Page 71 of Bound

I glanced back to Topher, who was crouched in the shadows flat up against a damp concrete wall beside Phoenix, expression unreadable.

“Can you get anything from the prison?” I asked.

“Not with the wards up.”

“They can’t dematerialize out,” my mother said. Her breathing was even and her heartbeat slow, though her pale silver eyes constantly scanned the tunnels. “Initial reinforcements will come from the outside. And that will buy us time.”

“Hold position,” Brody said. “Something doesn’t feel right—”

“Back access panel is locked out,” London cut in. “They know we’re here.”

Vlad wordlessly drew a knife.

Topher inhaled sharply, eyes glazing over. “Incoming. Five, no six—”

A second later a fist slammed into my chest plate, knocking the breath from my lungs. Coughing, I unsheathed my knife, slashing out in a wide upwards diagonal arc, only to have my blade cut through empty air. Crap. The undead had already dematerialized.

“Vamps!”

The cramped space of the tunnels exploded in a blur of blades. Heat seared my left cheek, a knife slashing inches from my throat. My wolf tore free from my human skin a split second before the razor edge could draw blood, the sharp pain of the change shredding bone and sinew as I twisted and reformed into a two-hundred-pound werewolf in midair.

As my claws scraped concrete, I heard the ping of gunshots muffled by a suppresser. Bullets spat at the wall where my head had been only seconds before. With zero room to maneuver down in the tunnels and fifty thousand students in the immediate vicinity on campus, we had no margin for error. It went without saying that no one wanted the feds descending on Austin for the next six months, scrutinizing every scooter rental for fingerprints, haunting Rainey Street after dark checking all the hipsters for fangs and staking out every Whataburger in town hoping suspiciously large double cheeseburger orders at the full moon might lead them to a pack of shifters (which, okay, might work.)

“Wards are still up. Plan B,” River ordered, burying a dagger in the throat of one of the vamps. “August—"

“We’re on it.”

Using a small knife, Jori sliced her palm and pressed her hand to the iron door. Vampire wards worked through a combination of magic and silver alloys that made dematerializing impossible. Sweat beaded at her temples, her hand glowing a faint blue as the corridor around us began to vibrate. A vampire lunged for her. Rowan’s great silver wolf leaped in between them, knocking it back. With a gasp, Jori slumped against the door.

Moving quickly, August unstrapped a black backpack of explosive charges, deftly unpacking a small device and checking the wires. He pressed it into the seam where the two large plates of iron met with moldable clay.

One of the vampires drew a gun, taking aim at my brother. I launched myself at its throat, feeling my stomach fall out from under me as we dematerialized together. We slammed into hard concrete a second later, the sounds of the fight somewhere back in the bowels of the tunnels. Thick clouds of steam billowed upwards from a grate in the floor, the dim lighting illuminating the form of the male undead fighting to free his bleeding arm from my wolf jaws.

August and Jori needed time to get the detonator set and blow the door. If we couldn’t breach the main entry to the prison, it was game over. No dematerializing in. No other way out.

I body checked the undead, throwing all my weight behind the blow. He hit the wall hard. Pain knifed hot and electric through my shoulder like I’d just stabbed a wall outlet. Yelping, I released the vamp, scrabbling away on shaking paws. More gunshots barked through the tunnels. The burnt penny scent of werewolf blood flooded the air.

Out of the corner of my eye, I registered the flash of silver as a small metal cylinder struck the concrete at my feet and fell through the grating.

The world around me contracted like I’d been wrapped in cling wrap and hit with a blow-dryer. What scant light the tunnel had afforded before went black as the darkest night, something I now registered only from the icy burn of the grate beneath my bleeding shoulder. The scent of my own blood evaporated from my nose, erased as if it had never existed, even as I reached out blindly and felt the hot stickiness on my fingertips—my now human fingertips.

No.

When had I shifted back? I clawed for Topher through our bond, silently screaming for my brothers and felt nothing but a weightless black hole, like I was drifting lost in space. I’d been erased.

Eclipse.

“You mongrels are so weak.” The vampire lifted me from the ground by the throat. “At least you’ll taste good. Enjoy being someone’s new pet.”

“Go to hell.” I clawed at his hands, my feet kicking uselessly, finding only empty air. Most of the tactical gear I’d been wearing was gone, having failed to reform correctly when I couldn’t control my shift back. I was unarmed, stripped of my body armor, and chances were good I’d fried my phone, too, leaving no way for my family to track me. Worst of all, with the anti-shifter biologic poisoning my bloodstream, I’d be rendered weak as a human within seconds.

The vampire smiled, baring long white fangs. His hands tightened at my throat. Black spots clouded my vision, the room beginning to spin as I kicked, clawing uselessly—

Air filled my lungs in a rush. I collapsed at the vampire’s feet, blinking just in time to see Topher pinning him to the wall, eyes black with fury.

“Toph,” I croaked.

But the undead’s eyes had gone blank, his expression slack, a look I knew all too well. My mother had control of his mind.