by Lan Chan
The next time she zapped me, I almost sat up from the shock of it. I took in a lungful of air and heard, “Weakling!” before falling back down again.
Something thundered in the atmosphere. So loud that it broke through the fog that was muffling all other sound. Agatha and Hugh’s heads whipped to the left.
And that was when the world exploded.
A blinding fissure of light shot out from the left side of the arena. I tried to turn my head but all I could see was Hugh’s jaw dropping before a clawed arm snatched him away. Whatever Agatha had done to me, she’d juiced me up with enough strength to turn my head to the side.
My eyes bugged out as an enormous blue-and-pink-streaked lion in half-form stood in the blood-soaked sand. His body was human but covered in inch-thick golden hair. His paws and head were leonine, the mane around his neck moulding over his chest like armour. The residue of magic clung to Max in a fine mist of purple and silver that seemed to do nothing but irritate him and push his anger into the stratosphere. He’d broken through Agatha’s wards. In my mind, I reasoned that it was impossible.
But here he was. Massive, dangerous, and infuriated.
The Dark Trinity were the most feared high-magic users in all of supernaturaldom. They had no compunction about killing for their own gain. Had my great-grandfather been able to play nice with people, I had no doubt he’d be one of them. Hugh was one arm of the Trinity. He shot fireballs of magic at Max that crawled over Max’s skin and shattered like a bubble bursting on concrete. Nothing stuck. I understood that Max had some resistance to magic but this…this was unheard of.
My slow-beating heart tried to crawl out of my chest when Max’s eyes landed on me. There was no grey or gold left in them. They were not even red but a solid centre of deepest black ringed in amber. I didn’t even have a name for what was happening to him, but a sinking feeling made me open my mouth. Before I could croak out a word, Max crushed Hugh in his clawed fist. Mauve light gathered around Max’s body. The mage must have screamed, but it was disrupted by his innards exploding. I’d seen demons being decapitated before, but the absolute calm in which Max had killed Hugh was terrifying.
Opening his palm, Max snapped Hugh’s body in half and threw both sections into the crowd. Hugh hit the barrier and slid down the brick wall. Turning his attention to Agatha, Max shifted fully into his lion form and roared.
The ground rocked beneath me as the rumble swept through the arena like a wave crashing endlessly on rocks. Before he was even done, Agatha waved her arms. A circle of black appeared around her. I tried to reach for her ankle to pull her off balance, but she stepped on my hand like she didn’t even notice I was there. Black smoke rose from inside the circle. It wafted around her as storm clouds gathered above her head.
Cold kissed my skin. It froze the blood beneath me into a solid mass that stuck to my back. Frost appeared on my eyelashes.
Moving her hands in a circular fashion, Agatha chanted. Overhead, a shadow appeared. It rose up and formed the outline of a creature cloaked in darkness, its head and shoulders bowed. Inside the cowl, I couldn’t see the creature’s face, but its head turned in my direction. It pointed an ethereal finger at me and then I heard that voice in my head.
I will have you before the end, Sophie Mwansa. That mating link can’t hide you forever.
And then Max’s claws tore into the circle like it was nothing. Agatha snapped her fingers and disappeared a fraction of a second before Max would have completely gutted her. My disappointment was only disrupted by being roughly hauled into arms of solid iron.
“Max!” I heard Angus’s voice speaking. “Let her go. She’s still injured!”
Appearing not to hear anything, Max backed us into a corner, his features twisted into a fearsome snarl.
Raising my head from where Max had me pressed right up against his chest, I saw for the first time that other supernaturals had managed to breach the portal where Max had torn it open. The arena seats were swarming with Nephilim and Fae guards. The other captives were in the process of being freed from their chains.
And worst of all, there was a battalion of guards surrounding us. Max’s top lip curled, and I shrank in on myself, unsure whether my damaged senses could take another deafening roar. His arms winched around me, the roar never coming, as though he’d heard my thoughts even though he seemed to be in the throes of some kind of deathly fugue state.
