Magic Immortal

by Ella Summers

  Naomi rushed forward to protect the dragons, her pain forgotten, overruled by the need to shield her babies. Her run came to a stuttered stop almost before it began. She looked back at what had tripped her. She found two daggers, each one nestled safely in its sheath. She recognized the markings on the hilts. Those were Rane’s daggers. What were they doing here? And how had they appeared out of nowhere?

  Pushing those questions to the sideline, Naomi grabbed the daggers and pulled them from their sheaths. She rose to her feet, holding them in front of her as she stalked toward the demon princes. The daggers couldn’t be here by chance. They had to be here for a reason.

  The demons had changed direction to intercept her, but they froze when they saw the black daggers in her hands. The victorious smirks on their faces faded, washed away by fear. Well, that confirmed her theory that the daggers were here for a reason. Maybe they could hurt the demons.

  Naomi took a step forward. The demons took a step back. She stepped forward again. They moved back.

  “What’s wrong?” Naomi said, flashing the demons a smile.

  Paragon couldn’t take his fiery eyes off the daggers. “Where did you get those?”

  “I paid a little visit to your father Hero.”

  “You killed him.” Paladin sounded surprised. He and his brother must have been so deeply tucked away into her babies that they didn’t see what was going on outside.

  Well, it was high time that Naomi showed them the door.

  “You stole Hero’s power,” Paragon growled.

  Stole Hero’s power? When had she… The daggers! She’d used them to kill Hero. In that moment, they must have absorbed the demon’s power.

  Naomi thought back to Rane’s story about the first Spirit Warrior, the fairy who had stolen a demon’s power as she killed him. That’s exactly what had happened when Naomi had killed Hero. She looked down at the daggers in her hands. They held Hero’s magic. Hero, the demon king of hell and Paladin and Paragon’s father. Their sire, the source of their hellish power.

  Just as Hero held power over his sons, so did these daggers that contained all of his magic. Naomi could use the daggers to fight Paladin and Paragon. Rane hadn’t left her weaponless, after all.

  Naomi slashed out with the daggers. The demons scurried away. She streamed her magic through the blades. Her Fairy Dust now laced with Hero’s magic, she cast a wall of Dust behind the demon princes. They backed away from her, but the Dust wall closed in on them from behind. The demons bounced off of it, falling forward.

  As they scrambled to stand, Naomi slashed out and stabbed Paladin with one dagger, Paragon with the other. She streamed more of her magic through the daggers, wrapping her Hero-power-spell around the demons.

  “Stop,” Paladin croaked, his face contorted with pain.

  Naomi tightened her magic hold on them, swaddling them in her spell.

  “We can talk about this,” Paragon choked out. “We can come to an arrangement.”

  “I don’t make deals with demons,” she declared, her eyes burning.

  “Surely, there’s something you want,” Paladin coughed.

  “Something you thought was impossible.”

  “We can get it for you.”

  Naomi tightened the magic on them further. “I want you to leave my babies alone, for your parasitic presence to be gone from them forever. How’s that for a deal?” Then she stabbed the demons. They burst into flames, disintegrating. She looked down at the piles of ashes and declared, “There’s only one way to deal with demons.”

  Little screeches drew her attention. She looked up and smiled at her baby dragons. They swooped down to land on her shoulders.

  “We got them,” Naomi said weakly, scratching the dragons under their chins.

  Their mouths nipped playfully at her fingers.

  Another shock of pain hit her. The world shifted out from under her, like a rocking boat in the storm. Naomi fell. Her hands hit the ground.

  When she looked up, she wasn’t in the world of dead cities anymore. She was back in her house. Makani knelt beside her, his hand holding hers. His mouth was moving, but she couldn’t hear his words.

  Slowly the sounds faded back in.

  “The baby is here,” Rane said.

  “And Paladin and Paragon?” Naomi asked.

  “They are gone,” Rane told her.

  Naomi reached for the bundled baby in Rane’s hands. She had to see him.

  But Leilani took the bundle from the demon and muttered a few words over him. Magic flashed, then she set the bundle into Naomi’s arms. Two babies stared up at her. She hugged them gently to her chest.

