Instead, he waved an imperious hand toward the witch, who tried her best to hide behind a stone column. “Sally.”
Her feet visibly dragged as she forced herself to move to his side. “What?”
He scowled at her petulant tone. “Are you just going to stand here gawking?”
She sent a wary glance toward the snarling curs who were trying to use the tag-team offense against the larger Were.
A futile effort.
Even as one managed to dig their fangs into Caine’s thick fur, he was savagely ripping into the flesh of the other. Of course, the brutal battle did mean he was temporarily distracted.
“What do you want me to do?” Sally demanded, her nose wrinkling as the potent scent of blood saturated the air. Or maybe it was the howls of pain that echoed through the cellar as Caine managed to rip a chunk out of Dolf ’s muzzle.
The two curs were managing to wound the Were, but not without taking a dangerous amount of damage.
“You’re a witch, aren’t you?”
She shrugged. “It’s too small a space to risk a spell.”
“You were quick enough to use magic when we first arrived.”
“That was a harmless masking spell to disguise our presence in this place,” she reminded him, her gaze deliberately skimming down his tense body. “Not all of us have been . . . neutered.”
Gaius grasped the bitch by her neck, infuriated by the reminder he’d allowed himself to be stripped of his very essence. Digging his claws into her throat, he yanked her off her feet, holding her so they were eye to eye. “Don’t think you can taunt me, witch,” he hissed, his voice thickening with an accent as ancient as the Roman Empire.
She grabbed his wrist, her eyes wide with agony. “The Dark Lord—”
“Will accept my most abject apologies for the death of his conduit and swiftly find another,” he smoothly interrupted.
“Please,” she begged. “No.”
Abruptly releasing his hold, he allowed Sally to drop to the ground. Her ridiculous pigtails bobbed around her face, which was painted with black liner and lipstick, as she straightened, wiping the blood from her neck.
“Then make yourself useful and bring me the seer,” he snapped.
“Are you mental?”
Gaius watched the witch’s fear of him being replaced by a flare of panic at being ordered to wade into the gory battle.
“Even if I could get past her rabid protector, which I couldn’t, she’s a pureblooded Were.”
“She can’t shift.”
“She can still rip me in half.”
He leaned down until they were nose to nose, his power making her flinch. “So can I.”
“Crap. I should have just let my mother kill me,” she muttered. “She, at least, intended to make it quick.”
Clenching her hands at her sides, Sally grudgingly made her way across the floor, abruptly jumping sideways when a bloody Ingrid went sailing past her to slam into the wine barrels and lay unconscious.
Gaius shook his head. Things weren’t going well.
Not that he was particularly surprised. He’d suspected from the beginning that the curs’ confidence that they could defeat a pureblooded Were was more a product of their mutual arrogance than genuine skill.
But he’d at least hoped they could disable Caine long enough that he could get his hands on the prophet and disappear from the cellar.
Now Ingrid was down and out for the count. Dolf was pinned to the ground with the Were’s fangs clamped in a death lock on his throat.
And the witch was trying to wriggle her way into the narrow cell with all the enthusiasm of a prisoner headed to the gallows.
The temptation to simply walk away from the unfolding fiasco screamed through him. He could return to his lair and pretend he’d never been near St. Louis. Unfortunately, he couldn’t be certain that Caine and Cassandra would do him the service of actually killing the Three Bumbling Amigos. And if one survived, they were bound to squeal to the Dark Lord.
Then . . .
He shuddered, unwilling to imagine what might happen. No. He couldn’t run. But he was still too weak to battle an enraged pureblooded Were. So now what?
Lost in his dark broodings, he was caught off guard when Sally gave a sudden war cry. Or he assumed that’s what it was supposed to be. To be honest, it sounded like a bad imitation of Tarzan.
Gaius watched in disbelief as the witch darted toward the female Were and grabbed her by the ponytail, giving it a violent tug.
Had she gone mad?
Clearly as baffled as him, the prophet shoved the female away with more confusion than actual fear. Her protector, however, didn’t give a shit what Sally was trying to do and, after giving the unconscious Dolf a toss to land on top of Ingrid, Caine turned his lethal attention to the witch.
Sally screeched as he snapped his bloody fangs directly at her face, and she charged out of the cell with a speed that was considerably faster than the pace she used going in.
Nothing quite like having a Were trying to bite off your head to offer a bounce to your step.
Heading directly toward him, she waved a closed fist in the air. “Get us out of here.”
He scowled, silently hoping that the rabid Were managed to strike the killing blow.
Of course, he couldn’t be so lucky.
Clearly wounded, the animal refused to give in to his bloodlust. Instead, he remained in the doorway, resolutely protecting his companion rather than yielding to his primitive instincts.
Bastardo.
Cursing in resignation, Gaius moved to stand beside the mangled curs who were neatly piled next to the shelf. Then, wrapping his fingers around the medallion that hung from a chain around his neck, he waited only long enough for Sally to reach his side before muttering a word of power and surrounding them in mist.
A spectacular f**k-up from start to finish.
Caine had a vivid memory of his battle with the two curs. The taste of their blood as he’d ripped out chunks of fur and flesh. The sound of their howls of pain. And the scent of their escalating desperation.
But he hadn’t managed to entirely avoid injury. And while none of his wounds were life-threatening, they were all leaking blood at a rate that was rapidly stealing his strength.
Grimly ignoring his increasing weakness, he managed to drive away the human witch before his legs collapsed beneath him. His head hit the cement of the floor with enough force to briefly knock him loopy and when he at last managed to clear the fog, it was to discover he’d shifted back to human form and Cassie was kneeling beside his naked body.
“Caine.” She tenderly brushed the hair from his sweaty forehead. “We have to get out of here.”