Dark Lies (Magic Side: Wolf Bound Book 3)

Jaxson

I spun, ripped the cue out of Savannah’s hands, and rammed it into the biker’s open mouth.

His head cracked back, and I sprang forward and jammed my heel into his leg, dropping him to his knees. As soon as he was down, I grabbed him by the hair and slammed his mouth straight into the countertop, shattering his jaw and teeth.

It was over in a second. I let him drop to the floor in a bloody, moaning mess. I’d been in control until he’d opened his dirty mouth. Now it was shut.

A moment of stunned silence followed, and then the whole bar exploded.

The other three Arrowheads charged. Fists flew into us from all angles, and a set of claws ripped across my face.

Savannah was at my side, fighting tooth and claw, her eyes filled with a black rage.

One of the bastards grabbed her, while another knocked me against the counter, sending a burst of agony up my spine. I ignored the pain. The only thing that mattered was keeping them off her.

I shoved my attacker away and pulled Savy out of the other biker’s grasp. His claws tore into her arms, and my vision went pure red as I saw her blood well up. I grabbed the half-shifted asshole by the arm, pinned it behind his back, and rammed his head down onto the countertop. Then, without letting go, I charged backward and hurled him across the room toward the entrance of the bar. The front door shattered as he flew halfway though.

One of the bastards immediately leapt on my back, but Sam and Savy pulled him off. I turned to see him backhand Sam across the jaw. Unfazed, she grabbed his vest and kneed him in the groin. As he bent double, I dropped my forearm like a sledgehammer on his exposed neck, driving him to the ground, and finished him with a kick to the face.

Three out cold.

But the Arrowheads weren’t our only problem. The whole bar was against us now.

Razors of pain ripped through my skull as something shattered across the back of my head. Glass tinkled to the ground, and I spun. A random biker—human, with a broken bottle in hand. “Die, you freaks!” he bellowed.

I grabbed him by the shirt and punched him three times in the face. When I let go, he collapsed to the ground.

Humans were so much easier to deal with.

Unfortunately, we were overwhelmed. They were all around us, trying to bring us down. For one second, I saw the last standing, orange-bearded Arrowhead through the crowd. He glared at me, then bolted down the back hallway.

“Don’t let him escape!” I shouted.

Savy leapt over the bar and charged after him.

I shoved a stool into the crowd to clear them off Sam, who was on the ground, but pain lanced through my side.

I twisted to face a human biker brandishing a broken pool cue, its end dripping with blood—my blood.

“Go to hell, you yellow-eyed monster!” he screamed as he rammed the shattered cue straight into my gut.

But he was human, and I was a wolf, and I had reflexes and strength ten times those of his. I grabbed the cue by the point before it dug into my flesh again.

The wound in my side and the sharpened stick brought forth memories of peasants with pitchforks hunting members of our pack—not my memories but those passed down through the magic of our lore master. Yet those echoes of our kind’s hellish last days in France were almost as real as if they’d happened to me. For a second, he wasn’t an asshole biker but a screaming villager, whipped into a bloodthirsty frenzy by the zealots of the Church.

I’d show him a yellow-eyed monster.

With a savage motion, I ripped the pool cue from his hand and grabbed him by his jacket. I lifted him, screaming, above my head with both hands, then slammed him down on the pool table.

The table shattered and collapsed around his limp body.

Fuck him.

All three Arrowheads inside were down. Sam was tangled with a couple of patrons, but I knew she could handle a dozen humans on her own. I had to get to Savannah.

But before I could move, the broken door burst open, and two people, a man and a woman, rushed in with badges held high. “State police! Everyone get down on the ground!”

Some idiot hurled a chair at the female cop. “Get the fuck out, fucking pigs!”

She staggered back into the doorway as two bikers jumped on her and her partner.

Fuck.

The female cop wrenched one of the assailants up by the arm, twisted it behind his back, and brought him to his knees. Not my problem. I didn’t have time for this. I had to get to Savy and the last of the Arrowheads.

Pushing the cowering bartender out of my way, I leapt over the end of the bar top and charged toward the back.

Something slammed against the wall ahead of me in a cloud of smoke. A shockwave of magic raced through my body. My muscles seized in agony, and I crashed onto the floor.

Bikers and patrons collapsed around the bar.

Potion bomb. Stunner.

The male cop rose and hurled a second bomb to the other side of the room. Sam and the two bikers assailing her dropped to the ground.

These weren’t state police. This was the Order. Fuck them.

I forced my neck to turn toward the back door. I strained with every muscle I had, but I couldn’t move. But then a burst of pain shot through me. Not my pain—Savannah’s.

No.

Fire poured through my veins as I fought against the power of the potion. I wouldn’t let it hold me. My mate was in danger.

