Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Bronwen pulled me up and to her side just in time.
Claws flashed as two more wolves leaped over the blinded One-Eye and aimed for our throats. Then Bronwen smiled with the glint of mischief I’d only seen from her when it came to the change.
Only this time, she pressed her spine to mine and fought at my back as a wolf in human skin. We moved together, an equally chilling smile uncurling across my lips.
Bronwen had escaped into Faerie, a halfling shifter and unwelcome in whatever world she walked. But we’d found each other.
The wolves charged in unison, and one swung to the right while the other gnashed its fangs at my legs.
I went high as Bronwen moved low and swept its legs out from underneath it.
The wolf on the right attacked. Magic batted away its teeth before it could make contact, and another flick of a spell broke its leg.
He dropped and Bronwen rose, snapping the other one’s neck. “Please tell me you’ve got a plan, Tavi. Maybe more of that wild and crazy magic I scent rolling off of you? Can’t you blast these wolves to hell?”
Her expression spoke of misplaced hope, and I offered her the same lies I gave Mike, only wrapped in different bows. “Where would be the fun in that?”
A low boom rattled through the castle, the foundation rattling.
I threw out a hand to catch myself as a female wolf lunged at us. Bronwen spat out a curse and my heart pressed to my ribs when she hooked the wolf solidly on the chin. The Grimaldi bitch shifted to a woman, staring at us like those pleading blue eyes would make a difference.
No mercy. I followed with a strong pulse of magic and the woman’s head cracked a fraction of an inch to the side, her neck broken.
A cry rang out and we saw Coral on her knees at the top of the stairs leading to the entrance hall. I had no clue how she’d gotten there but several wolves rounded on her, nudging her effortlessly toward the stairs.
“Coral!” I ran for her, and behind me Melia shoved out a spell with one hand, the other hand holding back two more wolves.
Coral stumbled and hit the first step, catching herself on the railing. Another low boom rattled through the ribs of the academy.
Bronwen shifted in midair and speared her way into the nest of wolves. She pecked at their eyes, landing on one of their necks and tearing at scruff with her claws. Eyes wild, the wolf swung around to snap at her.
Coral took the opportunity to rise and relief churned in my gut.
Then the same roof-rattling pounding came again, a blast powerful enough to knock several of my friends off their feet. Wild-eyed, I swung my gaze down to the front doors. Ancient iron hinges shook.
There was no room to run. Not when the hallways of the academy all emptied out into this central room, dark and eerie with the lack of light.
Until the doors blasted open.
Both sides of the massive structure landed on the entryway hall floor and lifted centuries of dust and dregs of magic from the cracks. Coral blanched, her features shifting back into human.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said.
She let out a shaky breath. “Depends on who is on the other side.” She squeezed my hand.
A fresh wave of shifters pulsed into the open entry, making shrapnel of the doors they’d destroyed. At their helm—
Detective Doug Wilson, face mottled red with annoyance, aimed a loaded finger at the rest of the Grimaldi pack and pulled the trigger. The footsteps of his pack were a crash of thunder drowning out my worries.
Doug glanced up, his gaze meeting mine and lingering. He nodded and then shifted, bolting off to join the fight.
The tides of two packs met and clashed as they clawed at each other, both attempting to wipe the other out. And horrified, I kept watching when more of Kendrick’s wolves crawled out of the woodwork itself.
“Guess the fight isn’t over,” Melia said tightly, stepping to my side.
“We’re not alone this time.”
I had no time to marvel at Doug’s arrival. Not when a scrawnier wolf with his pelt a rich shade of tawny lifted his face to the ceiling with a yip of delight. He moved quickly and bodies fell behind them, Doug and his people cutting down the wolves.
If I had to bet, I’d say that was the handsome Officer Allen.
Some of the Grimaldi pack burst free from the fighting and erupted up the stairs, leaping and stumbling over each other to reach us.
“Melia, get the hell out of here.” I pushed her toward the portal, and a rippling sensation where our skin met caught me by surprise.
The hair on my neck stood up. I turned back just in time to blast away a snarling wolf that had come too close.
I raised my arm and shifted it, claws curving and taking out grooves of wolf skin. I shoved Melia again. There was nothing she could do here.
“You’re the brains of this operation, not a fighter. Get out of here!”
Gritting my teeth, I sent another blast of power outward, a whirlwind sending Melia skidding back down the hall toward the portal. Mike stepped in and twisted around to protect her, jamming his magic through another wolf.
