I roared, incidentally spraying a wave of fire around the room. The walls and furniture turned black with soot; they smoked but thankfully didn't catch fire. I needed to be more careful. But how could I, when my world was crumbling in front of my eyes?
I craned my neck, latching onto the scruff of Bodie’s neck and whipping him off of me. He hit a charcoaled wall and slid to the floor, smearing a line of black down with him. He was up again before I could blink, glaring as he circled me, searching for a way to bring me down.
I was lucky he'd shifted into his wolf. If he'd attacked with a gun as Bodie-the-assassin, my brains would have been splattered across the wall like that soot.
"I don't want to hurt you," I assured him. And honestly, I didn't. If I let another accidental wave of fire out and he was in the way… God, the burns would be atrocious.
"You don't want to hurt my flesh," he corrected through a snarl. I'd never seen him look so fierce and wild. "You just want to rip my heart and soul from my chest and pretend it would somehow damage me less."
Another roar shook out of me as anger and frustration built inside. I didn't want to hurt him at all—flesh, bone, heart, soul, or whatever. I didn't want to murder his mate! I didn't even hate the annoying fly as much as I let on.
But we had to kill her.
Couldn't they see that? It was the only way to save the shifters of Los Angeles from going out like a candle, blown into nothingness by the nasty breath of the mages. We needed a victory, and this was the last one we were going to get, unless it served its purpose and rallied our forces. Otherwise, the mages may as well sing happy birthday right now and make a fucking wish, because we were about to go out like a light, nothing more than a fading stream of smoke whispering on the breeze to remind them we'd ever existed at all.
Easton suddenly shifted back into human shape. "Someone's coming."
Reluctantly, Bodie and I did the same, but we stayed all up in each other's shit, neither of us daring to back down.
"This isn't over," I promised him.
"Oh, but it is," Fuzzball threatened, making me feel small. I held firm, though, not allowing myself to shrink back by so much as a hair. "You kill her, you kill me. Then I kill you."
"Stop it," Easton hissed, his eyes glowing gold once more as he snarled in our direction. "This is fucking stupid. There are other options besides murder, murder, and more murder! Get your fucking heads out of your asses."
Huh. Back to playing middleman and peacemaker. I had to admit, I was pleasantly surprised.
A moment later a shifter soldier burst through the door of the conference room, out of breath, and in a panic. He didn't scan the torn-up room or assess our tattered clothing; his eyes locked right on mine.
"The Amara apartment complex, it’s on fire!"
13
Aubry
All of a sudden, the guys barged downstairs.
"Get some clothes on," Bodie demanded. He had a cut on his forehead that definitely hadn’t been there before, though it was already healing.
"What?" I asked, staring at him like he’d completely lost his shit. I was still in the white wife beater and tiny black cheer shorts he’d given me. What the fuck else was I supposed wear?
He unlocked my cell and tossed a black t-shirt and a crumpled pair of jeans at me. "I said get fucking dressed! We gotta go."
I scrambled into them, dragging the shirt over my head, grateful for the pre-cut wing slits in the back, and hopping around on one foot as I shimmied the soft denim material up my thighs and hips. Before I could even zip or button the pants, he yanked me out of my cell, and dragged me up to the surface following Easton and Drake.
My freaking head spun as I tried to make sense of what they were doing. Had they lost their furry little minds? Were they setting me free? Or were they about to end me?
It was a moonlit night and the polluted haze above the roofline was broken up by the scent of smoke. Ash billowed down over the street like black snowflakes from the pits of hell.
It looked like the apocalypse. Or, you know, every other fall in Los Angeles when brush fires swept through different parts of the city.
I watched as thick orange flames licked up the side of a blackened building just a couple blocks down. Shit. That was close.
"Why did you bring me up for this?" I asked.
They could have left me wallowing in the cell. Or did they worry that the fire would spread that far? That I’d be trapped under all that smoke while the oxygen was slowly sucked out of my tunnel and cell and their precious negotiation ended? Did they even have a negotiation? Had they seen that fucking press conference?