  “You sent the daggers to me in that illusionary world,” Naomi said, meeting Rane’s gaze. “When I stabbed Hero, the daggers absorbed his magic. That magic is what allowed me to fight the demon princes after none of my own magic could hurt them.”

  “How serendipitous.”

  “You knew this would happen. That’s why you sent us to Hero’s fortress to get the dagger—to give me a weapon against the demon princes.”

  “That is a very serious accusation,” Rane said with no semblance of patience whatsoever. “And I, of course, have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You don’t fool me.” Naomi grinned at her. “You really do care about us.”

  Rane’s cackle shook the walls. “The three most dangerous demons in the spirit realm are dead, the only three with the power to stand against me, I might add. And they happen to be the demons who sent me into exile.”

  “I thought you sent yourself into exile.”

  “They were the only demons standing in the way of my return,” Rane continued, ignoring Naomi’s words. “Now they are gone, and I didn’t have to lift a finger to do it. You did it all for me, Spirit Warrior. As an added bonus, now I hold two daggers with some magic from three different demons. All in all, not a bad haul.” Rane flipped the daggers in the air, catching them.

  Rane was certainly devious. There was no question about that. She was a demon after all, which meant she never did anything that didn’t help her. She’d used Naomi to gain some very powerful weapons.

  But that wasn’t all there was to Rane. The demon actually cared about what happened to them—at least in her own way.

  “I delivered the little rug rats.” Rane glanced down at the babies in Naomi’s arms. “You know what that means, don’t you?”

  “That I owe you a fruit basket?”

  “No,” Rane laughed. “It makes me their godmother, dearie. Demon tradition must be upheld, after all.”

  And before Naomi could protest Rane crowning herself the boys’ godmother, the demon disappeared.

  27

  Housewarming

  From her pink-and-yellow lounge chair, Naomi watched Sera and Alex walk across the lawn, a grassy expanse interspersed with sweetly-scented wildflowers.

  “This place is beautiful, Naomi,” Sera commented as she took the seat beside her.

  As of a few weeks ago, Naomi and Makani were the proud owners of this little slice of heaven north of San Francisco.

  “It’s so quiet,” said Sera. “So peaceful.”

  “Maybe a little too quiet.” A grin lighting up her face, Alex looked around eagerly, as though she were inviting chaos to find them.

  Thankfully, the universe did not deliver. For once. Monsters didn’t crash their housewarming party. Demons didn’t burst through the house. The jaws of hell didn’t open under their feet.

  “This is from me and Kai.” Sera handed Naomi her housewarming gift: a basket filled to the brim with assorted chocolates and sweets. There were even brownies in there. And a package of strawberry-vanilla granola.

  Naomi smirked at her. “I’m surprised there’s no meat inside it.”

  Sera laughed. “Kai tried to convince me to put in some sausages or at least some beef jerky, but I told him that didn’t go with granola and brownies.”

  Alex’s brows lifted, even as an impish grin lit up her
face. “Says the girl who puts chocolate on pizza.”

  “We both do that,” Sera pointed out.

  “Because it’s delicious.”

  Alex set down a huge crate at Naomi’s feet. She’d lifted it easily, but it would probably require a forklift for Naomi to move it from that spot. Naomi peeked inside to find rows of knives, all meticulously organized. That was definitely Logan’s doing. Alex’s idea of cleaning up was to wipe the blood off her knife using her pants.

  “Logan and I thought you could always use more weapons,” Alex said brightly.

  “Of course you did,” Naomi laughed. “Especially with children in the house.”

  “Exactly. You need to start early, teaching them the ins and outs of saving the world.”

  “Thanks,” Naomi said, hugging Alex and Sera. “This will help us spruce up the place.”

  “It all looks great.” Alex’s gaze panned over to the house. “Makani works fast.”

  When Naomi and Makani had bought the old, dilapidated white house, the roof was collapsing, the fences were falling down, and the front door was missing. And it hadn’t really been white anymore.

