“Yeah, I’m good,” I said. I adjusted the cloak hanging over my shoulders—a royal purple one, matching my half-brother’s, to indicate my rank within the militia. When Zayne continued to stare at me with that questioning expression, I huffed and pushed at his shoulder, forcing a smile. “Seriously. I’m fine. It’s not like I’m doing this alone, or anything. Darius is with me, which I think bodes better for us than it does for you.”
After all, Darius was the only shifter in this army—and now we were heading out into shifter territory. Zayne was leading a force north to warn the wolf clans there, and to also start crafting protective magical barriers to hopefully keep Abramelin’s forces out. Timing would be key: they had to make sure they reached the clans before Abramelin did. I, meanwhile, had troops of my own to look after, as I went west with Darius and Catriona in tow. There were bear and dragon clans to warn. Catriona had volunteered to craft the wards at each location. Once we had warned everyone and gathered whatever fighters we could—Darius’s job, to persuade them to fight—we would meet with Zayne in the Rockies where the mountain range crossed over Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho to regroup.
“Don’t do anything reckless,” Zayne muttered as I shouldered my pack. Behind me, my very own troops—somehow, I was qualified to lead them, though I suspected it was because Zayne and I were family and nothing more—were loading up, ready to make the first jump through the portals to western US shifter clan territory.
“This whole endeavor is reckless,” I told him, “but I won’t take any unnecessary risks.”
Not with Catriona as part of my company. I’d already scolded Darius for so readily accepting her, and he promised he would keep a watchful eye on her when I couldn’t.
Then, much to my surprise, Zayne kissed me on each cheek, then my forehead, before rallying his band of supernaturals. Squaring my shoulders, I watched him go, leading them through one of the dozens of portals out of Alfheim. After they were gone, I felt the eyes of my troops watching me, close to fifty supernaturals in total, and I gulped.
“Okay… guys,” I managed, not entirely comfortable with my current level of authority, but I knew there was nothing I could do about it. So, I decided my best strategy was just to be myself. I nodded to the portals. “Let’s go save some lives.”
Chapter Three
“All in favor of sending the dragon up to do an aerial sweep, raise your hands.”
Well, fuck. I’d already lost control of my troops, and we hadn’t even reached the first shifter clan. I planted my hands on my hips and watched as most of those present lifted one hand. While a few looked determined, grim even, probably about my stubborn refusal to just use Darius whenever anyone else wanted, a few had the decency to at least look a little guilty about going against my orders. Catriona stood a few feet from me, her arms crossed as she glowered at the traitors.
It wasn’t quite that dire. I didn’t mind the use of democracy in my troops—but I would have preferred the final say in all things Darius-related. He had already expressed his concerns about rising above the tree line, fearing the risk of being spotted should Abramelin have any scouts patrolling the skyways. We were in the middle-of-nowhere Michigan, in one of the state’s twenty million acres of forest—a fact we all had a chuckle about for some reason the first night we camped out after traveling between Alfheim and the human world.
Thankfully, seeing as we were nowhere near booming civilization, we could use our magic a little more freely. A few of our resident white witches had offered to use a cloaking spell to hide Darius if he stayed above a certain height, and everyone else wanted him to fly ahead to ensure our next portal destination was safe to use.
There were many portals around the country. A minimum of two in each state, with more unsanctioned ones cropping up every day, given the current political climate in the supernatural world. However, not every portal took you somewhere you wanted to go.
For example, the one that took us to a middle-of-nowhere forest in Michigan wouldn’t take us far enough to reach the first clan on our list. So, we had to hike, the whole militia in tow, through the woods to the next portal destination. They’d all take us back to Alfheim when programmed to, but traveling around the human world just had to be more complicated than that.
Six creatures present could vanish from sight and reappear at another location—witches, mages, and two elves skilled in the craft. Unfortunately, that sort of teleportation usually required the magic user to know intimate details about the place he or she was transporting to. As of that moment, no one in my company had more than a basic understanding of the portal we were headed toward. We all knew it was at the base of a yew tree, one that would be marked with familiar runes that most supers knew marked it as a portal. Supposedly, there were signs leading up to its location—that and we’d all feel its presence as we drew nearer.
