The food arrived, and we dug in, barely speaking as we inhaled our tacos.
“What do you think?” Harper asked once we were done eating. “Best tacos you’ve ever had?”
“For sure,” I said, and it was true. The food in Utopia was some of the best I’d ever had, period.
We were hanging out chatting, when just like Mira had said, someone approached the table.
Benjamin.
He smiled at me, then looked at Harper. “You never miss a Margarita Monday, do you?” he asked.
“Never.” She sat back in her chair and grinned. Then she looked at me, to Benjamin, and back again.
She’d set this up.
My cheeks heated, my stomach sank, and I wanted to run back up to my room. But I was trapped.
Benjamin ran his fingers through his blond hair and focused on me. “I just finished up, but saw you guys and wanted to say hi,” he said. “I hear you’ve been making incredible progress with your magic.”
“I don’t know if I’d call it ‘incredible,’” I said. “But it’s definitely progress.”
“I’ve already seen Mira’s.” He playfully raised an eyebrow. “Want to show me yours?”
I chuckled, because even though that line would have sounded slimy from most guys, Benjamin was clearly joking. He actually reminded me a bit of Joey, and I understood why he and Harper were friends.
“Sure.” I flipped my palm to the ceiling and created a small fireball in my hand. After a few seconds, I snuffed it out.
“Neat,” Benjamin said. “I wish I could do that.”
“You just wish you weren’t human,” Harper teased.
“Can you blame me? What you all can do is amazing,” he said, and I smiled at how right he was. “Anyway,” he continued, returning his attention to me. “Now that you’re venturing out, what do you say about that drink we talked about the other day?”
All eyes went to me, and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.
Especially because one pair of eyes felt heavier than the rest.
Ethan’s.
He sat rigidly in his chair, and waves of heat emanated from his direction.
He wanted me to say no.
And it pissed me off. Because he had no right to care.
What harm could come from one drink with a friendly, attractive guy?
“Sure,” I said quickly, before I could change my mind. “Sounds good.”
“Cool.” Benjamin smiled. “I’ll pick you up on Wednesday at eight?”
“I’m not busy.” I chuckled, given my complete lack of a social life recently. “But can we do seven? I’ve been getting up early for training.”
“Seven it is.” He gave me one last smile, then headed back to where he was sitting with a group of women.
“Yes!” Harper squealed. “You made the right choice. And it’s a good thing you’ve figured out how to do the pretty spell. You can do it Wednesday night.”
“Hey.” Mira frowned, offended. “We don’t need a pretty spell to look hot.”
“Of course you don’t,” Harper said. “But it doesn’t hurt.”
But I was barely paying attention to what they were saying.
Because the smell of burnt wood filled the air, and it was coming from Ethan’s direction.
He tore his angry gaze away from me and focused on Mira. “Speaking of getting up early, it’s time we head back for the night,” he said, and then he leaned over and kissed her. “And you’re right. You don’t need a pretty spell to look hot.”
Keeping his eyes locked on hers, he stood up, draped his arm around her shoulders, and led her out of the restaurant. The rest of us followed.
But as we got up, I glanced at his chair.
Both armrests were charred black—right where his hands had been wrapped around them.
21
Gemma
Benjamin showed up to our quarters exactly at seven on Wednesday night. He wore animal skin pants and no top, like most of the men in Utopia. He even came with a bouquet of tulips.
Mira must have told him that tulips were my favorite flower.
I thanked him, took the bouquet, and fumbled around to find a vase in the cabinets. Then I met him back at the door.
“You look beautiful.” He eyed the short skirt and tight top that Mira had insisted I wear.
“Thanks.” I grabbed Mom’s coat off the rack next to the door and put it on. It was slightly big, but it worked.
Benjamin was a natural at small talk, so we chatted easily back and forth on the walk to the restaurant.
“The place we’re going isn’t super crowded, but I thought that would be good, so we could actually hear each other while we chat,” he said as we neared the restaurant. “Unless you want to go somewhere more popular?”
“No,” I said quickly. “Quiet’s good.”
“Cool. That’s what I thought.”
The restaurant looked like something out of the American Old West. We stepped through the swinging saloon doors, and I followed Benjamin to a seat at the bar.
There was only one other person sitting at the bar—an older man with crazy white hair a few seats down.
The bartender came over, dressed in a corset tied so tightly that her breasts nearly spilled out of the top. “What can I get you?” she asked with a smile.
“Whiskey for me,” Benjamin said, and then he looked to me. “Pick your poison.”
The white haired man chuckled and placed down his beer. “Watch yourself with that whiskey, boy,” he said, his tone open and friendly. “It’s strong stuff. Just one of them knocks me straight out.”
The bartender laughed and looked back at us. “Emmett can’t hold his whiskey, but you should be fine,” she said. “It’s our specialty.”
“Sounds good,” I said, since it was clearly the drink to get at a Wild West themed bar.
“Good choice,” Benjamin said.
“We’ll see about that,” the white-haired man said. “But if it’s too strong for you to handle, Clara makes a mighty fine wake-up juice.”