  But now the house was freshly painted, the fence had been replaced with one that could hold off hell’s army, and the front door looked like it could withstand a battering ram. It was a real fortress. A pretty fortress. Makani had painted the shutters a lovely shade of blue for her.

  “Makani and his warriors are a formidable force, both on the battlefield and on a construction site,” Naomi said.

  “We’re glad you won the battle against Paladin and Paragon,” Sera said, her eyes serious.

  “But you should have asked us for help,” Alex chided her. “We would have come. How could you imagine we’d ever make a move against you, even if there were demons inside of your babies? We would have found a way together.”

  “I know. I really do. But in that moment, I was so scared.” Emotion tightened Naomi’s chest. “I couldn’t let anything happen to them.”

  “I know how you feel,” Sera said, smiling.

  Alex whipped around to face her sister. “Oh, do you?” Her mouth spread into a mischievous grin. “Is there something you want to tell us?”

  Sera paled, the smile wilting on her lips. “I don’t think so?”

  Alex was laughing so hard, that it was questionable whether her chair would survive her gleeful outburst.

  Sera rolled her eyes. “Family. If they don’t kill you, you’ll kill them.”

  Naomi added her own laughter to Alex’s. What a new home needed most was laughter—lots and lots of laughter.

  Naomi glanced over at her parents, who were lying together in a hammock, gazing at each other like love-struck teenagers, just so happy to be reunited after their years apart. Not far from the hammock, Naomi’s sisters were attacking the sweets table with Gran.

  “Hey, ladies.” Lara greeted Naomi, Sera, and Alex with a wave—and a coy smile. “Do any of you want to play spin the bottle? Naomi’s grandmother and sisters are trying to get a game started.”

  “That would be awkward,” said Sera. “Most of us are already paired off.”

  “Ivy and Ruby just want an excuse to kiss one of the guys,” Naomi told her.

  “They’ve been making eyes at the commandos,” Alex said.

  “Kai’s or Makani’s?”

  “All of them,” Alex said.

  “All right.” Lara’s eyes twinkled. “I’ll tell them we’d love to play.”

  As Lara hurried off, each step bouncing with excitement, Sera looked at Naomi and Alex with total bewilderment. “How did she get that from what we said?”

  “It was a trick question from the beginning.” Alex snickered. “Be careful. You’re letting her plan your wedding.”

  Sera frowned, mulling that over with obvious apprehension.

  Naomi stared across the lawn, watching as Lara grabbed Riley’s hand, dragging him over to the two commando trios. She even tried to pull Leilani into their little game.

  “Spin the bottle?” Leilani asked.

  “Yeah, it’s a game where boys and girls sit in a circle and take turns spinning a bottle in the middle,” Lara told her. “The person the bottle is pointing to when it stops is the special someone you get to kiss.”

  Leilani’s brow furrowed. “It sounds like a game for lovesick teenagers.”

  “Yes, totally,” Lara said brightly. “So do you want to join in?”

  “Do you even know who I am?” Leilani demanded, planting her hands on her hips.

  “I know you were once some badass evil queen of darkness, but you’ve since reformed.”

  “I haven’t reformed that much.”

  Lara shrugged. “Well, if you change your mind, let me know. Having a little fun would be good for you. Moping nonstop over your past misdeeds isn’t good for your health.”

  Then Lara marched on, continuing her mission to recruit more unsuspecting party guests into her game. Leilani joined Naomi and the Dragon Born sisters at the fruit table.

  “Lara is right,” Alex commented. “You could use a good kiss. You always look so dour.”

  “I am repenting.”

  “Sounds like fun,” said Alex.

  “It is.” Leilani flashed her teeth at her. “You should try it sometime.”

  “Nah, I much prefer misbehaving.”

  Alex threw a wicked look at Logan, who had gathered around the barbecue grill with Makani and Kai. The assassin’s back was turned to her, but his sixth sense was working at full power. He looked over his shoulder and shot her a smoldering look. Alex shuddered.

  “Do you need a moment?” Naomi asked her.

  “Or a cold shower?” Sera added.

  “No, I’m all right.” Alex blew Logan a kiss. “Later.”