“Maximus,” I heard Doctor Thorne say. He marched slowly forward only to halt when Max snapped his teeth. “Sophie needs to be attended to. Please put her down.”
Rather than do what he was told, Max’s arm shot out. He grabbed Doctor Thorne by the tail and tossed him across the arena. The elite guards fell into a defensive position, their weapons raised.
Over the top of our heads, Marshall and Curtis were circling. The grim lines around their mouths spoke of a concern that I wasn’t fully grasping in my weakened state.
“Max,” Angus said, his tone scarily neutral. “Listen to me. Put Sophie down and step–”
Marshall launched his angel blade. I inhaled sharply, trying to reach out like an idiot, as though I was going to somehow stop it from piercing Max through the shoulder. I needn’t have worried. Faster than I could ever move, Max pivoted to the side. He leaped slightly in the air and snatched the angel blade before it came close to striking him.
The supernaturals went deathly still. Both Marshall and Curtis had been elite guards before they were commissioned to protect the Academy. They were amongst the fastest and strongest of their kind. An angel blade was the most effective weapon in the dimensions. And Max had both caught it and was holding it without any kind of effort.
The one time I’d tried to touch an angel blade, it wouldn’t budge. Kai had left his blade on the grass and Diana had dared me to pick it up. That wasn’t happening. While Kai had made it look so easy, the blade became an anvil when I touched it. Diana actually screamed when she placed her hand on it, the flash of green so bright she said it was like staring into the sun.
Max gripped the hilt of the blade, his hand tightening so hard I thought he was going to snap it in two. A blossom of golden light stole across his fingers only to be slapped back by midnight-and-pink streaks. Oh hell. Whatever Lex had done to him, Max was now able to withstand Nephilim magic. Rather than hang on to the blade, Max threw it on the sand and closed him arms around me.
He bent his knees, uncaring that we were surrounded by threats. In his head, I sensed that if they budged, he wouldn’t hesitate to lash out. Angus and I traded bewildered looks. This was something beyond the rogue-shifter state. He wasn’t in a killing rage, but he wouldn’t let go of me and he had no idea that it was his friends around him. It was almost as though he was caught in some kind of compulsion.
Isn’t that what a mating link is? a voice in my head had always asked me when I tried to rationalise that I didn’t want or need it. I’d compared the two as Andrei set the compulsion in my mind to stop the malachim from taking control of my thoughts.
I argued with myself that the mating link was just a magical compulsion that forced itself on a person. So really, what would I be losing if I chose not to accept it? Looking up into Max’s unseeing black eyes, I saw with absolute clarity that he and I had the exact opposite thoughts on the matter.
I swallowed that apprehension for later.
It seemed that the elite guard were thinking along the same lines as me. Ivan moved forward in their ranks, his arms held out in front of him, his voice low. “Let go of her.”
The power of his compulsion was almost a physical thing. When I wasn’t the recipient of the compulsion, it manifested in the appearance of the other person as a slackening of their features for a split second before they resumed as though nothing had happened.
Max’s eye twitched. The sweep of compulsion was almost tangible as it attempted to breach his mental barrier. The amber pulsed in his eyes. In one swift movement, he laid me down gently on the sand and charged at Ivan.
I gasped as Max grabbed the vampire by the throat. One of the Fae tried to blast Max with a gust of chilly wind, but it slid off him with little effect. Hauling the vampire up, Max smashed him into the brick wall.
When the others tried to get at him, Max turned around and snarled. Ivan struggled with the clawed hand that constricted around his throat. The tips of those claws were just pointed enough to draw blood. Max was playing with him. Using him as an example of what would happen if the others tried to attack him again. Ivan began to cough as Max slowly winched tighter. Ivan’s already-pale complexion turned almost translucent as Max compressed his airways. Devoid of any emotion except the primal need to protect me, Max was going to end up killing the people he cared about.
“Stop,” I said. The effort to speak almost made my eyes roll back in my head.
Behind the back of the elite guard, I saw Charles sneaking up. He halted at the beaten sound of my voice, but I waved him forward with a sliver of hope that Max would recognise his own blood.
