Fae Unchained (The Mage Shifter War Book 2)

by Ann Denton

  Just then Rocco appeared at the top of the stairs, toting a machine gun with a string of bullets tossed over his shoulder like a deadly scarf. He was followed by a couple of rough-looking guys with guns. The New York tiger put on a burst of speed to get in front of us before planting his feet wide and letting the motherfucking gun spit. He sprayed bullets left and right, their metallic points pinging off of shit outside, the gun blasts echoing all around us in the lobby of the bank.

  "Come on, you pussy-ass bastards!" he shouted as he fired. But no one outside made any moves. Eventually, he ceased fire and waited.

  The only sound was that of Aaron's grunts and groans as he fought the buzzing mass around him. Then the siren shouted, "Just go! Get in there and get Tee out!"

  A purple potion bottle rolled inside across the floor, unsmashed, not leaking. It looked like someone outside had accidentally dropped it.

  Rocco raised a brow and cupped his mouth. "Missed me!"

  Suddenly, there was a blast at the far side of the lobby and a giant hole appeared in the bank's brick exterior wall.

  "That's what I'm talking about," Rocco muttered as he directed his fire into the new hole until the idiot had wasted every bullet he had.

  Rocco’s guys shouted back and forth, moving to ensure as much ground was covered as possible, when suddenly a new potion flew in. It landed directly on top of the unbroken one, shattering them both at once.

  Talk about a trick play. The first one was a Mage Fire Potion, the other, a Blast Potion, so when they went off, chunks of magical fire flew everywhere like a volcanic eruption.

  My mind reeled as the fire quickly spread. Those bastards! Did they know we had children downstairs? Did they even fucking care? My fingernails dug into my palms.

  The bank's sprinkler system kicked on, but it did nothing to soothe the magical flames.

  Kira tried to blow on it, but that only fed the flames.

  "Drake!" I shouted once more.

  "Yeah, I'm on it, Dollface," he replied, rifling through the bag at his waist once more. He pulled out a few Mage Fire Counterpotions and began throwing them at the patches of fire. Some of them hissed and sizzled before petering out, while others continued raging, the potion fluid not quite reaching the flames where they danced.

  Two MPs leapt through the empty glass of the bank's front doors, wearing black SWAT gear. They were two enforcers I recognized but had never really spoken to—John Marrow and Tammy Day, both of which were from another unit. John was a gnome, barely two feet tall with a permanently grumpy expression and a tank-like disposition despite his minuscule size. And Tammy was an elf, tall and lithe and extremely well-versed in marksmanship, especially archery.

  John let out a battle cry and charged through the room. Our guys shot magic and bullets at him, but it was no use. A gnome's skin was tough as nails—just like their personalities. Bullets weren't going to take John down, at least, not as quickly as we needed. We were going to have to trap him, instead.

  Damn it.

  As thoughts of nets and metal boxes passed through my mind, Tammy attacked. She fired a spray of bullets from a handgun before ripping an arrow from the quiver on her back and sending it flying with a small bow I hadn't even noticed her carrying.

  Our side took cover, ducking behind the bank's teller counter and slipping into nearby offices. Drake made sure to cover the stairs that led to the vault, and it was a good thing, because that's exactly where John and Tammy headed.

  The dragon partially shifted, allowing a massive plume of billowing fire to erupt from his jowls and burst into the lobby. John stood his ground, bracing his tiny body against the flames as if he were pushing back against a gust of wind or something. Tammy, however, was forced to run for cover or risk severe burns. As she retreated, Easton grabbed her from behind, wrapping his huge arms around her.

  Bodie went over and quickly disarmed every weapon she was carrying.

  Tammy growled in frustration. "Let me go, shifter scum!"

  But Easton merely smirked and rolled his baby blue eyes. "Call me something I haven't heard, elf."

  "Milksopping cockalorum!" she spat.

  Easton raised his brows and nodded appreciatively. "Yeah, I've definitely never heard that one before. One point for creativity, but negative points for the weird Shakespearean vibe."

  She hissed as he wrapped her wrists in a set of iron cuffs. As an elf, the iron wouldn't burn her skin like it did a fae, but it still pissed her off that she'd been caught.