I pushed all my strength into my arm. Glacially, inch by inch, I pushed myself onto my knees. I turned my mind to my leg, and my muscles screamed as I forced them to my will. Slowly, I brought my leg forward and heaved myself up unsteadily against the wall.

With a roar, I shook off the chains of magic and hurled myself toward the back door.

Nothing would stop me. Not bikers. Not cops. Not sorcery itself.

Savannah

I charged after the orange-bearded Disciple who’d ducked out the back door.

The moment I stepped outside, pain lanced through my jaw as his fist connected with my face. My head cracked against the wall, and bricks dug into my skull.

I slumped to the ground as the world spun. The biker brought his boot down on my knee, and something popped.

My head flew back, and I screamed.

The sky above me whirled, a beautiful kaleidoscope of white and blue. The sight was interrupted by the silhouette of the bastard biker as he stepped over me. I tried to scoot back across the asphalt, but he drove his foot into my ribs. I gasped as the breath burst from my lungs.

“I can smell it on you! I’m gonna make you bleed Scarlet!” he growled.

Unable to breathe or speak, I gurgled and rolled to my side to face a couple cars parked on the old, degrading asphalt. It was just another parking lot, and just another werewolf trying to kill me. The first time I’d met one, I’d been terrified out of my mind.

But not this time. This time, I knew what was coming. I was ready for it, I needed it. And when my breath finally came back, I actually laughed.

The werewolf biker grabbed me by my jacket. “What the fuck are you laughing at, you crazy little bitch?”

Wiping the blood from my lip, I gave him a crimson smile. “How screwed you are.”

In a split second, I summoned the shadows around us and kicked out his feet. He shouted in surprise as he tumbled back against the wall. “What the hell did you do? I can’t see!”

I rolled away and stood.

While I’d made the world go pitch black around us, my power let me see. The bastard put his fists out in warning and looked left and right. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m the wolf in the fucking darkness,” I snarled as I hammered my clenched fist into the back of his head.

He staggered forward, then spun and swung wildly, fighting blind. “I can smell you! I can hear you, and I’m going to beat you to a pulp!”

Someone was shouting beyond the darkness, but I didn’t care. I was focused on the asshole in front of me.

Fighting past the pain burning in my knee, I moved left. Unfortunately, my gimpy leg dragged on the asphalt. The biker turned his head and swung wildly in the direction of the noise.

Like Jaxson had taught me long ago, I stepped into the blow and deflected his arm to the right. My palm shot up and rammed into his chin with a deeply satisfying crack. I stood like a rock as he reeled back.

I attacked again before he could catch his balance, sweeping out his legs and dropping him onto his back. His head ricocheted off the asphalt just as hard as mine had hit the wall.

I was on him in seconds.

For a moment, he wasn’t just a seedy biker who’d struck and dehumanized me. He was the pair of werewolves in the back lot of the roadside Taphouse. He was the bastards who’d grabbed me at the motel, as well as the ones who’d thrown me in the white van. He was every one of those monsters who’d hunted me, terrified me, and used their power to hurt me.

My fists rammed down into his face, again and again. He struggled, but I was faster, stronger, and propelled by an unrelenting rage. He cried out in the darkness, but there was no one here who cared.

Or maybe there was. A woman was shouting loudly now, but I didn’t pay her any mind.

Savy, stop! We need him alive! my wolf commanded.

Fuck that. I called my claws, but they didn’t come.

No. I refuse to do this, Wolfie growled.

Fine, I snarled back. Have it your way.

I summoned my Soul Knife and dismissed the darkness so that the bastard could see what I was about to do to him.

The tingle of magic raced along my arm as the cold copper blade formed in my hand. I swung my arm back, ready to ram the blade into his heart.

But it stopped short as strong fingers wrapped around my wrist. Electricity surged through my body.

Jaxson.

I struggled against his grip, but he was iron.

A woman shouted, “Nobody fucking move! Savannah Caine, drop your weapon!”

My head whipped to the side. There was a woman in a jacket, potion bomb in hand and badge raised. I recognized her.

“Harlow?” What the hell?

I looked down at the biker. His face was pummeled and covered with blood, which matted his hair and pooled behind his head. He was barely breathing.

Oh, my God, what had I done?

My body began to tremble, and I dropped the cursed knife. Jaxson’s power poured through me. “Calm down, Savannah.”

“Back away from the biker,” Harlow snapped, kicking the blade away.

Jaxson helped me to my feet and pulled me close. I buried my face in his shoulder, but I could still see the biker’s bloodied face in my mind. He’d assaulted me, but somehow, somewhere along the way, I was the one who’d become the monster.

Again.