Covet (Clann)

Keeper, a shapeshifter the Clann created as allies centuries ago. He—”
    Anne stood up so she could shoot over us. “Less explaining, more fighting!”
    “It’s a long story,” Savannah finished. “I’ll tell it later. But you need to know descendants and Keepers can read each other’s minds, okay?”
    “Albright!” Dylan screamed from several yards away. He threw his hands into the air.
    Anne dropped like a stone, grabbing her throat as if choking. A second later, her eyes rolled up in her head as the veins beneath her skin turned black in snaking lines down the sides of her face and throat toward her chest. What had Dylan hit her with?
    I whirled around to hit him with a spell, but a vampire had already found him. Good, I hoped the fanger ate him.
    I turned back to find Ron, still in panther form, crouched over Anne and howling as Savannah pressed her hands to her unconscious friend’s neck.
    “Tristan, I can’t stop it!” Savannah cried out. “Whatever he hit her with, it’s like poison or something.”
    “Cover us,” I told her and Ron as I dropped to my knees beside Anne and got to work.
    The spell was as devious as its owner, spreading like wildfire through Anne’s veins. It took all my concentration to push it back from Anne’s heart, which seemed to be its ultimate target. Savannah and Ron worked to block us from more spells and vamps while too many seconds ticked by.
    Finally, though, I could feel the poisonous spell fading as I drove it to Anne’s lungs and out through her every breath. When it was fully expelled, she began to breathe again. She was still unconscious, but she’d live.
    “Ron,” I called out. The panther tossed aside the vampire he’d been ripping to shreds and leaped back over to us. “You’ve got to get her out of here somewhere safe. She’ll be okay, but she’s got to rest for a while.”
    The huge panther’s head dipped once. He ran behind some nearby trees. A few seconds later he came running back in human form, still barefooted but wearing jeans and an unbuttoned flannel shirt. “Thanks, man. I owe you big-time.”
    He scooped Anne into his arms, cradling her limp body against him.
    “Savannah, we’ve got to cover him so he can get her out of here,” I yelled, moving to stand beside Savannah as she blocked fireball after fireball thrown our way from too many directions to track.
    She nodded, and we split our focus between shielding ourselves and our friends as Ron ran with Anne in his arms through the woods toward my house, where I hoped their vehicle was parked.
    Once they were out of sight, Savannah said, “We’ve got to get to Caravass. He’s the oldest. He can command the vamps to stop.”
    “Okay.” Staying low, I kept a hand on her back, blocking spells as we ran toward the edge of the clearing where Caravass had taken a stand, weaving our way through battling witches and descendants on all sides.
    Caravass and the other council members were engaged, too, though it looked mostly defensive now. They were dodging spells and hitting attacking descendants just hard enough to knock them out, unlike Gowin’s small army who were breaking necks and slashing arteries as quickly as they could.
    “Over there!” I yelled, using my hand at her back to nudge her toward the council.
    “Not so fast,” Gowin said into my ear a second before pain exploded in my chest.

CHAPTER 37
    SAVANNAH
    Pain exploded in my chest, and Tristan’s hand at my back slipped away. I turned around, still crouched low, thinking he’d stopped to block the attacker who had just hit me with a spell.
    But this attacker had caught him completely by surprise. And it wasn’t my own pain I was feeling.
    Tristan was standing fully upright and arched backward, his face twisted with shock and agony.
    Then I saw Gowin at his back and what looked like fingertips sticking out of the front of Tristan’s chest. As if Gowin had plowed his hand right through Tristan.
    Please, God, no, I thought.
    Just like that, my whole world ended.
    I must have screamed or something. Gowin dropped Tristan as carelessly as if he were a piece of trash and moved on, probably to go after Caravass.
    But I didn’t care where he went, or how the battle was going around us, who was winning or losing. Even the whereabouts of my dad and Ron and Anne didn’t matter in that moment as I caught Tristan before he could hit the ground.
    He tried to speak, his eyes rolling to look at me as he gasped and