“Let her go.” Naya squared her shoulders and willed her spine to stiffen. That one of her own people would betray them was as good as a dagger through her heart. “If you’ve hurt Luz, I’m going to kill you.”
The Bororo males carried recognizable traits that made them easy to identify in their animal forms. Joaquin, for instance, had a black coat with a white spot that marred the fur below his throat. Dark magic had turned this particular shifter’s form into something unidentifiable. He might as well have been a stranger to her.
Luz groaned as the cat deposited her in an unceremonious heap to the ground. She was alive. And for now, Naya would count it as a blessing. The cat craned his neck, taking stock of everything around him. Surrounded by crisis and unable to help anyone, Naya had never in her life felt so utterly alone.
Magic sizzled in the air, a deafening pop and hiss to accompany the din of music in Naya’s ears. The sensory overload threatened to take her down, but Naya forced herself to remain stalwart. She could end this. Now. She simply needed to stay strong.
The shift was usually a fairly painless transition, from what she’d been told. Sort of like slipping into a pool of warm water. But the enormous jaguar screamed and thrashed his massive head as he left his animal skin behind. Clawing at the damp ground as he writhed.
Naya used the momentary distraction to grab Luz. She was weak but conscious. “I … I’m okay.” Luz pushed the words out in a slur. “This is some serious shit, Naya.”
That was the freaking truth.
She dragged her cousin several feet away from the epicenter of danger and tucked her in the bowl of a towering redwood. “Don’t move,” Naya instructed. “Just sit tight and keep quiet, got it?”
“Mm-hhmm.” Luz couldn’t manage more than a sound of acknowledgment, but it was good enough for Naya.
“Is she okay?”
“She will be,” Naya said to Manny. He sat in the middle of the circle, arms rested on his knees. “I owe you for tonight. Sorry everything went to crap.”
“It’s all good,” Manny said in a less-than-convincing tone. “Just get rid of this magic before it harms anyone else.”
That was the plan.
She approached the shifting cat with caution, one tentative step after another. Her dagger held at the ready, Naya said, “Toss me the box, Manny. Just toward my feet.”
“Got it.”
The gold box landed on the ground beside her with a muted thud. A simple square with a slot on the top just big enough for her dagger to be inserted, it looked more like an elaborate piggy bank. She hoped it was big enough to contain the amount of dark magic that surrounded them. It was more than she’d ever had to banish before. What happened next would be a test of power and endurance that Naya refused to fail.
It didn’t matter who he was. The male was tainted by the darkest of magic. She didn’t know if he controlled the magic or it controlled him. Hell, maybe he was another unfortunate victim. Either way, she needed to bind him before it was too late. Naya was done with killing.
The last traces of the animal disappeared, and with it a strong wave of natural magic dissipated into the air. Naya let out a deep breath as some of the tension left her body and she shook out her shaking limbs and she continued to approach. He lifted his gaze to meet hers and the shock sent her stumbling back a step.
“Paul?”
Though really, should she have been the least bit surprised? He’d always been a bitter, power-hungry male who found immense satisfaction in lording his authority over the pod.
“Evolution is inevitable,” Paul said through heavy panting breaths. “And the magia is no longer yours to control, bruja.”
* * *
Ronan might as well have been encased in ice. The Collective was beyond his grasp; there was no shelter to be found there. Even his tether with Naya appeared to have weakened. When he tried to reach her through it—to pull from her strength—the bond felt tenuous and thin. As though it might snap with the slightest jostling.
His thirst was too intense. His need absolute. Nothing save a stake through his heart would save him now.
“Had you simply allowed yourself to be given to Joaquin, you wouldn’t have put so many in danger. But as always, Naya, your stubborn willfulness proves that you are worthless to this pod.”
The male who spoke wasn’t the human. Blind to everything but the cold that numbed his body, Ronan scented the air and found that the male who disrespected his mate with his callous words was the shifter he’d fought on the foot trail. The bastard who had dipped into the stores of dark magic to give himself an edge. And Naya faced him alone.