Let me , my dragon cried, but I shut it down. If I shifted here, I’d crush my friends.
“I can get us in,” Aidan said. A flick of his fingers, and magic coiled around the knob. It shot through the lock, disappearing into the tiny gap, and the door creaked open.
“You couldn’t do that before,” Cece said.
“I’ve always had the skill, but…”
I guessed that the building had refused him access.
Shoving the door wider, I rushed inside. Wolfy lay pinned to a wooden platform, his tiny legs bound by leather straps.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, his voice pinched. He struggled against the bonds that had chafed his skin.
“I have to be here.”
We crowded around the table, but when I reached for the bindings, Rhys pulled me back. “Don’t. I don’t think they’re simple leather.”
“Please go,” Wolfy cried. “It’s not safe here, especially for you, Maddy.”
“Why me in particular?” I asked, my hands itching to yank on the ties and set him free, but Rhys was right. We needed to do this safely. It could be a trap.
“You and your sister…I want you to leave. Flee this building and never return.”
“We’re not leaving you, little guy,” Cece said, her face creased. She had to be feeling his pain.
Sarah stood by the open door, watching the hall. “Something’s…”
My heart leaped into my throat. Shoving aside Sarah’s comment, I focused on my wolfling friend. “How can we free you?”
“You can’t. Go!”
“Guys…?” Sarah said, but I waved her off and leaned closer to Wolfy.
“Let me.” Aidan raised his hands. “Rhys? Maybe toss a little sorcery into the mix?”
Rhys nodded and tucked the chair leg beneath his arm. Rounding the table, he faced Aidan. “On three. One…two…”
“Something’s coming,” Sarah hissed from the door. “We’ve got to get out of here.” She backed away from the opening, stumbling into Cece.
Stomps in the hall were punctuated by huffs and bitten-off moans.
Magic licked from Rhys fingers, arcing over the table. It met Aidan’s power, and the two wove together, binding into a thick braid, the colors blending. Joining them, I added a band of my own magic, combining it with theirs until the mass swirled above the table.
Aidan’s hand lifted, and he placed it over the swirl of magic—over Wolfy.
Wolfy snarled. “Staying will only let him—”
Aidan’s hand dropped, pushing the magic downward. It flowed over the wolfling, and the bindings snapped open.
“You should’ve left me,” Wolfy whimpered.
I snatched him up and hugged him. “Would you have left me?”
He sighed. “No, but this was a sacrifice I was willing to make.”
“I wasn’t willing to make it. I—”
“Time’s up!” Sarah bolted into the hall with Cece. Rhys and Aidan shared a look, and their lips set into thin lines.
“We’re out of here,” Rhys said, rushing toward me. He looped his arm around me as he passed, brandishing the chair leg in his other hand.
Sarah’s hoarse cry echoed in the hall, and Rhys and I exchanged concerned looks. Aidan raced through the doorway with the rest of us behind.
The horde waited, with Janie at the head of the pack. A slick smile curled her lips. “Kill them.” Her arms rose, and the dead students stumbled around her, rushing toward us.
“This way,” Aidan shouted, bolting in the opposite direction.
Rhys and I pivoted and took off after the other three, slamming down the corridor with the horde behind us. We continued past the closed offices and rounded a corner. The door to the back yard of the campus waited ahead, at the end of the hall.
Anxiety clawed through me as a hand hit my shoulder. Whirling, I kicked out, sending the zombie student flying backward. I took off after my friends and leaped through the open doorway, joining them outside. We ran across the overgrown back lawn, heading for the woods, but came to a shuddering halt when we saw what awaited us.
The Council had called in more reinforcements.
Shit . Double shit.
At least fifty men and women stood in front of us, magic licking across their fingers as Kimbra stared them down
Wolfy strained to break free of my arms, but then he stilled. He nosed the ring. “You’re still wearing that.”
“Yup. It won’t come off,” I said. I called to my dragon and it rumbled, eager to join in and help us finish this. Where were the other dragons?