  As soon as Drake's fire stopped, John charged at him.

  On instinct, I shouted, "Use the bag!"

  Somehow, Drake knew exactly what I meant. It was like our brains functioned on the same wavelength, something that made my heart flutter in a totally annoying way. He grabbed the bag and held it open then turned it to face the gnome.

  John dug his heels into the floor but couldn't stop his full-body run in time to keep from sliding right into the bag with the magical expansion spell. It swallowed him whole like a black mamba swallowing a rat.

  I realized our error a millisecond too late, when the potion bottles inside suddenly smashed on John's impact. Drake quickly squeezed the top of the bag shut as muffled explosions went off and tiny plumes of dust leaked from the cracks at the top.

  Oh my god, had we just lost the entire stash of potions we'd stolen from the precinct?

  Upon seeing the horror on my face, Drake shook his head. "Relax, princess, I put most of the bottles in a secure location. All I had in here was a couple of each type, just in case."

  I exhaled loudly, my whole body sagging with relief. Then I realized that Drake had been able to read my look and know exactly what I meant. I stared up at him. He stared back at me. My lips parted...

  That's when Aaron attacked.

  Apparently, the Pixie Dust Potion had finally worn off. His skin was bright pink, like it'd been rubbed raw, and the look on his face was pure madness and determination.

  "Tee!" he screamed, his voice harsh and scraping. "I'm coming, baby! Hold on!"

  Rocco’s goon fired a new round of bullets while Drake produced another jet-stream of fire, but Aaron dropped to the floor and dodged them both. Before I even realized what was going on, a tune filled the air. My limbs went numb. All around me, people were lowering their weapons and simply standing with furious expressions. We knew what was happening, but we couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

  Somewhere in the back of my head, I knew I needed to do something, to cover my ears, to fight back, but my limbs were sluggish and refused to heed my thoughts. I watched in mild curiosity as Aaron stood, walked through our frozen forms, and disappeared down the stairs. As soon as his song filtered out of my ears, I shook my head and launched into action, flying through the air since it was faster than running.

  I found the siren marching down the hallway, poking his head into random rooms as he went.

  "Aaron!" Tee called from the room just ahead of him.

  He let down his guard when he heard her voice; I saw his entire body visibly relax. That's when I kicked my flight into high gear and tackled his ass straight to the ground in the doorway of Tee’s room, wrapping my hand around his mouth to keep him from singing.

  "Aubry!" Tee cried from her carrier. "What the hell are you doing? Let him go!"

  "Sorry, Tee, no can do," I grunted as he thrashed around beneath me, damn near getting free. I blasted him with a quick burst of fire, enough to singe and sting, but not enough to melt his skin or catch his clothes on fire. He cried out in pain, just as Tee cried out in horror.

  "Aubry motherfucking Summerset! You stop this bullshit right now! What the hell has gotten into you?" Tee shot magic at me, but the buzzing black cloud flew over my head and hit the wall behind me, scuffing the paint until it rained in little flakes onto the floor.

  Bodie was behind me seconds later, covering Aaron's mouth with industrial-grade duct tape and wrapping him up in iron chains, careful not to let the chains near me.

  I
nodded in thanks to my mate. Then I stood and put a hand on my hip as I caught my breath. "Sorry, Tee. But he, John, and Tammy just attacked us. It's self-defense at this point."

  She clung to the bars of her cat carrier and shook her head. "And what's your excuse for kidnapping me? That wasn’t 'self-defense.'"

  Bodie glanced at me before turning to Tee. "Your kidnapping was a mercy, rodent. You're lucky you're not dead."

  Drake and Easton came downstairs with the other two prisoners in tow, and the rest of our motley crew on their heels. After securing the three of them in Tee's office-slash-cell-room, Larry entered and began spelling them to stem their magic.

  Drake strode out into the hallway, joining the rest of us with a dark look in his eyes. "Get ready."

  Easton's brow furrowed as he glanced between me and Drake. "For what?"

  "We were just attacked on our turf by three MPs," Drake spat gruffly. "There are innocent shifters and children in here that need our protection, and I won't risk exposing them to another attack."

