by May Dawson
“Shut up,” Rafe warned us all, his voice very soft. I pressed my lips together, knowing he was right, we needed all our senses as sharp as they could be without our wolves.
Ty and I distracted each other, and not even in pleasant ways.
We spread out, moving through the forest in our usual diamond shape. Ty and I took the left wing of our formation, with Silas in the lead as our advance scout and Rafe just behind him. Chase and Jensen were on the right side, mirroring Ty and me. Lex and Penn brought up the rear, watching our six.
At the sound of our feet moving through the forest, stealthy as we were, the creatures moving above went very still. I had the eerie sense that not everything above us was cowed by the possibility we were predators.
In the Fae world, we were prey too, perhaps even for the forest itself.
We passed through a rocky outcropping where the sun shone on the purple and green moss-covered rocks and their silvery tops that broke through. The sun on my hair was welcome warmth after the gloom we’d just been through. We all chose our footing carefully, watching for rocks that might slide underfoot—and the things that might live within the rocks.
A snake slithered into sudden motion near me, and my heart beat faster as it disappeared into its home between the rocks. Its tail flashed silver, then purple, then a deep shade of green as it slithered, blending into the landscape, and then it was gone.
“I do not like snakes,” Penn muttered behind me, giving voice to what we all felt, but only Penn was brave enough to say.
We all continued, but I don’t think I was the only one who was keyed up. As I stepped down from the rocks into lush, knee-high emerald green grass, in a field that spread between the trees, a chittering came from my left in the underbrush.
A squirrel-like creature jumped up out of the underbrush onto a nearby fallen log, and Ty was suddenly between me and it, his broad shoulders blocking my view as he moved to protect me, sword in hand.
“It’s a squirrel,” I whispered. “You don’t have to defend me from the scary squirrels, Ty.”
The ‘squirrel’ bared its fangs and hissed at us both, then hopped back off the log. The grass shook faintly with its motion as it raced underneath.
Without comment, all of us moved even faster through the grass, knowing there were little ankle-biters concealed in the waving, emerald grass.
I gripped my sword in one hand, my vision bouncing constantly between checking on my team, watching the treacherous grass, and keeping an eye on the distant trees we were headed toward.
But I still managed to spare a second to give Tyson a side-eye.
We’d tried to be friends over the past three months, but the constant bitter ache between us made it difficult. I cared about him. But I hated the way it felt when we were close, when everything was awkward and strained.
“What?” he whispered. “I wouldn’t let anyone on the team be attacked by a…squirrel.”
I scoffed softly at that. But I wasn’t going to argue with him when we were in the middle of a mission.
His ears turned pink. I was the only one in the world that could make Ty either embarrassed enough, or mad enough, to blush even the faintest bit.
“Whatever, Maddie,” he murmured, so softly that it shouldn’t even carry to Rafe, walking twenty feet ahead and to our right. “I forget I’m not allowed to care about you, sorry.”
His words prickled on my skin, lighting fury inside my chest, and I pressed my lips together so tightly a muscle ticked in my jaw. This was supposed to be a quick in-and-out mission, but I couldn’t help hoping we find the truth about Ty’s father while we’re here. Ty and I kept hurting each other by accident, and I wasn’t sure we could even return to the way we used to be together.
Penn was behind us, to our right. “Both of you, knock it off,” he warned.
“Your lectures don’t actually help as much as you think,” Tyson shot back.
“He’s right,” I told Ty. I tried to force a smile, even though I was pretty sure it came out wrong. “We’re friends. And right now, we’re focused. I’m sorry I…”
I trailed off, then shrugged. What was I sorry for? Giving Ty a dirty look? We just read so much into what either of us did now.
Ty nodded, his jaw tense, and moved forward. Behind me, I could almost feel Penn sigh. I hated that Ty and I are always disappointing Penn, who loves us both so much that our fighting seems to hurt him.
I frowned, watching the grass ripple away from us, as if the squirrels were all fleeing. Maybe the ankle-biters were as sick of Ty and me bickering as the rest of the team.