“Max,” I breathed. Every inhale was laboured. “Please let him go.”
For a second, Max shook his head like an animal shaking off water. I didn’t know what he saw when he looked at me, whether he saw at all or if he was just functioning on a purely instinctual level. But the sound of my voice seemed to be getting through. It was a shame speaking made it feel like someone had stuck hot pokers into my ribs and were twisting it for dear life.
Gritting my teeth, I made my mouth open. “You don’t want to hurt him. You don’t want to hurt any of them. Please put Ivan down.”
He held tighter. For a second, I thought it wasn’t working. I could feel the blood rising in the back of my throat. Suppressing it with a hand on my chest, it seeped out the side of my mouth instead.
Desperate and unsure of what else to do, I shrank inside me and let out a mental gasp. The mating link was a ball of fire enclosed by barbs. The blood barrier was a hairline-thin wrapping that only just managed to stop it from snapping into place. It was no wonder Max was so far from the edge.
I didn’t have any strength left in me to boost it. “Noah?” I rasped.
I heard the sound of scraping before Noah appeared being held upright by Harris. Somebody had bandaged up his side and he was chewing on an Arcana fruit. “Can you...” I wheezed. “Can I?”
He nodded, though his eyes were still very dull. Even with his permission I didn’t like it. Closing my eyes, I searched for the shroud of the Ley dimension. I was so weak that it took ages. Longer than it had ever taken me since I had first learned to grasp the sight in my early years at the Academy. But muscle memory had me succeeding in the end. It was such a hollow victory.
Feathering the magic fumes I had left across the glowing pink ball of Noah’s soul, I chipped off pieces of his essence and felt him bristle. A growl filled my ears, and Max’s head turned slowly towards the sound.
“Max,” I cooed. “Don’t worry about Noah. I’m okay.”
With the last of the strength left in me, I used the blood alchemy to transmute Noah’s strength into my own. With the boost, I layered magic into the blood barrier and watched it thicken around the mating link. Little by little, the blood smoothed out the sharpness that the link had become until it was a ball of light again. I blatantly ignored the tendril of brown that snapped and withered inside my soul tether.
Max shook his head at the sudden blunting of sensation. Noah and Max both growled softly at the same time. Max sniffed at the air, and I knew for certain he scented necromantic magic. “Hey,” I said. He glanced down at me, his eyes unfocused. “I’m right here. I’m fine.”
His hold on Ivan released. The vampire doubled over onto his knees and took a big, gulping breath. Behind Max’s back, Charles moved with a stealth that should not have been possible for someone his size. I kept talking.
“You don’t want to hurt anyone. In fact, you’re probably feeling really tired from all that roaring, huh?”
Max sank into a crouch beside me. Half-mad from the pull of the mating link, he was still gentle when he brushed the back of his hand against my cheek. I tried not to react when Charles’s fist drew back, even though I wanted to scream. Knowing it was for his own good did nothing to soothe me that Max would get hurt.
Charles’s fist was a fraction of an inch away from Max’s face when Max pivoted and smashed his paw into his brother’s sternum, sending him crashing into the sand. My temporary hold on Max dislodged. He stalked over to where Charles was coughing up blood and punched Charles in the head. The other supernaturals tried to hold him back but they had trouble getting close.
It was a long shot anyway. Max was too wired right now. With his back turned to me, I grabbed a hold of his dark red speckled aura with my alchemy and turned his aggression into fatigue.
His eyelids grew heavy. His leg slipped out from underneath him. Not waiting for another chance, the elite guards sprang into action. I turned my head away as Angus snapped silver cuffs around Max’s limbs.
“It’s just for precaution,” Jacqueline said beside my ear. The last thing I saw was her smiling face before the strength left me and I blacked out.
30
In my dreams, I sat cross-legged in a gilded cage. Sprawled beside me, with its head in my lap, was a golden-tanned lion. Its pelt was thick and rough against my skin as I ran my fingers along its back. The lion let out a contented purr. Its spine grew tense as I heard the sound of claws clicking on marble. The darkness surrounding us gave birth to another enormous lion with hairs streaked in midnight blue and rich, rose pink.