  He scanned the group with a heavy determination in his gaze.

  "We're taking over Mag-Sorgin University. And we're doing it tonight."

  12

  Bodie

  It was midnight and we were hunting people, but unlike the hundreds of other nights I’d hunted alone, tonight I had my pack.

  "Don’t kill anyone, don’t kill anyone," I whispered to myself.

  Fucking hell, Larry. Him and his damn bleeding heart. That was gonna go against every instinct I had.

  Drake and I stared at the school dorms of Mag-Sorgin from the roof of the restaurant across the street. The haze of the surrounding streetlights annoyed my golden, shifted eyes. My ears twitched. Unlike other shifters, I had gradually developed enough control over myself to shift my senses without shifting my entire body. So I stood on the roof next to Drake in human form, but I used my wolf senses to listen for trouble. I used my nose to scent the human couple at the nearest dormitory door. I held up a hand, signaling for Drake to wait until they were inside.

  He listened.

  We couldn't afford for one of these stick wavers to find us. So, it was up to me to make sure the coast was clear.

  Drake and Easton were the only people I'd ever told about my ability to sense shift. It was a secret I kept close to the chest because it was how I'd managed to make so many damn kills.

  I pulled off the pair of glasses I'd worn here, part of my 'just a student, nothing to see here' vibe for the university area, though I did sometimes use the things. My human eyes were annoying that way. They had trouble with focus if I'd been using my shifter eyes for too long.

  I peered down over the roof at the glass doorway to the dorm. The brick building was lit by a couple lampposts, but otherwise, the campus tried to emulate that UCLA, brick and stone vibe.

  The young guy below gave the girl a kiss before sauntering back to his dorm building. She disappeared inside and my senses tracked him.

  My heart tapped impatiently in my chest, the way other people's feet tapped in the line at the grocery store. I wanted to get a move on. But at the same time, I knew better. Tonight, we had to move perfectly.

  All in all, we were going about this fast. I typically hunted for days before I went for a kill.

  But after the attack at the bank, we had to take action. If one of Aubry's little patrol shits could find us, then the Mage Council... and that twisted Triton fuck could too.

  I couldn't let them find Aubry.

  He'd almost taken her before.

  She'd almost gone with him.

  That memory still felt like a jagged piece of glass in my chest, even though she'd apologized for it.

  I pulled her face up in my mind. The soft trusting look she'd given me, peering up through her eyelashes just before we separated tonight. Just that look made my dick hard. Everything about her made me hard.

  She'd gone with Easton as part of the plan to surround the campus. While part of me was still rankled over Easton being her mate too, at least I knew for certain that I had someone to watch her back. It was better than her getting paired up with that Rocco fucker. I felt bad that her cousin was paired off with him, but Aubry had been insistent. She'd sworn up and down that she knew that Drake would watch my back better than either of those two would.

  Maybe that was true.

  But would I watch his?

  I wondered as my eyes trailed the male student heading up the stairs to his brick dormitory.

  Easton had told me all about his little theory. That Drake had somehow adopted us as part of his valor.

  But that would make him my alpha.

  And fuck that.

  I didn't have an alpha.

  I was one.

  The wolf in me snarled at the thought that the dragon would try to trap us that way. It wanted to challenge him. I leashed the beast, because I knew better than to do that. But still. Even Drake's proximity rankled.

  The kid went in and I lifted my hand to my earpiece, ready to give the go signal—when another teenage fucker came striding out. Damn it! Didn't these idiots sleep?

  Another three minutes went by, during which Aubry activated our earpieces and whistled, using the signal Drake had made everyone learn for check in. That meant she and Easton had finished scanning the parking lots. Good.

  I touched my earpiece and gave the ‘negative, not time to move,’ owl hoot as a response. It made me feel like an idiot. My wolf fucking hated making a bird sound. It was beneath us.

  Of course, Drake just assigned the noises. Fucker didn't make them. It made my jaw tic how we had to live by every one of his stupid rules, though a part of me knew they were important.

  "Next fucking animal noise is yours," I growled.

  "Nope."