Well, most of us would. Darius, being a shifter, would be immune to its magical pull, though I knew his heightened senses would work in our favor regardless.
Even without magic, my dragon had a lot of value—yet another reason, I wasn’t keen on sending him above the canopy and out of sight so that he could scout ahead. We had been doing pretty well for ourselves on foot, honestly.
“Guys, can we just talk about this more?” I asked, trying not to sound too whiny. After all, I was supposed to be in charge here, but two of my brother’s captains—fairies from ancient families—seemed keen on sharing power.
With each other. Not with me.
“We’ve talked about it at length,” Galen remarked with a sigh. His soft brown hair, like that of a sapling’s trunk, fluttered gently in a breeze. He was a handsome fae—I’d seen many creatures making eyes at him—but I wished he’d address me with just a hint more respect. “The pros, the cons. We’ve talked about it. Now we’ve voted. It’s been decided, Kaye.”
Just as I opened my mouth to argue, Darius grumbled, “I guess the fucking tribe has spoken,” before storming off into the trees. Exhaling deeply, I pinned Galen with a narrowed look, as the rest of the militia members dispersed behind him, clearly believing they had won some victory.
“Just because he’s a shifter, doesn’t mean you can order him around,” I hissed in a low voice. My accusation made Galen produce the biggest eye roll I’d ever seen in my life.
“That’s not what I’m doing. No one thinks that. He’s an asset—”
“He’s a friend,” I countered tersely.
“He can be both,” the fae captain told me with a frown. He folded his arms as his gaze swept up and down my figure—not in a leering sort of way, but as though he were assessing my fortitude. “You have to start looking at people as assets. We all are. That’s why we’re here. If you want to lead this squad—”
“Okay, okay,” I muttered, waving him off. “I’ll make sure he’s doing it.”
Not wanting Darius to get too far ahead, I hurried after him, Catriona at my heels, and found him stripping down in a small clearing.
“Oh,” Catriona squeaked. When I glanced back, she had pointedly turned the other way—something I knew was for my benefit, not Darius’s. Although I hadn’t gone into detail about our make-out session after Abramelin’s first attack on the hive, my best friend must have clued into the fact that Darius and I were a thing by now. I wanted to come right out and say it, but at this point, I wasn’t even sure if I was ready to admit it to myself, much less Catriona. So, I left her there with her back turned, and stalked through the forest undergrowth, gritting my teeth when something prickly caught on my pants.
“You don’t have to—”
“I don’t want to ruffle feathers,” Darius told me stiffly. “I’ll do it. I think it’s a stupid idea, but I’ll do it. Once we reach the clans, all of them are going to be asking me for favors. Asking. Not telling. I can wait until then to outvote them, too.”
Huh. Maybe not the healthiest attitude to have when it came to one’s teammates, but I made a note to talk to him about it later. And maybe
I’d talk to Galen and Quell, my two power-hungry fae captains, about asking Darius to do things, rather than having a majority vote force him into action when he clearly wasn’t comfortable.
“Thank you,” I said, keeping my gaze on his face as he unzipped his pants and wrenched them down his tree-trunk thighs. “I mean, for this doing this. I appreciate it.”
“You don’t even want me to do it.”
“I—”
“Don’t let them boss you around, Kaye,” he murmured. “Just because they have some stupid rank in, let’s face it, a ragtag army of misfits, doesn’t mean they can order you around. Your brother put you in charge during his absence.”
I bit my lip, almost feeling as though he blamed me for how things had turned out. If I had just put my foot down, he wouldn’t be doing this—an attitude that also wasn’t helpful. I swallowed my questions, tucking the psychologist in me away once more, figuring it wasn’t worth the fight right now.
“At the first sign of danger, turn back,” I told him instead, easing away to give him space to shift. “Don’t do anything that will get you hurt.”
