Think. Think. Think.

The only way Elaine wouldn’t be here helping was if Declan had captured her. But then where would he—?

Oh. My. Mage.

‘Honor!’ I twisted toward the burning lodge and my childhood home, gaping as certainty sliced through me. Zero percent doubt. That bastard!

‘I need that curse gone,’ Rage barked with just enough desperation that when I called for my wolf, she roared to the surface.

My clothes exploded into shreds as I ran.

‘She’s in our house … attached to the lodge,’ I told Honor. The feeling rang clear as a bell. Was that sick bastard going to burn his wife alive? Or did my aunt Lilith do this? She was the last one with Elaine…

We sprinted to the building, and horror crashed through me when I saw flames all along the roof of our private residence. Dark yellow smoke puffed from around the edges of the back door, which was open a crack.

‘I sense her inside!’ Honor howled into my head, and that got me moving.

I pushed the door in with my nose, and unease slithered through me as I entered the house with Honor right behind me. The thick haze made visibility terrible, and heat pressed against me like a physical weight. Every breath of the acrid smoke scorched my throat, and my eyes burned from the suspended soot.

‘Do you know where she is?’ I asked Honor, who trailed behind me.

Before he could answer, a loud crash resounded above us, and my fur bristled. Surely he wouldn’t put Elaine upstairs, right? He wouldn’t want her dead, or did he? What could Declan hope to gain from this kind of brutality? If he killed Elaine, there’s no way the Midnight brothers would ever forgive him—not that there was much, if any, hope of that anymore. And if he did, then they would have nothing holding them back from killing him because she would be gone along with the spell. Maybe Lilith did it. I could see my Aunt going full evil and tying Elaine up in the basement if we had one.

I froze.

We didn’t have a basement, but we had a root cellar. We used it to store large quantities of food for our pack in the winter. There was only one way in or out: the door under the stairway to the second story. It looked like a storage closet, but stairs led down to the concrete-lined cellar.

The floor above us groaned again, and I heard a strange popping sound. ‘Honor…’

My mind ran a mile a minute as I hacked on the smoke getting thicker by the second.

I had a sudden epiphany. ‘They’re in the cellar.’

My sick aunt had punished me more than once by putting me down there when she was babysitting. If she knew the king’s plan was to burn our pack lodge and house, then that’s where Lilith would put Elaine if she wanted to kill her. Did the king even know?

I thought of Nolan’s petty cruelty. Maybe Lilith wanted to be the king’s new wife and thought this would be a good way to make that happen. So sick.

‘Let’s go,’ I said to Honor, nudging him with my nose. ‘To the stairs.’

The air shifted then, and chills danced down my spine.

‘Nai!’ Rage bellowed, filled with alarm. ‘Get out of there!’

A pit opened in the bottom of my stomach.

Glass cracked, and the windows above Lon’s sink popped, shattering inward, followed by the wall of windows in the living room. Glass rained down on us as we raced down the hall toward the staircase.

My home groaned.

‘Nai, watch ou—’ Rage bellowed.

A strange rumble emphasized his fear, but I didn’t need him to finish the warning to know what he meant.

Panic coursed through me.

Declan had created a bomb—and we’d walked right into the center of it. A death trap—for all of us.

There was no time to think.

Mother Mage, let my magic work.

I shifted, wolf to human in an instant.

Magic thrummed in my veins—in my chest, in my every pore. But would it be enough?

‘Honor!’ I grabbed my friend by the neck scruff and pulled him to my chest, throwing a layer of protective energy above us. I didn’t know how to put up magical shields, but if fire was red, then I wanted blue. All the blue I could muster. Blue like the ocean. Like the crystalline waters around Shifter Island. Beautiful, life-saving blue for me, Honor, and everyone in the cellar beneath us.

White light exploded behind my closed eyelids, and heat blasted toward us as I waited for the pain.

Only, it didn’t come.

So … I blinked.

Still clinging to Honor’s fur, I sucked in a sharp breath and raised my head. Blazing red fire magic skimmed over the top of the blue shield dome I’d created, the red and blue blurring together into a vibrant mauve like watercolors mixed together.

My family home was gone—exploded into dust and splinters of wood. All except for the piece of hardwood floor where Honor and I still sat, curled together.

‘Rage?’ I reached for our bond, relieved when I felt his presence on the other end.

‘Are you okay? Is my mom free?’ he asked.

Damn.

‘Almost … I hope.’

I looked a few feet to my right, where the door should have led to the cellar, and nearly lost my focus. Wheezing with relief, I stared at the magic—my magic—shielding not only me and Honor but Lona and Elaine as well as my friend Callie, who happened to be with the other two women in the cellar below us. All three of them were bound by the hands and ankles.

They were alive!

My magic protection bubble popped, disappearing at once, and Honor and I tumbled down the steps into the cellar, the haze of smoke less here than in the house.

I landed against a canvas bag of potatoes with a groan.

“I seriously hate Declan,” I muttered, climbing to my feet. I scanned the smoky space, trying to locate the three females, and Honor bounded over to where we kept the potatoes. “Elaine? Lona? How are you—?”

“Honor!” Elaine shouted and then burst into sobs. The smoke cleared enough for me to see the black wolf nuzzling her.

Emotion tugged at my heart, a sharp contrast to the anger I held for Declan. A mother knows her child, no matter what.

‘My mom!’ Rage yelled, yanking me from the warm fuzzies. ‘Get that curse off my mom so I can kill Declan.’

‘One hundred percent behind you on that. Almost died. I’m on it now.’ I strode toward Elaine, pausing only long enough to grab the wire cutters sitting next to a basket of butternut squash. I snipped the zip-tie from Elaine’s ankles and then grabbed her hands, “Tell me about the spell Surlama did.”

“You’re naked,” Elaine said, gasping and wide-eyed, looking from me to Honor before breaking into another sob.

Nudity wasn’t that big of a deal among wolves though most learned how to better manage their modesty by my age. Yet, here I stood, butt-naked in front of my future mother-in-law.

‘She’s in shock,’ Honor said, stepping to my side.

Because, really, what else could go wrong?

I nodded and clipped the second binding to free her hands. “The spell?”

Elaine just continued to cry. I think seeing her once-burned son back, in the flesh, had broken her. Was there better etiquette for this kind of situation? Because I wanted to shake her.

“Nai Crescent!” Lona scolded. “How dare you run around naked in front of guests? Callie, give her your jacket.”