They reached the edge of the woods and streaked desperately for the trees, racing up the trunks.
The trees seemed to tremble, then began to shake.
“Get ready!” Lex called. “We’ve got trouble!”
I yanked the quick release straps on my pack, dumping it to the ground. Now I could move more freely. Behind me, I heard the thump of other packs hitting the ground.
The eight of us tightened our formation, moving closer to each other. Ty and I were almost shoulder to shoulder for a second before we put space between us to swing our swords.
He winked at me before he moved away, and I smiled back at him. The truth was, I was comforted by his presence in the moments when I could forget everything that was so complicated between us.
Things were easier when we might be in mortal danger.
The trees shook harder, and the ground beneath my feet seemed to reverberate, as if I were at the world’s worst rock concert.
“Sorry, Maddie,” Ty muttered.
“Me too,” I said.
Maybe we didn’t need a good reason to apologize to each other. Maybe regretting that things were awkward between us was enough reason to say we were sorry.
There was a roar in the woods, just inside the tree line.
Then a dozen monsters broke loose of the trees. As soon as they locked eyes on us, they let out roars and came straight for us.
Chapter Sixteen
“Ravagers,” Silas called, reaching back to sheath his sword.
“Fall back, Silas,” Rafe ordered, grabbing Silas’ shoulder to pull him inside our circle as Silas raised his hands to form a shield for us with his magic. As Silas focused on protecting us with his magic, the rest of us would be ready to protect him.
My gaze swept hastily over our formation, my men with their swords in hand, all chiseled bodies and fierce eyes. Then I looked back at the Ravagers that were coming toward us. They reminded me of dinosaurs—raptors, maybe, or t-rexes with longer arms, swallowing up the distance toward us with their rapid gallop.
The ground shook beneath my feet as they came nearer and nearer. One seemed to be running straight for me, opening a mouth full of fierce, twisted teeth, his reptilian eyes locked on mine.
“May they regret ever stumbling through a rip,” Silas said, and he raised his shimmering shield of magic around us just as the Ravagers were almost to us.
I hoped we wouldn’t be the ones to regret it.
The Ravager lunged toward me and slammed into the shield, bouncing off and hitting the grass. He rolled over and over, trampled by the next Ravager behind him. He let out a scream that almost sounded human.
There were so many of them.
The second Ravager slammed into the shield, then again.
“Think they’re going to get bored?” Rafe demanded.
Silas shrugged. “Maybe. They’re more intelligent than one would expect. And we’re not the easiest targets.”
The Ravagers circled our shield, snarling and snapping. My heart raced as a monster eyed me from just the other side of Silas’ shield. It looked eager to separate my head from my body if it had the chance, drool dripping from between its jagged, interlocking teeth, its mouth parted curiously as it studied me.
I’d studied them in books, but that was very different from coming face-to-face with one, our faces three feet apart, kept apart only by a shimmer of golden magic.
<
br /> “How long can you hold that shield?” Rafe called. We’d practiced movements like this dozens of times before we ever left academy grounds, but now we had to do it for real.
“All day,” Silas said confidently.
I glanced at him over my shoulder. “Don’t get cocky.”
He winked at me, his arms spread, his hands extended to form the bubble of magic. Golden threads of magic wove around his fingers in infinity loops, glittering under the Fae sun. “You wouldn’t have me any other way, rabbit.”
From the corner of my eye, I caught Ty’s frown at the nickname. The guys had asked about my time in the Day, but I didn’t want to share too much about what happened in Echo’s closet, in Winter’s house. Still, the version of Silas who came home to the academy wasn’t quite the same as the one who had first posed as a wide-eyed, innocent first year, and I knew my men had questions.
Given how protective my men were, I had to protect Silas from their reaction. But it felt wrong to keep any secrets from the team, too.
Then I glimpsed something out beyond the Ravagers. At first, I thought it was an animal, but what would be stupid enough to be out so close to the Ravagers?