I didn’t particularly want to die. Death by fire would be a pretty stupid way for a summer fae to go. But I didn’t understand why the hell they’d brought me with them.
Drake glanced down at me, gaze scathing. "I don’t trust you to be left alone."
His eyes flickered to Bodie and Easton like he wanted to say something else. But he didn’t. His look put them in their place though, before his eyes flickered to gold, the color of his dragon’s eyes. They both lowered their gazes, showing just the slightest hint of submission.
My throat went dry. But that was just from the fire leaching all the moisture out of the air. Nothing else. Definitely not from Godzilla staking his claim to dominance.
Drake bolted toward the flames before the others, shifting in the middle of the street, making panicked humans scream as his black dragon emerged above people’s heads and flew through the grey shadows toward the fire. Damn. His dragon was enormous. His wings definitely hadn’t been that big the last time I’d seen him shift.
But shifting in public, that was an idiotic move that would make life harder on the L.A. Mage Police. I knew the protocol for shit like that. Someone would explain it all away as mass hysteria. And then the containment division would go out and give memory wipe potions to any human who stuck with the ‘I saw a real dragon’ line.
His actions annoyed me, but at the same time, had me enraptured.
His beast was epicly beautiful in a fearsome way. He had long twisted black horns, a hooked mouth, and his scales glittered like black jewels in the flame. Drake headed straight for the danger. And while dragons were fireproof, they were also completely smitten by fire. They reacted to it like kittens to catnip, or pigs to mud. He’d have to be hella confident that he could ignore his primal instincts in order to save some people.
That kind of self denial and self control was admirable. Not hot; I’d never use that description for Drake. Despite his looks, he was a pure egotistical evil maniac. Plain and simple.
Bodie tugged on my hand, interrupting my open-mouthed gaping. "Come on," he urged.
He pulled me off the overcrowded sidewalk and into the road. We followed Drake, but on foot, weaving through a mass of shifters and people and abandoned cars that still had headlights on and doors left wide open. Easton parted the crowd racing towards us with his bulk. Once we made headway, people started to veer around us naturally. They were all heading in the opposite direction through the trash-strewn streets, fleeing the fire.
A small herd of zebras thundered past us, their hooves echoing against the cracked concrete streets. A couple of parrots soared above us, one of them squawking, "Run for your lives! Mage fire! Mage fire!" A set of gorillas hopped from car to car, landing on the hoods, denting them irreversibly.
"Goddamned fire at the fucking zoo or something?" I heard one human guy say as he sheltered a girl under his shoulder and ran past us.
"Must be!" she responded.
It was as wild as a zoo. Shifter panic triggered their animal instincts. I shook my head and fought the urge to show my wings and fly. I’d typically float above this fray. Normally, when there was a fire, I’d arrive at the scene and wait for the winter water fae to do their thing. Then I’d investigate the smoking ruins to figure out if a shifter gang had started the fire. Nine times out of ten, they had.
It was strange and unnatural to not d
o that now. But I was no longer the chief enforcer. I was… on permanent vacation or some shit. "Pursuing other ventures" I think my parents had said. Those lying dicks.
A hulking human openly carrying a rifle charged down the street, knocking into Easton’s shoulder and growling, "Watch it, motherfucker!"
What a shit-eating idiot. Freaking people out even more with his gun and then being all hostile and aggressive? I hoped that prick tripped and blew off his own arm. Or better yet, maybe I could teach this bitch-assed punk a lesson?
My heart thumped faster as my mind and body flooded with adrenaline. It had been awhile since I’d had a good fight, and this dunce looked like my brand of crazy. I took an anxious step toward him, raising a cocky brow.
But Bodie’s grip on my hand grew stronger and he shoved me away behind him.
Spoilsport.