“Can’t you see they’re on a date?” Clara said with a smile as she poured our whiskey. “Give the kids some privacy, or I’ll say you’re drunk and send you home.” She winked at him, he raised his beer in a toast, and she placed the glasses of whiskey down in front of us. “Enjoy,” she said, and then she poured herself a glass of whiskey and walked over to chat with Emmett.
Judging by how close she leaned in to him, they were clearly an item.
Benjamin and I clinked our glasses and each took a sip. The whiskey was strong, but smooth.
He rotated his seat to face me. “So, how’s your training been going?” he asked, his eyes taking on a new level of intensity.
I leaned back and crossed my legs away from him. “Some days are better than others,” I said, and I summarized what Mira and I had been up to with our training since arriving in Utopia.
As we continued chatting, Benjamin slowly moved his bar stool closer and closer to me.
Each time he did, I moved mine a bit farther away. Eventually, after he finished his whiskey, he placed his hand lightly on my arm.
I quickly pulled away.
He frowned, then sat back. “You’re not really feeling this, are you?” he asked.
I glanced down at my hands, feeling terrible. Because when Benjamin had asked me out, I’d known I wasn’t interested. I didn’t even know why I’d said yes.
Wrong. You said yes because Ethan wanted you to say no, and you wanted his attention.
Disgust rolled through me. Disgust at myself for hurting Benjamin because of my feelings for Ethan. It was selfish and thoughtless. Benjamin was a nice guy who deserved better.
He sat there patiently, waiting for my answer.
“I’m sorry,” I finally said. “I just have a lot on my plate. After what happened with the griffin, and now having to focus on training…” I trailed off, unsure where to go from there.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I get it.�
�
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He smiled, and just like that, his disappointment was gone. “You’re here to learn how to use your magic. And I mainly just wanted to show you a fun time. If that means hanging out as friends, that’s cool. If you need to get back to your quarters to keep studying, I can walk you back. No pressure.”
“Thanks,” I said. “That’s really nice of you.”
“What can I say?” He smiled again, although he did sound slightly bummed. “I’m a nice guy.”
“You are,” I agreed. “And it’s refreshing to not be studying for a change. Let’s stay for another drink? As friends.”
“Sounds great.” He held up a hand to signal Clara to come back over, and ordered us two more drinks.
She chatted with us as she poured our drinks, as if we’d known each other for years.
I could get used to this. Because Utopia was safe. It was full of people like me—with magic. People I could be myself around.
Maybe, in the future, Utopia could feel like home.
22
Gemma
After two more weeks of practice, we were back in the queen’s cavern.
She watched us from her throne inside the dragon’s mouth, her head held high. “Show me what you’ve learned,” she said.
Harper, Alice, Ethan, and Mom were there, along with about twenty witches on guard to protect the queen if necessary. They stood in a circle around us, stone-faced and intimidating, with swords strapped to their backs.
Mira went first. She bent her arms at the elbows, palms facing the ceiling. She took a deep breath, and then ice flowed out of her palms, wrapped around her hands and wrists, and traveled down to her elbows. Rows of icicles dropped down from her arms to the floor.
She looked like living artwork.
The ice cracked and broke apart, and she shot it out in all directions. Wind blew around us as she made sure the ice crystals swerved around everyone, although the witches reached for their swords to shield themselves, just in case.
The wind picked up, and the icicles shot toward the ceiling. They stopped mid-air, melted, and water rained down on us in slow motion.
I stood there as the last of the water droplets splashed on my face, shocked.
Mira had never done anything that extreme in practice.
Either she’d been practicing without telling me, or the pressure from the queen had pushed her to the next level. Given that we were together nearly every time we practiced, I assumed it was the latter.
The queen remained silent for an incredibly slow few seconds.
“Nice job,” she finally said, and then she turned to me. “Can you perform as well as your sister?”
I swallowed, feeling the pressure of all eyes in the room on me. I’d intended to create a few fireballs and raise rocks from the ground. Nothing as spectacular as what Mira had just done.
Time to up my game.
I said nothing, since obviously the queen didn’t want me to answer with words.
Instead, I walked forward, stopped a few meters away from the queen, and glanced around to make sure the general area around me was clear. After confirming that it was, I bent my arms at the elbows like Mira had done, turned my palms up to the ceiling, and called on my magic.
Heat filled me, pressing against my skin and begging to be set free. Taking inspiration from Mira’s icicles that surrounded her, I envisioned the fire shooting up out of my palms and joining together to arc over my head.
The magic burst forth, and as I held the fire in place, burning embers fluttered down around me. They fizzled out into ash, and the orange light from the flames danced across the queen’s impassive face.
She looked completely unimpressed.
I can change that.
Still holding onto the arc of fire above my head, I called on my earth magic. It bloomed inside me, filling me, and I pushed it out like a sonic wave.
The cavern shook like the first rumblings of an earthquake. Pieces of rock dislodged themselves from the stone columns and fell to the floor, plumes of dust puffing up as they hit the ground.
The shaking intensified, and the queen widened her stance, her eyes wide in alarm. “Stop,” she commanded. “I’ve seen enough.”