“I think we’ve established how difficult that is,” he fired back, smirking. Then, in two blinks, his human form transformed into his stunning dragon self, a creature who always took my breath away.
“Wow…” I jumped at the sound of Catriona’s voice in my ear, soft and melodic—the complete opposite of the vibe Darius radiated with his sun-kissed scales and immense black claws and tail spikes. I shot her a grin, almost proud that she thought he was beautiful too. She held out her arm. “Would he mind if I, er, touched him? I’ve never seen a dragon in person. His scales…”
“Breathtaking, huh?”
“Absolutely.”
Although I swore I saw Darius roll his eyes at Catriona’s request, I motioned for him to wait two seconds—was he seriously in such a hurry to get into the sky after the fit he just threw—and told her to go right ahead. Beaming, she strode forward and caressed the scales creeping over his shoulders with the backs of her knuckles—then leaped away with a shriek.
“He burned me!” she cried, staggering into me. Sure enough, her skin blistered, white and juicy looking, as if she’d touched a scalding hot, stove burner.
“I can heal that,” I insisted, shooting Darius a glare. Had he known that would happen? And why hadn’t it ever happened to me? I touched him all the time in dragon form.
Was it because of my half heritage? Maybe only fellow dragon shifters could touch dragons—at least, not without singing their fingers as Catriona had done.
“Just go,” I snapped when Darius huffed at me, a rush of black smoke shooting out his nostrils—almost in an I told you so sort of way, despite the fact he hadn’t said anything to me. Because I didn’t want those to be my last words to him before he shot off into dangerous territory, I added, “Be safe.”
The ground shuddered as he took flight, two flaps of his enormous wings practically bending the century-old trees around us in half. Once he was gone, I hastily fueled Catriona’s burns with a dose of white magic and a dash of healing energy. The gesture left me light-headed and weak-kneed, but with her hand healed, she held me steady until the world righted itself again.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Does Darius burn you too?”
“Not physically,” I said, testing my balance out as I peered up at the blue, slightly cloudy sky. “Not yet, anyway.”
Why weren’t the witches shielding him? I could see my dragon, plain as day, from the clearing: he didn’t exactly blend in with a baby blue background. Just as I was about to tell Catriona to run back and instruct the witches in question, to uphold their end of the bargain, Darius emitted an earthshattering bellow, one that rumbled the ground even harder than his take-off had. Both of us clamped our hands over our ears, wincing our way through the cry—until I finally realized what the issue was.
Within a minute or so of Darius shooting up into the sky, he was besieged with Abramelin’s minions. There were so many that they blotted out the sun, like they’d been waiting for us. Gargoyles, for the most part.
“Come back!” I shouted, amplifying my voice and tapping into my enhanced sight to get a better view of things. Most of the goon squad had weapons in hand, and I thought back to the gargoyle attack at the train station—a blade of iron had managed to pierce through Darius’s armor-like scales. We couldn’t risk it here. With Catriona already racing back to warn the others, I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted his name. Fire was his response, a blue blaze cutting through his enemies, but there were too many of them. Like a swarm of ants, they surrounded him, and when I saw him diving back for the forest, I knew, he finally realized he was outnumbered.
Amidst the gargoyles, was a sight I never thought I’d see: actual witches on actual broomsticks. Was Abramelin forcing everyone to live up to their stupid stereotypes over at Camp Bigot or what?
I scrambled out of the way as Darius’s enormous dragon form slammed into the ground. When the dust cleared, he was human again, hastily shoving himself back into his clothes. I rushed forward to provide some cover, shooting a few easy hexes up at the gargoyles who decided to start dive-bombing him. They dodged the first two, but a violent streak of red, bright like freshly spilled blood, nailed one dead center in its chest. The creature exploded seconds later, and that sent his buddies scurrying back to the safety of the sky.
Right up to alert the circling witches.
“Come on,” I urged, grabbing Darius’s hand and dragging him toward the trees, knowing we’d need them for cover. “I can’t out-hex a bunch of witches.”