That giant piece of scrotum lint just laughed at me and walked on. He wouldn’t have been laughing if Bodie hadn’t stopped me. I flexed my fingers, wishing I could just lift a hand and flame him. But Larry had gotten better at stemming my fire power, and I couldn’t so much as conjure a spark.
Bodie tugged on my arm, switching my attention back to him. He leaned down and murmured softly, "We gotta hurry. There are still people in that building, and Drake’s gonna fucking give himself a heart attack trying to get them all out by himself. Old fuck."
I dropped all thoughts about the rifle-toting dickweed then, and instead focused on keeping up with Bodie and Easton’s long legs. The closer we got to the flames, the hotter it got. Like those horrid, dry, blazing hot summer days in Death Valley. I had to blink more to keep my eyes from drying out. I had to shield my face from the ash that rained down on us.
The fire raged, roaring out the doors and windows like an angry demon trying to break free. Glass shattered and beams broke, crashing to the ground somewhere deep beyond the wavering orange curtain before us. Flames reached and stretched, licking a nearby building before suddenly engulfing it in a blaze.
"Go!" Bodie shouted, gesturing for Easton to head toward the new burning building. But the big golden bear hesitated for a moment, glancing back at me with longing eyes.
My throat tightened but I didn’t say anything, just held his gaze for as long as I could before he turned and disappeared into a tenement apartment building.
"We need to find somewhere safe for you to stay," Bodie said, leading me down the street.
"How about my apartment?" I joked. But inside, my heart started to beat faster. Was he actually going to tie me up and leave me somewhere? Was I going to have a real chance to escape? I tried to keep a poker face. But I couldn’t look directly at him. I was worried I might give myself away. I stared out at the street ahead of us, watching him in my peripheral vision.
"Wish I could say yes, Princess," Bodie responded as he led me over to an old-school fire hydrant. "Maybe I should just wait with you."
"Maybe," I nodded. "I’m sure Drake will be fine."
I casually pushed his buttons. Like a good little robot, he responded.
"Ah, shit. You know I’ll feel it if you try and leave, right?" Bodie stepped into my personal space, his chest bumping against my chin.
I looked up. Ash had landed in his hair like snow. I had the sudden urge to dust it off. Maybe run my fingers through those luscious brown locks. Instead, I balled my hands into fists. "Yeah, I know."
"Good. Don’t be stupid."
He reached into a pouch on his waistband and pulled out a chain. I watched in awe as this tiny pouch, one that looked no bigger than a pepper spray container, coughed up twenty feet of chain. Damn it all! I was hoping they’d just put my fucking cuffs around a tree.
Bodie gestured toward the fire hydrant like we were at some fucking five-star restaurant. "Sit, please."
I widened my eyes and gave him my what-the-fuck stare.
It had cowed many people in its time, but apparently not my cocky-ass ma—I let that evil fated word die, and tried again. Not on Bodie, that cocky-ass, dingleberry wolf shifter.
He just grinned, completely unfazed by my stare. "I can help you sit, if you want. But I’ve got iron chains in my hand. You’d get burned."
"So sweet," I mocked, placing a hand over my heart. "You don’t want me to get burned by the chains now, you want me to get burned by them after you’ve wrapped them around me multiple times."
The grin fell right off his face and I smirked.
"Besides…" I gestured to the thirty-foot flames destroying the building right behind us. "I’ll probably literally get burned by those."
"I’ll be back before they get to you," Bodie promised. "I just need to help Drake."
"Chain me up farther down the street," I bargained.
He rolled his green and gold eyes. "Fine."
Grabbing my shoulder, he roughly marched me down the now-deserted block, stopping right in front of a bakery. The cakes in the display window made my stomach rumble. One had yellow frosted roses that I wanted to swallow whole.
"Sit on the sidewalk," Bodie commanded.
I obeyed, sitting down next to another old fire hydrant that he obviously still wanted to strap me to. I was betting I could slide the chains around and over the top to get free. Then I'd have to run with twenty feet of chain and try not to trip.
I chewed my lip, trying to think as he wrapped the hellish chain around my legs and then around the hydrant.