“Before, I…I didn’t see. Why didn’t I see? The channel,” he whispered. His words echoed Rhys’s grandfather’s. “The ring will help you direct your power. Now you can use the sentinels.”
“Gramps told me what I’d already suspected. I’m the final guardian.” Rhys turned to me, his eyes wide. “Maddy…”
Aidan, Sarah, and Cece rushed forward to join Kimbra in battle. Cece called her dragons while Sarah and Aidan stood with her, Sarah choking whoever came near, and Aidan blasting them back toward the woods, but I feared they’d be wiped out in no time. No one could withstand the onslaught of magic that was sure to come. Behind us was a horde of dead students eager to destroy us. Ahead lay death or capture at the Council’s hands.
“Do you trust me?” Rhys asked, grabbing my forearms. Wolfy remained in my arms between us.
I nodded. “Tell me what I need to do.”
“I think it’s what we need to do,” he said.
“Think? What if you’re wrong?”
“Do we have a choice?”
Aidan sent a shockwave of power toward the attackers and some fell, but the others poured toward us. They’d overrun us soon. It was time to act, not speculate.
“Maddy,” Wolfy said, “you need to call the sentinels.”
“But how?”
“Use the ring,” he yelled. “Channel your power. Now!”
I juggled him over to one arm and lifted my hand. Rhys took it and squeezed. He lifted it and turned it over.
“Sorry...I know I said I’d never do this, but it’s the only way.” He bit down on my wrist, his fangs sinking in with barely a pinch. He didn’t take much; this wasn’t about feeding anything but the power we needed to channel.
When he lifted his head, his eyes gleamed burgundy. He licked a lingering drop of blood off his right fang, and damn, that was hot.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Do it!” Wolfy cried. “Before it’s too late!”
I stared into the sapphire, and lights flickered deep inside. “Yes.”
Rhys’s power poured into me, flowing around my dragon, around me. It fused us together, making us one. As pain blasted through me, I tipped my head back and screamed, my voice changing from a roar into an unearthly cry. Wolfy’s howl echoed in my ears, the mournful cry of a wild wolf.
My voice petered out and I slumped, but Rhys caught me, holding me upright.
When I opened my eyes, we were surrounded. But not by the Council or its minions; and not by zombie students.
All manner of beasts, mythical creatures, and magical shifters raced around the side of Wadsworth, rushing our way.
Backing away from the Council, Aidan joined us, his gaze sweeping over the new arrivals as they drew closer.
Rhys pulled the chair leg out from under his arm and stared down at it, shaking his head. Light hit it, and… “When did that turn into a sword?” It gleamed brightly, looking like something straight out of a legend.
Rhys’s breath hissed out. “It happened when we merged our power.”
“Yes!” Wolfy exclaimed, leaping from my arms and scampering over to Rhys. He nudged the hilt of the sword with his nose, pushing it toward...Aidan. “It is the Destroyer. You must give it to the one who can wield it.”
“Yesss.” Rhys turned and presented it, hilt first, to Aidan. His lips twitched upward before smoothing. “I think it’s your turn to carry it around for a while.
”
Aidan took it and thrust it toward the sky. Light winked off the metal.
The mythical creatures crowded around us. A centaur at the head of the pack trotted close and bowed down onto one knee in front of me. He dipped his head forward, almost touching the ground. “What will you, Mistress?”
Holy fuck . We’d not only played King Arthur with a chair leg; we’d called an army of sentinels.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Cece
I stared in disbelief as my childhood dreams and nightmares appeared out of nowhere to surround my sister, Rhys, and Aidan. Creatures unlike anything I’d ever seen with my own eyes circled them, awaiting their orders.
“Sentinels,” I muttered under my breath. Then the screech of a dragon pulled me from my shock and awe and snapped me back to reality—the one that included an all-out war with the Council’s army going on around me.
I looked up to see a brilliant gold mesh net, as vast as the sky itself, forming a barrier from below, preventing my dragons from reaching us. Every time one rammed the net, it flared brighter still, nearly blinding me and forcing them back, stunned and in pain. Whatever magic they held—the magic that made them invulnerable to that of others—failed them against this trap. I looked on in horror as the net slowly closed around them, caging them in.
