In Someone Else's Skin, Margo Collins [best books to read for women .TXT] 📗

He glanced up at me, his gaze impressed.

I turned my attention to Coit’s cell door as Shane gave his own a solid kick. The door popped off its hinges, and Shane stepped out. Seconds later, Coit did the same.

“Time to get the hell out of Dodge,” Coit said, his strong accent threading through the words, turning them into a drawl so thick it was almost a parody of a Texas accent.

I focused on shifting my mouth just enough to be able to speak. The words came out in a sibilant hiss. “No. First we find the babies.”

As we moved down the hallway, I didn’t dare consider the possibility that the infants were not in this building at all. I had to assume that if we were right and there weren’t enough lamia children being born, Queen Amalya would want to keep these babies near her.

If I’d known of any other way to get to the floor with the queen’s chamber, I would have taken it.

Instead, I melted the hinge mechanisms on several more doors as we made our way back down the hallway until we got to the elevator.

The gold-toned metal doors opened on two guards holding shock-sticks, who froze for a split second before leaping toward us to attack.

Chapter 8

These two looked like the same ones who had taken us down to the dungeon—though for all I knew, it was common for the snake guards to travel in shifted pairs, one with the bottom half of his body shifted, the other with the top half in serpent form.

In any case, whether they were the same two men or not, the security officers weren’t expecting anyone to be wandering through the building they were guarding, while we at least knew that we were watching for guards—so really, we had the element of surprise more on our side.

Not to mention the numbers. We outnumbered them two to one.

The werewolf had both claws and strength, and Coit was a brawler, big and strong and apparently used to fighting. Those two jumped in immediately.

Shane, more of an academic than a fighter, stepped back to give them more room.

And I focused my hinge-melting magic in the guards’ direction.

One of the men began screaming as my magic burned through his shirt at his shoulder, the closest open spot I could find.

Coit assessed the situation rapidly, landing the blow he’d already been in the middle of throwing against the guy’s jaw and ducking out of the way to give me more room to work.

The blow knocked the shock stick out of the guard’s hand and sent it spinning across the white-tiled floor.

Despite his burning shoulder and bruised face, the lamia male flicked out his serpentine lower half, snake-strike fast, and knocked Coit’s feet out from beneath him.

The guard turned his attention toward me, and I steeled myself for a magical battle.

But no magic appeared. The guard lunged for me instead. From flat on his back, Coit flipped around and grabbed hold of the guard, grasping his shifted lower body and pulling it backward, away from me.

I had time to dance out of the way, sliding along my own shifted body.

The snake coiled around Coit, tightening around the human’s body just as Coit’s arms tightened around the snake.

In a battle of the constrictors, a snake would always win. I had to do something quick to help.

With Coit hauling back on the snake guard, I was able to focus my magic at the point where his lower and upper body halves met.

It functioned like a groin kick would for a human male—a kick that left behind glowing, burning embers.

His snake half clenched before it released, and Coit took the opportunity to scramble to his feet, knocking the guard off-balance.

With that guard momentarily under control, I turned my attention to Grant and the other guard as they danced across the hallway, back and forth. The snake kept striking toward Grant, aiming to sink its fangs into him anywhere.

But Grant’s werewolf reflexes allowed him to duck out of the way again and again.

But the two were evenly matched, and Grant hadn’t managed to get a hit against the guard any more than the guard been able to strike him.

But this guard wasn’t using magic, either. There was something weird about that. I stored the information in the back of my mind to examine later.

Magic. I could use my magic to kill him.

I didn’t want to kill a guard who was simply doing his job.

I didn’t really want to kill anyone if I could help it. Besides, we might need at least one of these guys for more information. They were certain to know where the lamia babies were.

Because of the way he had shifted, the guard’s body changed from human to snake at the neck. I was afraid to hit him with my magic at that point for fear of killing him outright.

I considered hitting his most vulnerable human bits, but part of me worried about an actual groin strike. In a world where fertility might be a problem, I was unwilling to take that option away from anyone.

Sometimes that moral compass my adoptive human parents had instilled in me was a real pain in the ass.

I had spent my life assuming I was the only one of my kind, that I would never have a normal relationship or a family other than the one who had adopted me. I had thought I wouldn’t be able to have my own children. I had mourned that loss of choice. And even a split-second consideration of destroying this man’s ability to reproduce reminded me too much of what it was like to fear that for myself.

So instead, I focused my power toward his knees, using the burning power to attack the bone beneath the skin. It was bound to cause painful, possibly even horrific injuries, but as a shifter, he should be able to