Free Master of Darkness by Angela Knight Page A

stepped away from the bodies. Bending, she examined the smeared brown shape that looked like blood. “Is this a print?”
    Justice joined her, leaving Tristan hovering protectively beside Belle. “Looks that way.”
    “What the hell made it—the world’s biggest chicken?”
    “We don’t get that lucky.” It did look a little like a bird track, assuming the bird was the size of an elephant. The print consisted of a pair of foot-long claws in the shape of a V, adjoining something that resembled a curled thumb . . .
    Somebody screamed. A high female shriek, ringing with the distilled terror of a woman facing her worst nightmare. Something roared.
    And the scream cut off.
    Justice and Miranda exchanged a single flashing glance, and raced toward the sound of the woman’s despairing cry. Belle and Tristan sprinted after them. Justice knew a good bodyguard would get his client to safety before worrying about anybody else, but Miranda wasn’t the type to hide when an innocent was in danger.
    He also knew he didn’t have time to argue with her, not when two men had just been slaughtered, and a woman was out there being attacked by God knew what. Besides, they might need Miranda’s magic to fight whatever monster her father had conjured now.
    So Justice ran, reaching for the Mageverse as he went, drawing on its thundering power. Magic flooded into his every cell, searing flesh and muscle, jerking bone into impossible shapes, sending fur in a rippling tide across his body. A firestorm of pain blazed in after the magic. He clenched his teeth against a rising howl.
    One stride later the pain was gone, and he was seven feet tall, bounding along on powerful wolf legs.
    Miranda matched him leap for leap, having Shifted at the same time. Her thick fur was the color of a fox’s pelt on a long, cleanly muscled body. Even in wolf form, he found her beautiful, her body sweetly curved beneath its armor, almost delicate next to his powerful bulk.
    Somewhere behind them came the ringing thud of armored boots as the two Magekind agents ran after them faster than any human—but not as fast as a pair of werewolves.
    They shot around the corner side by side, only to slide to a stop in astonishment and horror at what they saw.
    A freaking dinosaur lifted its head from the corpse of a woman who lay in a splattered pool of blood. Half the body was gone. The monster had taken the woman’s head off like a child biting into a chocolate bunny.
    They were too late.
    The Beast had to be fifteen feet tall as it balanced on two clawed legs over the woman’s corpse, a thick, counterbalancing tail whipping in the air behind it. It was covered in bright green feathers that clashed with the orange blaze of its eyes as it spread stubby wings over the woman’s pitiful corpse. Its bloody jaws gaped, revealing a set of teeth that put Justice’s to shame. The fucker looked like it could bite somebody in half like a Dorito. It had certainly taken a chunk out of that poor woman.
    Right in the center of its head blazed that damned blue stone.
    The Beast threw back its head and roared. The sound was still echoing off the surrounding buildings when the thing leaped over the corpse to dart toward them in long, bounding strides.
    “This way!” Justice grabbed Miranda’s hand and whirled to race up the block, darting down one alley and up another, along a third and a fourth. Leading the Beast away from the busy section of town, looking for somewhere it would be less likely to find someone it could eat or take hostage.
    The sound of the creature’s pounding footsteps receded; it was having a hard time getting through the narrow alleys Justice had chosen.
    Not that alley, too wide. No, not that one, not long enough.
There!
    He found what he was looking for in a pair of blocky redbrick office buildings; judging by the fading scents, the workers at both had knocked off for the day.
    Perfect.
    They needed to hem the big bastard in, give him less room to use his