Consort of Rebels

by Sadie Moss

  It thundered down the tunnel toward us, but as it ran, its body seemed to vibrate. When its next heavy footfall hit the earth, cracks streaked up its leg, and before it took two more steps, its entire body crumbled into a pile of rocks.

  Scrambling over the chunks of stone, I shot a glance back at Jae. “I like your way better than mine.”

  “I’ll teach you how to do it someday. Earth is a difficult element to master, but I know you’re up to the challenge.”

  Everyone else clambered over the rock pile obstructing the hallway—except Ivy, who walked right through it. I kept my eyes on the walls, searching for the telltale vibration that would signal the arrival of another rock creature.

  The sconces on the walls cast a yellow light through the tunnel, fading almost to black in the space between the magical lights. I turned left. We were close to the dungeon where I’d been kept, if my memory was accurate.

  I glanced back over my shoulder to tell the men that, but the words died in my throat. From several yards away, a fireball hurtled through the tunnel toward us.

  Chapter 22

  “Lana!”

  Corin’s shout drew my attention, and I whirled around.

  An arc of blue flame bore down on us from the other direction, boxing us in.

  I didn’t think. I just summoned the biggest tornado of air I could. It sprang to life around me and my four, tearing at the walls and ceiling of the crude rock tunnel. The twin orange and blue flames collided with it, whipping around us in a funnel of heat and smoke. The wind pressed in on us, forced closer by the flames even as it extinguished them.

  Finally, the fireballs died out. I let the wind fall away, my ears still ringing from its loud howl.

  Our attackers had been invisible, but now that they no longer had the element of surprise, they slowly faded into view. Advancing on us from each end of the long hallway were two groups of guards—Gifted and Touched, it looked like. The front lines were packed tightly together in the tunnel, and I could see their backup close behind them.

  “Shit.”

  The word had barely escaped my mouth when both groups attacked us again. A fireball hurtled through the tunnel from one direction, while several ice spears flew from the other side.

  “Watch out!” Fire met fire as I hurled an orange ball of flame toward the incoming attack.

  Jae threw up a wall of ice on our other side, blocking the spears. Another blast of fire from our attackers hit his ice blockade. Water poured off it as it cracked and began to melt, pooling on the uneven floor and making the ground slippery.

  A moment later, a gray-skinned demon slammed into it like a battering ram. The ice wall disintegrated, and he didn’t hesitate. He sprang toward Corin, moving at lightning speed. His hands landed around Corin’s neck, but Akio leapt on the demon from behind, cutting his throat cleanly.

  Corin dodged the spray of blood then looked up at the incubus. “Thanks.”

  “Anytime.” Akio grinned.

  Another ball of fire flew toward us from the opposite end of the tunnel. This time, I forced an enormous gust of wind through the tunnel, turning the fire back on itself and making the guards at the end of hallway stumble back. Baring my teeth, I pushed the magic harder; the wind picked up speed and screamed through the small space as it drove our attackers backward.

  “Ivy!” I called over the shrieking of the wind. “Go ahead of us! See if you can find Rain’s magic pulling machine. It’s the device he uses to run his spell. We need to destroy it!”

  “On it!” she cried, her musical voice fierce. She plunged through the wall to my right.

  Behind me, grunts and cries echoed as my four dealt with the attackers from that end of the tunnel. I heard them calling warnings and instructions as they fought, and I was suddenly grateful they’d been a team for so long. They functioned as a cohesive unit, moving in tandem and always looking out for each other.

  “We’ve got an opening!” Fen shouted. “Lana!”

  My hands shook from the effort of sustaining the wind. Abruptly, I pulled back on the magic then unleashed a large ball of fire down the hallway before the guards could recover.

  I turned to my four, chest heaving. “Go!”

  We raced down the hallway, Akio in the lead. The guards behind us weren’t all dead, but it would take them a moment to recover from the wind and fire. That was enough for us to solidify our lead.

  When we rounded a corner, I caught a flash of someone disappearing through an archway at the end of the hall. Dark hair whipped around her head as she glanced back at me.