"Why aren't the damn Mage Police here yet?" I growled as a tiny bit of ash landed on my eyelashes and I shimmied to try and knock it away. The iron slipped to my bare ankles and dug into my skin like sizzling barbed wire, making me grimace.
"They never show down here," Bodie responded quietly.
What? My office hardly got any calls from down here—shifters didn’t trust the MP, but… I suddenly became aware of human firetrucks wailing in the distance.
"You don't have much time," I told him.
He shook his head, eyes narrowing into slits. "The fire trucks won't be able to do anything. Regular water doesn't stop mage fires."
This wasn't a mage fire. They didn't do that shit. They didn't have time to waste on bullshit things like setting fires, when they were too busy putting out metaphorical fires thanks to careless shifters all over L.A. who revealed our presence to humans right and left. All while running the whole fucking supernatural community.
I opened my mouth to spout off something sarcastic, but behind us, a building collapsed.
It sounded like an avalanche. Like television static amplified to the level of a sonic boom. Dust billowed out and I had to cover my face with my hands as the cloud of dirt rolled toward us.
"Fuck!" Bodie was off and running toward the collapsed building before he even finished locking my chains.
The desperation he felt was evident in his jerky movements as he ran through the cloud of debris, the trail of hair that erupted down his spine, and the wolf tail that protruded from the back of his jeans. He gave a howl as he started digging through the rubble, half human, half shifter.
Fucking hell. Had Drake really still been inside that building when it fell?
No! A strange mix of horror and elation rumbled through me as my eyes searched the skies frantically for any sign of him. I sat up and my jeans slid down my hips, revealing the top half of my ass covered by the stretchy black cheer shorts. Underwear, really.
This was my chance. I was outside. It was open air. I just had to get these damn chains off and I’d be free. I let my feet slide out toward the street, clad in whatever hand-me-down off-brand tennis shoes the guys had found weeks ago. I could feel the heavy metal circles pressing against the thin black t-shirt and jeans they'd given me to wear.
If I could just slither out…
Suddenly, my throat burned with emotion. It was like my heart had tried to punch my brain, but it couldn't make it past my windpipe. It felt like a fist had gotten lodged in there. The thought of leaving Bodie behind didn't sit well with half of me, but that was the side that was f
ooled by stupid magic. It wasn't logical. It wasn't real.
I'd go home and get this shit spell of Larry's reversed.
Yup. That's what I'll do.
And when I saw my treacherous, lie-through-their-fucking-teeth-I’d-like-to-knock-out parents... Well, I didn't need to think that far ahead. I just needed to escape.
I pushed my hands out behind me and lifted into a bridge position. I slowly lifted my torso but kept my feet on the street instead of the curb. The chains slid down another couple inches but lodged on my hips.
Son of a bitch!
What the hell could I do to get this chain off? If I touched it, my fingers would sizzle like strips of bacon.
I glanced down. Who needs pants? I thought.
It was convenient that I hadn’t gotten them buttoned earlier. I shucked them slowly, ensuring I could wrap the material around the chains and push them down. The chains slid off with relative ease until the links piled up around my ankles. I tried to slide my feet out while keeping the pants so I could pull them back on once I was free, but parts of the chain kept tumbling over the material, burning small patches on my legs.
Fuck it. I yanked the pants all the way off and tumbled backward at the same moment, trying to avoid the collapsed pile of chains that had just been at my feet.
Holy shit, it worked!
I didn't even have a chance to celebrate my victory, because the fire chose that moment to hop to yet another building.
Were the guys okay?
Drake was... who knew where. Bodie was still digging through the rubble—if his howls of frustration were anything to go by. And Easton had gone into the second building a long time ago and never came out. One or two other shifters had, though, I assumed at his urging. They’d scrambled past in their animal forms, not giving me a second look.
The third building should have already been clear, as people would have already evacuated.
Fae Captive (The Mage Shifter War Book 1) Page 13
