Chapter 2 2

I stayed near the bars at the entrance. My Wolf sharpened everything  hearing, smell, the tiny scrape of fabric on stone two rooms away. Somewhere behind me, Levi thickened the air into a solid wall, cutting us off from anyone stupid enough to come looking.

Part of me hoped they would.

Earth was mine. Taurus decided that before I ever had a say in it. Every Shifter picks up the basics eventually  a little healing, a spark of light, nothing that matters in a fight. Real power runs through the sign you're born under, and once in a while someone gets handed two Elements instead of one. I never wanted that. Earth alone nearly broke me learning it, and I'd earned every inch of it myself.

"Got it" Levi's grin flashed through the dark.

His palm sat flush against box three-eighteen, muscles locked, fighting the ward with everything he had.

Then the alarm ripped through the vault before he'd even finished grinning.

"Please tell me that wasn't you."

"We wouldn't need this if Nathan were here," he shot back.

"I don't need his family babysitting my job." Legends, sure. But this heist was mine, planned to the second. His brother was the only piece of that family I still hadn't figured out how to handle.

Footsteps. Fast, and multiplying.

My Wolf shoved against my ribs, desperate. I clamped it down and a handful of guards didn't deserve my claws yet. Fists would be enough.

Vines split out of my palms, curling with thorns, hungry.

The far door exploded open. Eight guards poured through.

Nobody spoke first. Fire, ice, wind, splinters of wood  all of it slammed at once into Levi's wall.

It didn't even dent.

Levi threw his head back laughing, and something wild lit up in my chest watching it happen. My cousin wasn't just some Shifter with a temper. He ruled the Carter Clan, dragon blood running through a wolf's bloodline, and there wasn't a guard alive who could touch him. These eight didn't know yet that they'd already lost.

I let them burn themselves out on him first.

"That's it?" My voice carried through the bars. "Or is fighting one at a time too scary for you?"

It worked. A few backs straightened  real fighters don't swarm someone eight-deep, not if they want their name to mean anything after. These men wanted their paycheck more than their pride, and it showed.

One threw himself against the bars, spit flying. "Open the damn gate."

Somebody behind him mumbled about the procedure.

"Screw procedure." His stare locked onto mine. "I want to hear her scream."

Good. Let him try. My vines answered for me, coiling tighter around my own wrists in anticipation.

Levi was still wrist-deep in that lock. My only job was making sure nothing got near him until he finished  no matter the cost.

The guards froze at the gate until their leader ran out of patience and hurled fire straight into his own men to force them forward.

My heart kicked into gear, hungry for it. This half-second before everything breaks  was the only time I ever felt completely awake.

I ran through them fast: which element, which guard, field and ready.

The gate dropped open.

One breath. One second where both sides measure each other before someone moves first.

I moved first.

Both arms whipped forward and the vines detonated outward, thorns unfurling like blades, straight into the nearest guard's ribs.

Two vines. Five guards down before they understood what hit them.

They screamed, thrashed, and every twitch only cinched the thorns tighter. People liked to forget I could go toe-to-toe with Levi when it counted. Give me sixty seconds and this whole squad would be unconscious on the floor without a single rope.

Nobody paid guards like this enough to be dangerous. Not against someone who actually had power behind her fists.

Levi's laugh chased me as I broke into a sprint at the last three still on their feet. His shield sealed tight around himself, leaving the floor to me alone.

Their leader came first, fire crawling up his knuckles, aimed at my jaw. I ducked under it, dropping for his knees.

Nothing there. He'd already vanished somewhere behind me. That wasn't Shifter speed.

That was vampire speed.

The half-second it cost me was enough. The other two hit me from both sides while I was still finding my balance.

I drove both palms into the stone. The floor cracked open under their boots and one guard went down hard, screaming.

The other didn't fall. He smiled, lifted one hand, and an ice blade shot straight at my chest.

I had no time left to move.

Behind me, Levi's laugh died mid-breath.

"Oliver" His voice cracked with something I'd never heard from him. "That's not guard magic."

"That's him."

I turned a half-second too late. The blade caught my arm, and pain lit up every nerve to my jaw.

I yanked it free and hurled it back the instant Lucas blinked into view again. He sidestepped easily, but that half-second cost him. I already had healing magic pouring into the wound before it could spread.

Back on my feet. I hit the floor with both palms and felt it shudder under me. Vines erupted from the stone, hunting. Guards scattered, dove, threw themselves clear  all but one. The thorns swallowed him whole, cinching his wrists shut until whatever magic he had left just died in his hands.

Six down. Two standing.

Lucas came at me again, faster than my eyes could follow, and I threw myself sideways across my own vines  thorns, opening my forearms the same way they'd opened every guard I'd caught tonight. I swallowed the curse and slammed the ground a second time, but something in my chest pulled tight and empty. My reserves were running dry faster than I liked. That tunnel had cost more than I'd admitted to myself, and I didn't have unlimited time to finish what I'd started.

The water-Elemental threw everything he had in one last desperate wave. I didn't dodge, I ran straight into it, head down, jaw locked. His control was already slipping; he'd overloaded trying to end this fast, and the second it cracked, I drove my shoulder into his ribs and dropped him onto his own trapped men. My vines took him before he hit the ground.

One guard left. Just Lucas.

I stole a glance toward the vault. Levi already had the box open in his hands.

Something hot and satisfied rose in my chest, and I let it show on my face.

Mistake. Lucas burned my last vines to ash and lunged before I could raise anything new.

I didn't move fast enough. His body crashed into mine, slammed my spine into the bars, fangs already stretching toward my throat.

I threw a slab of rock between us on instinct, catching his teeth in a heartbeat before they reached skin. One bite and I was done, vampire venom killed a Shifter's magic on contact, draining the strength straight out of whatever it touched. If his teeth found me, I wasn't standing back up.