  Kate.

  “Rain’s disciple! She’ll know where the magic pull is.” I pointed. “We need to catch her!”

  “You two go.” Jae jerked his head toward Akio and me. “We’ll hold off the guards.”

  Akio’s gaze caught mine, and we sprinted forward. The room at the end of the hall was familiar. I’d spent days staring out at the large open space surrounded by cells when I’d been locked in one of them myself.

  By the time we burst through the archway, Kate had nearly reached the other tunnel that connected to this room on the opposite side.

  With an inarticulate shout, I reached out with my magic and plucked her from the ground, lifting her several feet in the air. She twisted, throwing a hand over her shoulder to shoot a bolt of lightning at me. Akio and I dove to the side, avoiding the strike.

  Borrowing a page from Jonas’s playbook, I slammed Kate against the ground before raising her high again. It was a dirty fucking move, but I wanted to win this fight. I’d worry about playing fair later.

  She moved to throw another bolt of electricity at us, but I dropped her against the rough stone floor again. I left her there this time, diving on top of her and pinning her body down with my own.

  Kate pressed up to her hands and knees, trying to shake me off. I clung tightly, slipping an arm around her neck in a chokehold. The sounds of a fight filtered in from the hallway behind us, but I had to assume Jae, Corin, and Fen were safe. They could handle themselves.

  “Akio!” I called, but he was way ahead of me.

  He crouched down beside us, murmuring into Kate’s ear. I couldn’t hear exactly what he was saying, but the deep timbre of his voice sent shivers racing through me.

  Kate leaned toward him, seeming to forget all about my hold on her. His lips found her ear, whispering promises of sinfully sweet pleasure. A moan worked its way out of her mouth, and I scrambled off her, wiping my hands on my pants. I felt dirty all of a sudden.

  Though I tried not to watch as Akio pulled Kate slowly to her feet, I couldn’t tear my gaze away. Unreasonable jealousy burned in my stomach, but I forced it down.

  He was using her. He would never use me. When he whispered promises into my ear, he meant them.

  Akio’s large hand tipped her face up, his dark eyes blazing as he looked down at her. “Kate. Where does Rain keep the machine for his magic pull? What did he do with the magic he already stole?”

  She licked her lips greedily, pushing against his grip to try to bring her face closer to his, but he kept her still. Her eyes burning with desire, she murmured softly, “On the upper level, near the peak of the mountain. He moved the old magic there too. He’ll try to access it again after he does his second pull.”

  “How do we turn the machine off? How do we stop it?”

  Kate smiled seductively at him. “You can’t. He’s the only one who can use it.”

  He shot a glance at me over her head. “We’ll have to break it then.”

  “He’ll stop you.” Kate laughed, a throaty sound. “He’s destined to be the most powerful mage in the world. And I’ll be right there by his side.”

  The look Akio shot her was full of disgust, though she probably couldn’t see that through the haze of his charm.

  “Lock yourself in one of those cells,” he instructed, his voice hard. “Forget you saw us. And forget you ever knew Rain. Forget it all.”

  Her gaze lost focus, and she stum
bled away from him, weaving across the room like a drunk at last call. She unlocked the door of one of the small cells then dropped the keys to the ground and stepped inside. I hurried over, retrieved the key ring, and locked her in.

  She watched me dazedly, the usual malicious glint in her dark eyes gone.

  I looked back at Akio. “Will she really forget she knows Rain?”

  He shrugged, coming to stand next to me. “Probably not. But I had to try.”

  As he neared, Kate licked her lips. She reached through the small window toward him, grimacing in pain as her arm touched the metal bars. Her fingertips brushed against his chest, and I slapped her hand away. We’d already gotten all the useful information we could out of her, and I was sick of watching her try to grope my man.

  Her arm slithered back through the window, and Akio raised an eyebrow at me. “Jealous, kitten?”

  “What?” I scoffed, a flush rising in my cheeks. “No.”