The beast circled around us, stalking endlessly. Every time I moved, or the caged lion did, the beast would snap its jaws at us. When I reached out to take hold of the golden bars, the beast whirled on me, its blackened eyes on fire with a kind of madness that turned protection into captivity.
Startled by that thought, I grabbed hold of the lock on the cage and rattled it with all my might. Suddenly I was so desperate to be out of the cage that I didn’t care if it upset the beast. The thing turned on me, its mouth opening and blasting me with a metaphysical roar that filled me with the beating heart of its motivation: fear.
Something latched onto my arm. I glanced down to find the lion with its mouth clamped gently around my elbow. It tugged me away from the lock. In its eyes, I saw the reflection of the pearlescent-white light of the mating link. I was trapped both inside and out by a promise I had not yet made.
When I tried to pull away from the lion’s hold, it clamped down tighter. Meanwhile, the beast was growing ever more agitated by my attempt to escape. The aura around it morphed from that golden-streaked blue and pink into something black and poisoned. Its stunning mane became bedraggled and gnarled, its claws sharpened to fine points that bit into the marble and hacked chips out of it. Where the lion had once been a formidable presence that protected, it was now a twisted, angry shield that would allow nothing in and nothing out. And in doing so, it was being warped by a poisonous sense of duty.
Is this how you wish to spend eternity, I rationalised, trapped in a cage that is meant to be love? You know what he is. You saw what he was like. He can’t tell the difference. And in the end, it will kill him.
This time, when the lion’s anguished cry filled my ears, it wasn’t because some unknown threat had lanced him through the heart with a silver blade. It was because when I tried to get out of the cage once more, the lion inside with me leaped out first and clamped its jaw around the beast’s jugular. With a single snap of its teeth, the mating-link lion severed the beast’s neck. As frightening as the beast had been, it was brought undone by the link that was meant to be a gift.
Gasping awake, I found myself inside the dim room of the Academy infirmary. “Hey,” Cassie said. “How do you feel?”
She placed a cool cloth against my brow. Without speaking, she dabbed the cloth over my face and against my neck. There were purple bags under her eyes.
“Like death warmed up. But at least I’m aliv
e, I guess. What happened?”
“After you passed out, they took Max to the cells inside the elite guard facility. They’ll keep him there until they deem him safe to release. We haven’t heard word about when that’s going to be.” She paused as though giving me time to digest the information. “They’ve declared Agatha a threat and are authorised to now kill on sight. The fens have been raided again, but you know what they’re like. They’re good at hiding.”
“How is everybody else?”
“Most of them were saved by your circles. The elite guard put them back together as much as possible. They’ll have to take time to heal. Chuck is in the elite guard infirmary too.”
I swallowed and tried to take it all in.
Cassie patted my hand after a while. “I’ll go get Doctor Thorne.”
She returned with the doctor and Jacqueline. While the headmistress made herself comfortable in the armchair at the foot of the bed, Doctor Thorne gave me a once-over. While he was poking and prodding me, the crisp lemon-and-honey scent of Arcana fruit filled my nose. My stomach rumbled.
Cassie picked up the fruit and handed it to me. I took a small bite and felt soothing comfort sliding gently through my insides.
Doctor Thorne sighed. “You’re as good as you can be under the circumstances,” he said. He peeled the covers down slightly. The wound in my side felt sore just being exposed to the air. “Unfortunately, we have no Nephilim healing.” He glanced at Jacqueline who cleared her throat.
“Doctor Thorne has patched you up as best he can using the methods at our disposal,” she said. “But with our limited resources and the healing at the level it’s at, it may take some time for you to fully recover.” She braided her hands together. “There is also the option of sending you to a hospital in the human world.”
“With or without my memories intact?” I asked. This brought a hesitant smile to her lips.
“I don’t think we can do any such thing unless somebody decides to finally do away with Andrei,” she said, guessing at the lengths I had gone through in order to keep thoughts exactly where they were.