  The assassin’s brows lifted. Makani turned around to see what all the fuss was about. He held one of the babies in each arm.

  Like Alex and Sera, baby Draken and baby Angel looked very similar but not quite identical. The Dragon Born spell that had split their souls into two bodies had also divided their physical traits, making the two new bodies something in between the original body.

  “They are so adorable, just like little cherubs,” Sera cooed. “They are so delectably chubby that I could just gobble them up.”

  “Sometimes I nibble on their fingers,” Naomi admitted.

  Over by the grill, the guys were cooking enough steaks and burgers to feed an army. They didn’t care that it was a tea party. They wanted meat with their tea. And beer.

  “Have the babies displayed any magic yet?” Alex asked Naomi.

  The boys were only a few weeks old, but they were already causing all kinds of mischief, thanks to each possessing the powers of a Dragon Born mage, a Spirit Warrior, and a demon.

  Little bolts of lightning flashed across the sky over the babies, exploding into snowflake confetti. The babies reached up at the snowflakes and lightning, batting at the magic like they were lying under a baby activity gym.

  It wasn’t just snowing over the babies now. The snow cloud had grown to now threaten the grill. Kai cast a protective ceiling of fire over it. The snowflakes sizzled against the fire rainbow, dissolving into steam.

  “Does that answer your question?” Naomi asked Alex.

  A wicked grin curled Alex’s lips. “They are going to get into all kinds of trouble.”

  Naomi watched her little boys, smiling. She’d already come to the same conclusion. But it didn’t scare her. Not at all. After their close call with Paladin and Paragon, she was just excited that she’d get to see her babies grow and develop—and thrive without demons inside of them.

  Thunder growled, announcing Rane’s arrival. She strode through the garden gate, decked out in a pink-and-white flower print dress, complete with white pumps and a little purse. Her hair, bright red today, was in bouncy curls. Her makeup was spotless. She really had dressed for an afternoon tea party.

  “What are you doing here?” Leilani asked as Rane s
topped in front of them.

  “I am their godmother. I delivered them. Of course I wouldn’t miss this delightful celebration of their birth.”

  The demon sat down, primly crossing one ankle over the other. Then she lifted the pale purple teapot, pouring some tea for herself. She took a dainty sip from her cup, her gaze panning across the lawn. Her eyes honed in on the babies, who were now casting swarms of fireballs and sending them crashing down on the lawn.

  “The little dears will need training, or they’ll demolish this pretty little house.” Rane looked positively delighted at the idea.

  “They have two Spirit Warriors, four Dragon Born mages, two dragon shifters, an assassin, a shadow mage, and an extended family of mages and fairies to see to their training,” Leilani told her. “They’ll be fine.”

  Rane looked pointedly at the storm the babies had cast over the barbecue grill. The three battle-hardened men just stood there and stared at the boys, as they debated amongst themselves what to do. They couldn’t punish three-week-old babies—even if those newborns were the most powerful supernaturals in the world.

  The grass was on fire now. A hot blaze rolled over the lawn. Naomi sighed.

  “Has it been like this since they were born?” Sera asked.

  “Pretty much.”

  Makani gave the babies his hard stare as he demanded that they put out their flames. They responded by setting his shirt on fire.

  “Little devils. I love them already.” Alex raised her voice and called out, “Over there, boys! There’s still a bush you haven’t set on fire.”

  “They are adorable.” Sera nudged her sister. “But you shouldn’t egg them on, Alex. Poor Naomi already has her hands full enough without you inciting them to mischief.”

  Alex wiggled her eyebrows.

  “It’s all right,” Naomi laughed. “Makani is more than happy to take care of the discipline. I mostly just feed them, snuggle them, and coo over their cuteness.”

  Sera watched Makani as he calmly put out the raging fire. “How does he discipline them?”

  “He mostly scowls, lectures them, and unleashes his dragon.”

  “Then the boys unleash their dragons,” said Leilani. “The little dragons ride piggyback on the big dragon. And the boys start making cooing noises at Makani, who then forgets he was ever mad at them. He’s such a pushover.” Leilani smiled fondly at her badass warrior brother.