  He backed me up against the wall next to the door. “I like you jealous. I like to see your claws out. But you don’t need them now. Because now that I’ve had you, I’m never letting you go. Yours are the only legs I want wrapped around me.”

  Heat ran through me as he dropped his lips to mine, claiming my mouth in a possessive kiss.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake! I thought we said no making out on missions.”

  I jumped as Fenris darted into the room, followed closely by Jae and Corin. I slipped out from between Akio and the wall, hurrying over to join them.

  “I never agreed to that,” the incubus drawled.

  “Well, while you two were getting cozy, some of us were busy holding off a shitload of guards. The ones who attacked us in the hall are dead, but more have to be coming. We weren’t quiet about it.” Fen grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the tunnel on the far end of the room. “We gotta move!”

  “Did you find out anything useful?” Corin asked as we ran, keeping pace with Akio behind me.

  “Yeah. Kate told us where the machine for the magic pull is. We need to get to it before Rain comes back.” I pressed the communication charm at my ear. “Noble? You there?”

  “I’m here.”

  Sounds of a fight in the background accompanied his voice, and my stomach clenched. The people attacking the palace were giving us a chance to find and destroy Rain’s magic pull by keeping him occupied. We couldn’t let this chance slip away.

  “We’ve got a lead on the machine. How are things going on your end?”

  “All right. The palace was more heavily fortified than we expected, but with the help of the Gifted Resistance members, we were able to breach several weak points. And we’ve got numbers on our side.”

  I tugged Fen’s arm, leading him down an offshoot hallway. “Good. There are quite a few guards here too, but so far we’ve been able to get past them. Have you seen Rain?”

  “Yeah.” Noble’s words came in between sharp breaths, like he was running too. “He hurled bolts of lightning from the top floor of the palace when we breached the entrance. We’re working our way up. We’ve taken out most of the guards.”

  The tunnel we were in opened up into a large space—what looked like a natural cave in the rock repurposed as a huge storage room. Magical lights shone down from high ceilings, and two sets of stairways were carved along the walls, leading to doors high above. Several large hunks of metal and broken pieces of machinery littered the floor.

  Jerking my head toward one of the staircases, I made a beeline for it. Kate had said the magic pulling machine was on the highest level.

  “Well, keep him distracted, and let me know if you see him again. We’ll destroy his machine soon and join you at the palace as soon as we—”

  My words cut off as a large puff of purple smoke exploded into the middle of the room. Rain stepped out of the haze, followed closely by Jonas, Victor, and Nicholas. Several other Gifted and Touched goons stood behind them.

  “Never mind.” My voice was thick. “We found him.”

  Chapter 23

  “Is he there? Lana? Shit! Are you all right?”

  Noble’s voice echoed in my ear, but the words hardly registered.

  I stood stock-still, staring at Rain. His mousy brown hair with streaks of gray at the temples, the bags under his eyes, the small gap between his front teeth—they all made him look so human, so normal.

  But the veneer of civility and sanity was slowly chipping away. There was a mad glint in his eyes I hadn’t noticed before, a harshness to the set of his mouth.

  “I should have known you’d leave your friends to fight and come here, Miss Lockwood. I see you had a little chat with Kate.” He stepped forward, and his lackeys mirrored his movement. “You’ve never been able to just step back and let things play their course. You always have to interfere. Just like your father.”

  My heart thudded hard, my blood rushing so fast I thought my veins would burst. “I am like my father. Except this time, I’m actually going to stop you.”

  He smiled, and tension filled the space. “Don’t you imagine that’s what he thought too? That he would succeed in stopping me? But even then, I couldn’t be held back. Now? There’s nothing that can stop me.”

  As he spoke, he gestured with both hands. Bright bolts of lightning flew from his palms, twining together and driving toward me. I threw out a fireball, but the bolt barely slowed down. It absorbed the fire and barreled toward me, and I used the half-second of time I’d gained to throw myself out of the way.

  The lightning slammed into the wall with a boom, sending sparks flying in all directions. The hair on my arms stood straight up, and my whole body thrummed from the electric charge in the air.