They were trapped, and with every brush against the webbed spell, I could feel them growing weaker.
“It’s killing them,” I whispered, my gaze locked on the sky as the melee continued around me. “I have to help them.”
“What?” Aidan said, suddenly at my side with his black magic swirling around us—around me—like a shield of protection.
I turned to face him and found pitch black eyes staring back at me. “We have to help the dragons.”
He dared a glance above and frowned. “How?”
Wasn’t that the million-dollar question?
I looked to my sister, standing by Rhys’s side, and an idea formed in my mind. “Maddy!” I shouted as I bolted past Aidan’s smoky shield. “Maddy! Time to get scaly!”
As I ran toward her, I pointed to the sky. Her brow furrowed with anger, and smoke began to coil from her nose.
“Rhys,” she said, turning to the sorcerer-vamp at her side, “your family trained sentinels for centuries. Now it’s time for you to lead them.” She grabbed his neck and pulled him into a kiss, then let him go abruptly. She cut a look to the wolfling. “Stay close to him.” With a look of determination that nearly scared me, she stormed toward the fray, body morphing with every step. I chased after her as her petite frame expanded into a massive reptilian shape.
She looked over her shoulder with those inhuman amber eyes and huffed a mouthful of smoke in irritation as she jerked her head toward her back. I realized what she was indicating and scampered up her tail to nestle between her wings. Seconds later, Aidan crowded in behind me.
“I thought you might need a hand,” he said in my ear as Maddy shot straight up into the air at a screaming pace. I pressed my chest against her warm scales, and Aidan leaned over top of me to help secure me. I thought I heard him chuckle when I slammed my eyes closed, but maybe it was just the wind.
“You’re not afraid of heights, too, are you, little witch?”
Nope. Not the wind.
“Maybe…”
His grip on me tightened. “I hope you find the irony of someone able to control dragons being scared of flying as delicious as I do.”
“I’ll consider the irony later. Once my dragons are free and safe.”
A light rumble in his chest echoed through mine. “They will be.”
Maddy’s beast roared in agreement, and I stroked her neck.
As she approached the web trapping the horde, I looked below to see how Rhys, Wolfy, Kimbra, Sarah, and the sentinels were faring. Colorful magic exploded all around the reformatory, and the sentinels had surrounded the Council and its army, but I couldn't tell if that meant we were winning.
We needed the dragons ASAP.
“Maddy!” I shouted over the roaring wind in my ears. “Don’t touch the barrier!”
Her beast just snorted in response, but I could tell she’d understood. Giving the magical netting a wide berth, she swooped around to inspect it for weak spots. I did the same, but found nothing.
“What do we do?” I yelled back to Aidan.
In response, he thrust a wicked-looking sword in front of me. “I borrowed this from Rhys.” I could hear the amusement in his tone as he shifted over toward Maddy’s wing. “Tell her to keep steady and get in as close as she can.” He dared a glance down as he stepped out onto her outstretched wing. “I have a feeling I’m only going to get one shot at this.”
I looked on in abject horror as he neared the tip. “Steady!” I shouted.
Dragon-Maddy held fast as she drifted closer to the magical net. Aidan drew the sword back like a medieval knight about to cut down his enemy. I held my breath and prayed to any god willing to listen that he wouldn’t fail. That he wouldn’t fall.
The dragons inside the prison seemed to understand what was happening and backed away from the edges of their golden cage. Aidan inched closer still; then, with one measured, elegant swing, he arced the blade toward the iridescent mesh and carved a hole through its side. The magic fought back, lightning and wind ripping through the air as the spell was sliced apart. The beasts inside roared with rage and erupted in flames and smoke before they raced toward the ground to exact vengeance on their captors.
Aidan turned to me, his face marred with ash and peppered with cuts from the explosion of magic, and smiled. Then a blast of wind from a passing dragon knocked him off balance. His smile fell from his face right before he fell from Maddy.