Only people were that kind of stupid.
Sure enough, I glimpsed a masked face underneath a dark cloak.
“There’s someone out there,” I called. I thought about Winter, who was able to move so rapidly by creating portals, and how he claimed he’d learned to control the creatures that came through them from his friend, Jonathan Truby. “I think they might be controlling the Ravagers.”
Suddenly, Silas gasped behind me.
“Are you okay?” Rafe asked him in alarm, and I started to turn, but Rafe was shouting.
“Get ready!” Rafe called. “Silas is going down. We’re losing the shield!”
I couldn’t look behind me, but the shield buzzed around us, then it suddenly flickered out. I tried frantically to raise the shield again myself, my magic forming across my fingers, expanding in a rapid shield. There was nothing between us and two dozen deadly Ravagers.
Then Ravagers streaked between us all. It was too late for me to get the shield around us all. I could protect myself, but that didn’t matter; I dropped the shield and drew my sword instead.
We fought desperately to defend ourselves against snapping jaws and slashing claws.
As Ty fought one, I saw from the corner of my eye as a second Ravager swiped at him, but I was too late to protect him as he was bowled over by its claws.
I slammed my sword through the foot of the Ravager attacking me, and when it stumbled, I drove my blade through its belly. I jumped up on its body and pushed off, jumping into the air to drive my blade through the eye of the Ravager who had just attacked Ty.
The Ravager fell to one side, shaking its head to throw me off viciously, and I hit the ground hard. I let out a cry, losing my grip on my blade, but Ty was back up on his feet, plunging his sword into the belly of one Ravager, then whirling to draw the blade out and cut the throat of the second. I rolled to my feet.
The Ravager eyed me and loped toward me, its mouth opening hungrily, and I scrambled through the grass for my sword. I’d lost it somewhere in the tall waving grasses.
I finally found the hard hilt through the grass and rose to my knees, driving the sword up into the gaping mouth that was about to rip my throat out.
All around me, my men were fighting desperately, but there were so many of the Ravagers. I was already moving toward the next Ravager, looking for Silas. He lay in the grass, unconscious. Rafe and Lex had closed around him to protect him from the attacking Ravagers. Somehow, the figure in the forest had incapacitated Silas. I was sure of it.
Rafe and Lex fought in tandem, protecting Silas from the five Ravagers that circled them, snapping at them, testing their defenses.
It was too late to get the shield back up. I wasn’t as quick as Silas, but I might have been able to do it if I had enough time. Now, though, there was no way to raise a shield that would protect us all. Maybe I could raise one around Silas, Lex and Rafe, but that would leave the rest of the guys in danger. Silas was skilled at holding a complex spell in the back of his mind while he fought; the rest of us lacked that practice.
But things were desperate. I threw up my hands, trying to focus my magic despite the fear that tasted like slick copper at the back of my throat. Then slowly, the fear fell away, replaced by icy calm. This was what we’d trained for.
My magic bloomed across my fingertips, and I raised my hands, forming a bubble that flew into place around Lex and Rafe and Silas’ fallen form.
“Maddie, look out!” Lex shouted.
Two Ravagers attacked me in tandem, and my focus became just on survival, on not losing my balance in the thick grass as I whirled and thrust my sword and fought for my life. I tried to hang onto my magic at the back of my mind, to keep that bubble strong, even though it felt like an ache at the back of my head that blurred my vision and clouded my mind.
“Penn!” Lex shouted. I saw him dart out of the protection of that magic, under the outstretched claws of a Ravager to get to Penn, and Rafe stepped in to put a blade through the claws of that Ravager.
As long as my magic held, as long as Silas was safe, the rest of us could fight.
I tried to fight my way to Silas, and Ty stepped up to help me. “Go,” he said, his voice urgent. “Check on Silas. I’ll heal Penn if I can.”
His voice started out strong, then hesitated over that if I can, as if he couldn’t admit even to himself that maybe he couldn’t.