  Holy fuck.

  He’d gotten even stronger.

  I leapt to my feet, my legs shaking beneath me, and hurled the biggest fireball I could conjure in Rain’s direction. It felt paltry compared to the blast he’d just unleashed, and he didn’t even bother to block it. He just swept his hand to the side and the fireball changed direction, hitting the wall harmlessly.

  “If that’s the best you can do, you are in trouble, Miss Lockwood.” The Gifted man smiled ominously.

  “And look, she brought her Blighted pet to this fight.” Nicholas’s lip curled in smug disgust. “I’ll take that one.”

  Fear and rage exploded in my chest. It was one thing for Rain to threaten me, but the look in Nicholas’s eyes as he glared at Corin made my skin crawl.

  Electric magic crackled between Nicholas’s fingertips, and he stepped forward.

  I moved to intercept him, but before I could, all hell broke loose.

  Apparently deciding the time for making grandiose speeches was past, all four of the Gifted men before us attacked at once. Nicholas’s bolt charged toward Corin, who dove out of the way. Jonas hurled a fireball toward Fenris, and Victor lashed out at Akio with a whip made of white light, catching his forearm with the stinging tail.

  Rain threw what looked like a web of lightning toward us—it expanded as it flew through the air, wide enough to strike us all.

  “Water!” I screamed to Jae, pushing the magic out of myself with the force of a tsunami. He joined my effort, and a wave of water crashed toward the electric web. They met with an ear-splitting popping sound, and the web exploded. The water flashed with light before splashing to the floor. It ran in a torrent over the uneven floor, pooling in one corner of the room.

  At least we had an effective defense against the lightning magic.

  Water splashed the Representatives as it struck the earth, but Rain didn’t look any less terrifying soaking wet. In fact, he looked madder and meaner.

  His chest heaved with angry breaths, and he gestured again. All the rocks and stones littering the ground, large and small, rose into the air.

  Oh shit.

  He flung his arms forward, and the stones hurtled toward us, impossibly fast. I barely had time to turn away before they reached us. Small stones bit into my skin like snakebites, and a large rock
struck me between the shoulder blades, throwing me forward. I slid on the wet ground, scraping my palms and knees as the breath left my lungs.

  I coughed and heard someone groan beside me.

  Oh, gods, no. This could not be how this ended. I refused to go up against a super-mage and get killed by a bunch of fucking rocks.

  Stumbling to my feet, I turned around, reaching out with my magic and latching onto Rain. He began to rise into the air, propelled by my levitation spell. His face contorted with surprise, and his body jerked.

  “Get them! I’ll handle her.”

  At his barked command, the other Representatives and their backup raced toward us. The sounds of shouts and explosions reverberated through the room, but I kept my focus on Rain. I had to trust that my men would take care of each other. And if I killed Rain, I could end all of this.

  He was almost twenty feet in the air now, and he raised his hands to attack. Switching directions, I used my magic to propel him toward the earth. He flew downward, but when he was several inches from the floor of the cave he… stopped. His magic pressed back against mine, arresting his movement.

  I broke away with a gasp, unable to sustain the spell against his power. He righted himself, landing gently on his feet.

  “You’re resourceful. I’ll give you that.” Rain dipped his head mockingly. “But let me show you how it’s really done.”

  He threw both hands out, and a jet of wind hit me like a punch to the solar plexus. It picked me up and drove me across the room, slamming me into the wall so hard I felt like I’d been hit by a speeding car. It pinned me there, the force so strong I couldn’t even raise my arms.

  All I could do was watch in horror as Rain advanced toward me through the battlefield.

  Several yards away, Jonas threw blast after blast of flame at Jae. I knew Jae was good, but his father was the one who had taught him to fight, and Jonas was using every bit of that advantage now. Fen and Corin tried to hold off Nicholas, who attacked wildly. And Akio was doing his best against Victor Kruger’s magical whips, but I saw several more gashes on his arms and torso.