  He didn't even glance over, didn't even negotiate. That arrogant fuck.

  "You aren't my alpha," I told him.

  "Never said I was," he responded, still staring out at the night air, calm and still as a tide pool.

  "Then stop acting like it," I clenched my fist. One punch. It would feel so good and it wouldn't really hurt either of us. But I knew Drake and I would never stop at just one punch. And Easton wasn't here to play the peacemaker.

  "You came up with this bullshit system—"

  "You can come up with the next one," he said, completely missing the fucking point.

  "Your system, you talk."

  "No." Drake's hands clenched on the rooftop and it was the first sign of humanity I'd seen from him all night.

  "Why the fuck not?"

  "You know why."

  "Because it's a stupid system?"

  "Because she doesn't want to talk to me."

  She. Aubry.

  I glared over at Drake, ignoring the bumbling college student I was supposed to be watching. I could hear the drunken fool well enough.

  "What the hell do you mean?"

  "What I said."

  "I heard what you said, but why the fuck do you care what she wants?" My stomach churned as Easton's new theory passed through my head. No. I hated that theory. Goldilocks was dead wrong. I was not sharing my mate with yet another fucking dude. Especially not Drake.

  Even though Aubry had approached me and told me about it, trying to get it off her chest, trying to be honest. Even though I’d seen the longing in her eyes when she mentioned him. Even though I’d told her—as I shot myself in the fucking heart—that I would love and support her no matter what.

  Aubry making a move was one thing. Drake making one was another.

  His mouth twisted in a rare grimace.

  Aw, fuck no.

  I looked away, staring out over the campus, trying to spot Aubry and Easton where they were supposed to be holed up in the parking lot, after popping tires to ensure no one could make a quick getaway. "She's not yours to care about."

  The silence after my statement might as well have been a damn sonic boom—it pounded in my ears.

  "I know." Drake's response was way too
quiet to be truthful.

  I turned back to him and grabbed his shirt, unable to curb my wolf, who wanted to chase this motherfucker off and pee a ring around Aubry so that no one else ever came within five feet of her again. "She's mine."

  Drake didn't fight. He just gazed down at me dully. "I know." He didn't take his eyes off mine, didn't submit. But he didn't pull my hand off his shirt either. From Drake, that was practically a bow.

  I let him go and turned back to the idiot who'd crossed through campus and finally entered another building.

  Then I activated the earpiece and gave a tiny, ridiculous mouse squeak. Drake's code for 'go.'

  It was time to move out.

  The campus grounds were surrounded by a compulsion spell that convinced any random person walking, without the proper supernatural ID, to turn around and walk in the other direction. But that spell didn't extend into the air. And we had three winged vigilantes on our side.

  Drake partially shifted, letting his black wings sprout from his back, the clawed tips soaring high above our heads. Though his dragon could take on different sizes, this was the biggest I'd ever seen him make his wings.

  "Compensating for something?" I jested.

  "Yeah. Your fat ass."

  I rolled my eyes. That wasn't even a good retort. But then I moved into position on the edge of the roof, climbing up onto the ledge like a jumper.

  Seconds later, I felt Drake's hands wrap around my waist.

  "Sorry, I don't like you that way," I told him as he jumped with me tight in his grip as we took to the sky.

  "Keep joking. Go ahead."

  "Alright. What do dragons call Jon Snow? Wait for it. Motherfucker."

  Drake loosened his hands on me, letting me slide down a little, showing me what he thought of that joke. But I wasn’t worried, his earlier acquiescence even had me feeling a bit cocky as we passed over Larry and Rocco's mage—whose name I'd already forgotten.

  They glanced up as our shadow covered them, but quickly bent back to their work. They were crouched in the hedges that surrounded the campus, creating a Movement Restriction Spell. If any magical being was able to get past the campus' compulsion spell, this spell would trap them. Any person who stepped inside the glowing turquoise circle would be stuck, feet unable to move until Larry or Rocco’s mage lifted the spell or verbally released the person. Our mages created a few feet of the spell at a time, then covered their work with leaves and grass clippings from a shifter lawn care company so that the glow wasn't visible.