forcefield—

Hard—

Fast—

Puncturing the same area in the shield over and over again—

It was a ripple effect. A stone thrown into a still pond. White light crackled and fizzed, and a hole formed at the impact site, at first small but it grew bigger and bigger—

A CRACK!

A deafening BOOM!

The shield collapsed entirely, and what it had hidden was ripe for plunder.

In front of me was a limousine protected by a three-deep convoy of sleek black SUVs.

I'd arrived upon them so fast, I'd hoped to catch them unprepared.

As usual, I was fucking wrong.

The rear convoy's formation shifted. The second SUV drifted across the road to the other side. It along with the third SUV slowed down to block the road and ultimately block me. The two vehicles were loaded with soldiers for House Pelan. Soldiers hung out of either window with handguns pointed at me, while another rose from the sunroof with a machine gun.

Hellsgate!

Shots rattled, screaming through the air—

I ducked and swerved, leaning the bike low to dodge the hail of bullets. They ricocheted off the asphalt on either side of me, spraying chunks of rock wide.

The hatch popped open in the first SUV and in the rear a soldier aimed a crossbow with a heavy bolt-head loaded with cursed lightning. Aimed and fired—

Shit, shit, shit—

I jerked to the side. The bolt whizzed past, scoring the side of my face with aether and electric fire, blistering skin and charring hair.

A thunderous KABOOM! exploded behind me. Rubble erupted skyward, scattering burnt melted chunks of the obliterated road to rain down like a volcano spewing its wrath.

Sweeping a hand to my thigh, I snatched a long dagger from its sheath and hurled it directly at the back tire of the SUV.

The blade struck.

But instead of its sharp point turning the rubber to shreds and blowing the tire, the blade simply bounded off.

"FUCK!" The Pelans had some serious armory built into their vehicles.

A heartbeat later, a fucking warzone erupted around me. Bullets rained like sleet and crossbow bolts were fired with the speed of a machine gun—

The world was lit up with blinding white light and plumes of smoke as asphalt and trees were hit with lightning strikes, exploding into rubble and bursting into flames.

Ducking low and thrusting the throttle down, my bike streaked forward as I hugged the narrow verge where part of the mountain was cut away and a sheer drop greeted me. Bullets struck my body and the Ducati, bouncing harmlessly off my adamere-reinforced armor and the bike's armored fairing in shards of white sparks.

The SUV swerved, trying to ram me aside and over the sharp edge—

Fuuucking hellsgate!!

I jammed on the brakes. The bike's rear tire skidded on gravel, spraying stones over the side of the cliff. The smell of burning rubber filled the air as I wobbled and righted, my foot kicking free off the footpeg and dangling over the cliff face.

My heart slammed into my throat as I glanced at the dizzying height below, the way the rear tire of my bike was positioned, half on and half off the cliff's edge, and how perilously close I was to tipping over.

Engaging the throttle, shifting through the gears and clutch, I maneuvered off.

Going around the SUV rear guard wasn't going to work.

Anger thrashed against my ribcage as I watched the SUVs disappear around a corner.

Nelle's terror beat beneath my skin like a fluttering moth, its delicate wings torn and shredded. Her utter fear scrambled my senses and sent a flood of ice through my veins. An ancient strain, wild and wicked, whispered inside my mind—protect, protect, protect—as phantom fangs sank into my bones—Save her, save her, save her! I yielded to that ancient strumming power as something untamed thrummed through my blood, so ferocious and savage it sharpened my bloodthirst into the honed edge of a blade.

Leaning the bike into the corner, I swooped around the bend—

Faster, faster, faster—

The SUV was there, right there—

Opening up the bike's throttle, I punched forward, and in a smooth motion, rose to stand on my bike's seat, placing a boot on the handlebars, and leaped—

Soaring through the air, the wind buffeting my body, I twisted at the apex, falling to land on top of the SUV's roof, right behind the sunroof gunner. The metal buckled beneath my weight.

In my periphery, I caught a glimpse of my Ducati pitching forward, cartwheeling over and over and over as it crashed across the road, skidding in a spray of sparks off the asphalt and down the slope to slam into a gnarled oak. Gasoline and krekenn blood ignited and the mangled bike erupted into a raging fireball—

Throwing heat and fuel wide to set grass and tree on fire.

The sunroof gunner turned, his machine gun swinging with him.

Everything emptied from my head apart from that ancient strain. It strummed a melody of wickedness, a song so bittersweet I fell into a haze of bloodlust. But I was more than instinct and reflexes and savagery.

I was shadow and darkness.

A derecho wind. A straight-lined squall. And my destruction was going to be widespread.

It was as easy as slamming an elbow into his temple, taking hold of the gun to swing him around, and slide my finger on top of his trigger finger—

Blowing the brains out of the soldier clambering out of the vehicle's window—

Gore sprayed in a thick coating of red and her corpse swayed then toppled from the SUV in a heavy thunk to roll behind us.

Spinning around to fire a barrage of shots at the SUV ahead—

Ending the lives of the soldiers hanging out of windows and their machine gunner too.

Twisting back, I rose to slam my boot into the fragile skull of the guy I'd held, shoving him back down the sunroof. My fingers were a blur of speed—snatching a cursed grenade from my bandoleer. Loosening the pin, I hurled it through the open window.

Swooping down to free the daggers from my calves just as the device exploded, jolting me bodily with the mighty explosion heaving through the car. Its interior bloomed with a cloud of inky darkness cursed with tiny flesh-eating critters. Screams competed with the whirring sound of the otherworldly creatures chewing through the dead and undead alike.

The SUV was wrenched to the side. I jerked with the movement, staggering with the unbalance, and shifted quickly to brace my stance. The driver had been consumed by the lethal darkness of those creepy critters, and the accelerator popped free—

The speed of the car dramatically reduced and fell away—

But I was moving, never stopping, flowing like the derecho that gave birth to hurricane-force winds.

One step—

Two, three more—

Muscles bunched—

I launched, throwing myself at the second SUV traveling ahead and landing with a crunch on top of the roof. Soldiers already half-hanging out of the windows pumped bullets—

A whirl of my daggers sliced them aside.

A shower of sparks scattering wide.

I had to get to Nelle. Her heartbeat was a flurry of panicked beats hammering against my ribcage. Her terror was a heavy pounding at a drum to the wild and wicked strain singing inside my head.

There was no time to take out Danne's men.

I was a tornado. A swirling wind of rage and mist and shadow. My blades slashed and hacked—

An arm. A hand. A head.

The reverberation of adamere and steel on bone rattling against my wrists.

Blood sprayed. Limbs fell. Screams followed.

I darted a furtive glance over my shoulder—

The third SUV guarding the limousine pulled ahead, disappearing around a bend.

Too far to jump!

Fuck. Fuck. Fuuuck!