Sure, I was dipping into their magical realm of expertise with all the new spells and whatnot in my arsenal, but those broads had been practicing for years now. I only had a month under my belt, really, and I’d be outmatched in a hot second.
An old maple tree splintered into a thousand tiny pieces as we raced by, a pursuing witch’s spell hitting that instead of us. Darius yanked me to the side to avoid the spray of wood chunks, both of us tumbling to the ground. He dragged me close, then threw himself on top of me until it stopped raining tree trunk and squirrel guts. Bits of coarse undergrowth poked into my face and hands. I gulped down a lungful of sweet, fresh air when Darius finally lifted off me. The witch hovered nearby, cackling—yet another stereotype—and I hurled a hex her way. The green flash of light was supposed to make her flesh erupt with blisters and boils, but she dodged it with a snarl and raised a hand at me, a bright yellow light surging to life within her palm.
Before she could launch it our way, with me already trying to summon up a defensive shield to protect us from whatever horror she had in store, her broom disappeared. She screeched as she plummeted toward the ground, and as I straightened up, I spied the cavalry charging in.
Although there were unsaid power struggles between myself and the other fae captains, at least I could count on everyone having my back when it mattered.
“The skies aren’t safe,” I said, as Galen rushed forward and extended a hand to help me up. Behind me, a band of our own witches chased Abramelin’s men back to the clearing, the woods alight with sparks of magical color.
“Just like I said they wouldn’t be,” Darius added, getting up on his own and dusting his pants off. “It was clear when I went up, but they swarmed me within a minute or two.”
“We need to get to the portal,” Galen said firmly. “We don’t have the numbers to fight. Those gargoyles… There must be at least two hundred of them up there.”
“Then let’s move.” I pushed by him and willed a pulse of magic—a harmless nothing, really, just a hum of energy—to wash over the troops. “We’re on the defense! No offensive procedures. Priority is to reach the portal before more of these assholes arrive!”
While it didn’t appear that everyone agreed with my decree, they hightailed it back into the woods when it became clear that both Galen and Quell were on my side. I ordered the two fae to take up the front of the g
roup, while Darius and I remained at the rear. Catriona stayed with us, despite my telling her to find a spot somewhere in the middle, but the longer we ran, the more thankful I was to have another magic wielder by my side.
Because apparently, Abramelin’s gargoyles and witches weren’t content to stick to the sky. Oh no. They tried to follow us into the trees. While Catriona, myself, and a gaggle of white witches fended off the spell-work of the enemy as best we could, the forest did the rest. Almost all the gargoyles were too big to fit between the trees, nor were they agile enough to dodge whatever was in their way. Darius managed to drag a few down and yank their heads clean off, yet most ended up trapped in branches or disintegrating when they slammed into sturdy tree trunks, the kind that could take a bit of a beating and still stay upright.
Our issue that afternoon was the sheer volume of enemy fire we had to deal with. They were everywhere, coming in from above, trying to take us out through the canopy. We ended up running for the better part of the afternoon, until the sun was on the far west of the forest, casting lengthy shadows across the trees. Hell, we’d been in such a hurry to get out and avoid being totally overrun, that we ended up leaving a lot of our gear behind.
The group slowed from a full-tilt run to a loping jog then to a slow walk when we happened upon another large clearing—and overhead, the skies were empty. I planted my hands on my hips, panting hard, and studied the sky for any signs of gargoyles or witches. Nothing. When had they stopped tracking us?
Judging from the murmurs rippling through the militia, everyone was on the same wavelength. So, where the hell had they gone?
With sweat dribbling down the sides of my face, I worked my way to the front of the pack, continuously scanning the crowd to make sure no one was injured. Besides minor bumps and bruises, folks seemed to be in good shape—though we were missing about five people. Just as I reached Galen and Quell, a crippling bout of cold crept up my body, starting at my feet and crawling up my legs. I hugged myself, teeth chattering, and lifted my gaze to the forest ahead of us.
Magic Burn: an Urban Fantasy Novel (Shifting Magic Book 2) Page 3