I snuffed the fire out and let go of my earth magic.
The fire disappeared.
But the cavern continued to rumble.
“I said stop.” Her voice was low and threatening.
“I stopped.” I looked around, confused. The witches stood with their swords ready, and Mira’s eyes were wide and frightened.
Ethan held his gaze with mine. “Hold onto your magic,” he said steadily. “Control it.”
I reached for my earth magic again and focused on stabilizing it. But something pushed back, smothering me and fighting me.
Something that wasn’t my magic. Something so dark that my stomach dropped in fear.
Ethan rushed to me and took my hands. He squeezed them tightly, his intense gaze focused on mine.
He was trying to join his magic with mine to help me.
The connection between us opened, and power filled me at the same time as shock crossed his face.
He dropped my hands and spun around to face the queen. “Dark magic,” he said. “It’s inside the kingdom.”
She shook her head. “Impossible.”
Then her eyes went blank, she flipped her hand so her palm faced the sky, and a flaming letter appeared in her hand. A fire message.
The flames extinguished as quickly as the message had arrived.
She nearly ripped the letter apart as she opened it. She read it quickly, then looked back up at everyone in the cavern, fierce and strong. “Utopia’s been breached,” she said. “We’re under attack.”
23
Gemma
Ethan pulled Mira over and stood in front of us, one hand in each of ours, like he was blocking us from attack.
“This cavern is the safest place in the kingdom,” the queen said. “It’s the last place they’ll reach.”
“Who’s ‘they?’” my mom asked, panicked.
“Dark witches. Accompanied by an army of demons.” She focused on me, Mira, and Ethan while saying the final part, and my stomach fell.
Because Utopia’s barrier dome was impenetrable, even by greater demons. And demons could only be killed with holy weapons. Holy weapons were rare, and since Utopia wasn’t supposed to need them, there were none here.
We could fight the demons, but we couldn’t kill them.
There was only one way in and out of Utopia—the volcano’s crater. And we couldn’t get there without facing an army of dark witches and demons.
An army that we didn’t have the proper weapons to kill.
Screams echoed through the tunnel that led to the main chamber, and terror filled me to the core.
“They’re here for Gemma and Mira,” Ethan said. “The breach happened when they used more magic than ever before. It can’t be a coincidence.”
The queen stared us down so intensely that I feared she’d rush at us and break our necks so the dark witches couldn’t get what they wanted.
I moved to the side, so half of me was blocked by Ethan’s sturdy frame. My sister’s shoulder brushed mine—she’d done the same. She trembled with fear.
More screams from the main chamber, and this time, they were louder.
The queen’s focus snapped to the guards. “I’ll send a fire message to Avalon so they can dispatch the Nephilim army to help us. Harper, Alice, Rita, Betty, and Taylor—stay back here with the twins, Ethan, Rachael, and me. Jennifer, Marie, and Vicky—guard the cavern’s entrance to keep the attackers at bay. The rest of you—slow the attackers in any way possible. Even if that means using dark magic.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” the witches said in unison, and then they hurried out of the throne room to follow through on the queen’s command.
For the first time since arriving to Utopia, the walls felt like they were closing in
around me. Because the throne room might be the hardest chamber in the kingdom to penetrate, but it was also a dead end.
We were trapped.
The queen rushed to her throne, took a piece of parchment and a pen from one of the wooden boxes next to it, and scrawled out a message. She handed it to Harper, who made it disappear in a ball of fire.
“The Nephilim will come to help us. But once they defeat the demons, this chamber will be the last place they’ll be able to reach,” the queen said. “We have to pray that they get here before the demons.”
More screams. So close that they had to be nearing the entrance of the tunnel that would bring them to the throne room.
The queen focused on me and Mira. “Rosella risked Utopia to help the two of you,” she said. “I can only think of one reason why.”
Before she could continue, a narrow stream of black, smoky magic shot out of the tunnel and struck Alice’s chest.
Alice’s eyes widened, she fell back, and her head smacked to the ground. Her blank, empty eyes stared up at the ceiling.
Dead.
I spun around, reached for my earth magic, and flung it at the tunnel.
The walls rumbled, and the tunnel shook. Rocks broke loose from the ceiling, and the entire thing collapsed in on itself from the center outward. An avalanche of earth and stone poured out of what used to be the entrance, then stilled and settled down.
Dust rose up and out, so thick that it entered my nose and lungs. My eyes burned with it.
The others coughed and tried to wave the dust away from their faces, but it was everywhere.
Then a rush of wind pushed it out to the walls, clearing the area.
Mira.
Or Ethan. His fire magic was so strong that sometimes I forgot he had air magic, too. And from the way my sister trembled and cowered, and Ethan stood as strong as ever, I’d bet it was him.
The wind stopped, and then, silence. With the tunnel filled in, I could no longer hear the screams from the main chamber.
One of the other witches assigned to stay back with us spun around and pointed her sword at me. “We can’t teleport out of here.” She sneered, although she didn’t move forward. “You destroyed our only escape.”
The Dragon Twins (Dark World: The Dragon Twins Book 1) Page 9