“AIDAN!” I screamed as I looked over Maddy’s side to watch him plummet toward the ground. “NO!”
Maddy turned and dove toward the falling fey, but he was already so close to the ground. So close to death. As panic welled inside my chest, a midnight-blue blur streaked through my periphery, and Aidan disappeared from sight. Seconds later, he sat atop the dragon leader flying next to me, sword still in hand.
I choked on a half laugh/half sob and nearly jumped from Maddy to hug him. When I shifted on her back, she huffed smoke at me in warning. I sat back down and waited until her feet hit the ground. I slid down her wing and darted for Aidan, who’d just jumped down from his savior.
“You crazy bastard!” I shouted as I jumped into his arms. Before he could say a word, I grabbed his face and kissed him like a girl who’d almost just seen the boy she loved die—again.
He pulled away, looking smug as ever. “I didn’t jump intentionally, you know.”
“Semantics,” I yelled as the horde of dragons landed in the front yard of Wadsworth, just outside the raging battle.
“What now?” Maddy asked as she walked up next to me in human form.
“Kill these assholes and burn the place down?”
Her lips pressed to a thin line and she nodded.
“We need to finish them off first,” Aidan said, pointing to the Council’s army. Their numbers had been thinned out, by the look of it, thanks to Rhys, Sarah, Kimbra, and the sentinels.
I looked to the dark blue dragon and nodded. “Can you take them out without harming the others?” I asked, as though I were talking to another human. His citrine colored eyes searched my face, and he snorted in response.
“I’ll take that as a yes…”
In unison, they took to the sky and circled the field, careful not to fly too high, just in case another trap awaited. As they did, the three of us ran into the fray. Maddy and Aidan called their malum magic, and I did all I could not to get in the way. My focus was split between the dragons and the war in front of me, making it hard to do much more than make sure the beasts did as I wanted and not get myself killed in the process.
Maddy blasted a man who’d broken through the sentinel line, heading right for Rhys. He flew through the air like he weighed nothing and
landed in an unenviable position on top of the flagpole.
One more down. A few more to go.
Aidan sliced through the enemy like they were nothing, with both magic and the sword. “Stay close,” he yelled over his shoulder at me. “I can’t feel you anymore, remember?”
“You’re making a mistake!” a councilman hissed as his ice-blue shield of magic wavered under the press of Maddy’s attack. “This is exactly what he wants!”
“Maybe it’s what I want,” she growled at him. “You locked me away here to drain my magic, then you tried to kill me and my friends—my sister. ”
“It’s not that simple,” he replied, straining under the force of her onslaught. Aidan and Rhys helped surround him, while Sarah and I flanked Maddy.
“You’re a murderer and a liar,” Maddy said, cutting him off.
His menacing face contorted with dark amusement as he looked at the carnage strewn about the yard. “So are you.”
“Oh, enough of this,” Sarah said before raising her clenched fist in the air. The councilman’s neck pulled tight and his face turned red. He gasped for breath—until he didn’t. She dropped her arm to her side, and his body fell to the ground like a discarded doll. Sarah turned to Maddy with a wicked smile. “He talked too much.”
“The entrance!” Kimbra shouted, drawing our attention to where the former-student zombie masses were crashing against the double doors from the inside. “We can’t let them escape!”
The concern in her voice was thick and unnerving, and I soon found myself running behind Aidan and Sarah to try to stop them.
“Dragons!” I shouted as we reached the bottom of the stairs and glared up at the army of dead looming beyond the now-open doors. “Sarah, can you hold them?”
She looked at me as though I'd lost my damn mind and extended her hand. Just as they had in the hallway days earlier, they stopped and fell to the floor, clutching their throats, which seemed ironic, given that they were already dead. Though seeing them gasp for air made me seriously question if that were the case...
The dragons sensed my hesitation and continued to circle above, awaiting my command.
Rogue Reformatory: Breakout (Supernatural Misfits Academy Book 3) Page 18