I fought my way to Silas. Then I slid through the bubble, feeling it cold and tingling against my skin before I was through. The Ravager chasing me slammed into the bubble, but it didn’t matter. The translucent shimmer in the air seemed to shake, but it held.
I dropped to my knees beside Silas. His face seemed eerily still, stiller than sleep, and my heart stuttered with panic.
A dozen feet away, I watched Tyson crouch beside Penn as Lex fought to keep the Ravagers off them.
I pressed my fingers to the side of Silas’ throat, searching for a pulse. Penn was talking to Tyson, at least, no matter that he was bleeding from a nasty series of gashes in his sides that soaked blood through his shirt. At least he was awake and hanging on—and knowing Penn, probably saying something sarcastic right now.
“Silas, come back to me,” I begged. My fingers were trembling so I couldn’t be sure I’m getting an accurate read on his pulse, but I didn’t think he had one.
Across from me, magic flared across Tyson’s hands, crackling bright blue, a powerful flare that knocked him back on his ass. I could see his surprise from here. That was more power than he’d ever unleashed at once.
But he rose back to his knees, his hands moving over Penn’s body, forming that magic into a healing wave.
I turned my focus back to Silas. It wasn’t that easy for me. There was nothing to heal.
Silas wasn’t hurt.
He was gone.
All around me, my men are fighting, slaying Ravagers left and right.
But there were too many of them.
Chapter Seventeen
“Silas, come back.” My hands moved over his face, feeling the familiar shape of his jaw, of his cheekbones. I press my forehead against his. If he’s gone, if he’s really gone, then I need to get up and fight. There will be time to mourn him later, when we’ve all survived.
“I don’t think you’d really leave me,” I whispered, pressing my lips against his high, pale forehead. “Come on, Echo.”
I murmured both his names, desperate for him. My hands moved automatically along his body, checking his body for breaks and bleeding the way I was taught at the academy, even though I knew there was something else happening here. This was magic—this was some spell that for all my training, I didn’t know.
And then suddenly, four Fae on horseback rode furiously into the fray of the Ravagers.
Each carried a sword in one hand and magic fla
ming across their palms in the other. They were eerily beautiful, tall and slender with delicate masks and streaming hair, and they fought the Ravagers with savage fury. Between them and my men, the Ravagers began to fall across the battlefield.
I turned my attention to Silas, sure we wouldn’t die for now. I ran through every healing spell I knew, hoping that something would work, knowing it likely wouldn’t.
I can’t wake him up.
One of the Fae threw herself off her horse, and she landed lightly next to the bubble as her horse raced off. The horse reared back and trampled one of the Ravagers, and as the horse’s lips pulled back over its ferocious teeth, I realized the horse was just as much of a deadly warrior as the Fae themselves.
But they seemed to be on our side.
“Knock knock,” she said, letting her cloak slide back, revealing a mass of curly hair and a beautiful face. “Want to let me in and I’ll see what’s wrong with your fallen wizard?”
As I stared at her, I had the strangest feeling she’s the one I saw in the woods.
But I couldn’t bring Silas back. And my instincts say she was willing to help us now, whatever her motives were earlier.
I raised my hand, and the shield shattered around us, dropping away into the grass.
“Who are you?” she demanded as she knelt beside me. Her hands fell on Silas’ face. “You’re some kind of shifter, right?”
I hesitated. She was right, and it was probably pointless to lie to her, but I knew how the Fae had treated their own shifters.
“I don’t see travelers from dirtside here very often,” she went on, as if she weren’t bothered by my distrust.
“Dirtside?” I demanded.
“Rude term, I know. But your world doesn’t have a great name. And you have to admit...” She scrunched up her nose as she looked up from Silas, her brilliant green eyes meeting mine, “it’s a pretty dirty, miserable place.”
“Well, your world seems like a pretty bloodthirsty place,” I said, as one of the other Fae butchered a Ravager that almost reached us, and blood splattered across us both, hot and wet. I wipe it away with my sleeve.
