Angel (Mystic Guardians #7)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Emory

“This heat wave is gonna kill me.”

Emory looked at Bain and grinned at the disgruntled basilisk.

His white-blond hair was plastered to his head with sweat, and rivulets ran down his temples.

Emory had been trying to ignore his own discomfort but now became aware of how irritated he was.

Sweat made his T-shirt stick to his back, and he was sure his wings were drooping.

There was a reason he hadn’t settled down in the warmest climates.

Dry leaves crackled beneath their feet as they moved deeper into the forest. He glanced over at Alaric, who didn’t seem to be having issues with the ridiculous, over-one-hundred-degree heat that had been boiling Seattle for more than a week now.

He’d even let his hair down, long black locks flowing around his shoulders like cool, fresh ocean waves.

Emory had thankfully put his own longish blond hair up in a bun, but he could feel his scalp sweating.

“What I wouldn’t give for a cool breeze about now.” Emory scanned the trees and ground for signs of the rougarou pack they had been sent to find. “I wonder what brought these guys here? They normally stick to the southern states and swamps.”

“Probably what’s bringing a lot of preternaturals here,” Alaric answered as he ducked under a tree limb. “The increase in magic in the ley lines. It’s so strong now, I don’t have to siphon energy from flora to replenish my magic at all. Magic is just in the air for the taking.”

Emory scratched at an itch on his arm. He hoped he hadn’t brushed against any poison ivy. “So what’s the plan? We going to try and talk them into going home first?” He’d been called off another job to assist with this mission, so his briefing had been briefer than usual.

Bain shook his head. “Xavier believes they’ve gone feral. We’re going to have to take them out.”

Emory nodded even as his gut clenched. He hated having to take lives, but if this pack of shifters had lost their humanity, there was really no other choice.

Feral rougarou were like ravenous wolves on steroids…

while also hyped up on PCP. The humans they’d killed had been left in pieces and partially eaten, so reasoning with the rougarou wasn’t really an option.

None of them were bothering to mask their noise as they tromped through the forest. They wanted to lure the pack out.

Moonlight spilled through the tops of the trees, but it wasn’t enough to truly see where they were walking, so branches cracked and dried leaves crunched.

From Bain and Emory anyway. Alaric moved with inherent grace, at one with nature.

Bain usually moved like that, too, but the heat affected him more.

Something scurried away from them in the underbrush, and an eerie howl rent the air.

Emory started to run in that direction, the others falling in beside him.

When they hit a clearing, Emory shot up into the sky, hovering to spot the pack they were searching for.

There was another clearing about two hundred feet away, and the rougarou were all gathered around something there.

They were in their shifted forms, with human bodies and wolf snouts, their hairy hands tipped with long claws.

Emory would give anything to be able to fly in that direction, but he couldn’t soar that far, so he came back down and pointed. “Five that way”

They took off running again, and soon, Emory picked up on the sounds of growls and guttural voices. His stomach lurched at the smacking and chewing noises. Seemed the pack had taken something down, and he could only hope it wasn’t another human.

Beside him, Bain shifted into his basilisk form and picked up speed, his long snake’s tail sweeping over the ground. Alaric would probably use his elf abilities to bind the creatures. Emory had his strength, his telekinesis, and his high air jumps to evade attack. Together, they were unbeatable.

Emory burst into the clearing and skidded to a halt.

The rougarous stood at his arrival, turning to stare at him.

On the ground between them was the half-eaten carcass of a doe.

Blood streaked the wolf features of each member of the pack.

It covered their bare chests like they’d wallowed in it before starting to eat.

Their strong, gamey scent made Emory’s nostrils flare.

Their eyes were glazed over, not one of them showing any signs of remaining coherence.

“They’re too far gone,” he said to Bain and Alaric, who’d fanned out around him.

The pack abandoned their meal, leaping toward them, snarling.

Alaric threw up his hands, and two of the rougarou stiffened as the elf wrapped them in a binding spell.

They could only growl, bodies twitching as they tried to fight it.

Bain’s silvery gray scales shone in the scant moonlight, while the black streaks looked like dancing shadows as he moved.

He sent his snake tail snapping toward the two spelled rougarou, and they went flying.

Emory shot up into the air and aimed a downward kick at one of the others, knocking it back into a tree. It crumpled to the ground and lay still.

Landing, Emory rushed one of the others as it crouched and leaped for him with claws extended.

He dodged the claws and used his telekinetic magic to start hurling large stones at its head, but it was surprisingly good at evading them.

He jumped up high into the air again, his wings holding him aloft as he scanned the entire clearing.

Three of the creatures were down. The remaining two were still fighting, but Bain grabbed one and aimed his deadly stare right into its eyes. It froze, then just collapsed to the ground.

The one remaining rougarou took off running.

Emory landed, then jumped into the air again, spotting it through the trees. He sent a heavy tree limb into its path, and the rougarou hit the ground hard before scrambling to its feet. But it was moving slower now, a heavy limp making it stagger every few steps.

Bain, whose form was half man, half snake, slithered fast around the trees, and he whipped his tail around, tripping the rougarou.

This time, Emory toppled a tree onto its head. He landed next to the now-dead rougarou. “That was entirely too easy,” he murmured between panting breaths. “They seemed almost…weak.”

“Probably been feral for too long.” Bain knelt and looked over the dead creature. He pointed to something on its shoulder. “Wonder why it has this tattoo.”

Emory eyed the tattoo, taking in the sorcerer’s staff with a circle of fire around it. “Interesting. We’ll have to tell Xavier about that.”

Bain got to his feet and pointed into the trees. “I’m pretty sure he’ll want to know about that as well.”

There was a deer lurking at the edge of the clearing. It was no ordinary deer. Instead of soft, brown fur, ragged, human-looking skin covered its back half. It turned its face toward Emory, and its snout didn’t look anything like a deer’s, its face misshapen and grotesque.

It wasn’t a shifter caught mid-shift, but something else entirely. Something Emory had never seen before.

“That is so wrong,” Emory said, keeping his voice low.

“It must be a mutation of some sort.” Bain shifted fully back to his human form.

The deer’s ragged ears suddenly twitched, and it ran, rushing through the clearing where Alaric waited.

Emory and Bain hurried back, and Alaric turned to them with wide eyes, his jaw tight with concern.

“This is not good. I’m guessing that the intensity of the ley lines has made the magic unstable.

The tremors in the earth we’ve been feeling are because of that as well.

But now that it’s affecting the flora and fauna, it’s turned into a serious problem.

” He pulled out his cellphone. “I’ll fill Xavier in and get a clean-up crew out here. ”

Emory nodded and leaned against a tree trunk. Alaric was right. This was serious. That thing was something out of a nightmare, and if there was one, there were probably more mutated creatures. Plus, something had been off about the rougarou pack.

His gut clenched when he felt the rumbling tremor of yet another earthquake. He looked at his coworkers, seeing the concern in both their eyes.

Something needed to be done about the ley lines.