“Don’t you dare die on me!” I called after her.
I dragged in a deep breath as exhaustion curved my ribs. It scraped its way down to the hollow of my stomach. Pushing through, I focused on my wolf and her strength.
The death curse might make it harder to access the power I’d had only minutes ago, but she would always be there.
I stilled my mind and let the change take me, snout elongating. Safer in her skin. Safer with all four feet on the ground.
I took off, Coral following at my flank in her bastardized halfling form and Bronwen winging her way to the lower floors.
Coral snapped a claw and dislocated the lower jaw of one of the wolves. I grabbed at another’s legs, claws dragging against its haunches, and shut down the rest to focus on this.
We were our own pack. Especially when Bronwen changed form. The connection between us hummed in my veins alongside the death curse. Instead of taking from me, it flowed into me, sending waves of heat up into my heart to keep me going.
I lost myself to the fight. To the dance of killing.
Time slowed for us. They moved fast but we were faster.
The academy filled with the reek of smoke and old blood as the dead went down and the ones who still fought took back what was stolen.
It was all I could do to keep the portal open through the rest of the fighting, but soon enough Kendrick’s wolves fell, one by one. Those who were lucky enough to escape vanished. Maybe they realized Kendrick wasn’t coming back for them.
Or they were smart enough to not hang around to be annihilated.
Silence rang out, unnatural and suffocating, by the time Officer Allen found me. He shifted to human, holding his arms out to the side.
“Never thought I’d be happy to go back to school,” he teased.
“I’m glad you guys were here. I didn’t think—”
“We’d make it in time?” Allen winked and the gesture, mischievous and spirited, was oddly out of place.
A second wolf joined and Doug Wilson shifted and shook his head. “Took us long enough to rally. Fuck.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair.
“You found more willing shifters than I thought you would.” I leaned hard to the side as though I might fall, and there was Mike, lending me his support.
Suddenly he held me close, my weight taken up by his arms, his face streaked with things better left unnamed. “I lost you in the crowd. I had no idea where you were.” Panic-filled eyes took me in.
“I’m fine. I’m not hurt. A little tired.”
The doubt sketched on his features told me my lies were wearing thin. Soon he wouldn’t believe them. but it faded when he saw Doug and Allen.
Mike held out a hand for both Doug and Allen to shake. “You were watching out for her?”
“She didn’t need it,” Doug replied, voice gruff.
I scoffed. “An exaggeration.” It was better than telling them I was at my limit.
The blood in my veins went sluggish and nausea cast a sheen of sweat over my skin. I’d become a liability in a finger snap.
Unfinished business forced my mind to pivot, to target a new purpose.
“Let’s do a full sweep of the school and make sure we find whatever students and staff remain,” I suggested. “Melia, keep the portal protected and set them up at Elite for safety. Bronwen, you and Coral help me search. Mike, please go with Doug and Allen and help carry the bodies into Faerie.”
Our group split off into teams. Mike cast a long look at me before heading off with the others.
I wasn’t going to leave anyone behind if they were loyal to us. It was the least we could do, to send them off with a proper farewell. They deserved as much.
The Grimaldi pack had made a wreckage of the castle. Shattered walls, torn tapestries, stones yanked from the floor out of spite, and the curving sconces of fae lights in the corridors tossed aside in piles of rubble.
We found several students cowering in their dorms, shaken but alive, and just as many who were not so lucky and had been tossed like garbage into empty classrooms. They were beyond saving but nevertheless Mike and Doug and Allen carried them out to their final rest.
I limped along, tossing quiet words to Coral and Bronwen. This wasn’t a time for shouting.
We made several trips to the portal with professors and the students they’d stayed behind to protect. On our last trip, Melia froze at the portal, her face pale and her eyes locked on King Tywin.
He stood blocking the entrance to the Elite Academy, a scowl deepening the lines across his forehead.
“I will not allow them into my realm. Do you understand, girl?” His quiet words were like a slap in the face.
“They’re injured,” Melia snapped back.
“Then I suppose you’ll have to find healers in the mortal realm for them, won’t you?
” Tywin considered the flock of halflings we’d already helped across.
And the shifters Doug had brought with him who were solidly on our side.
“Shifters are filth. Bitten or born, it doesn’t matter. They don’t belong in Faerie.”
Officer Allen adjusted his weight to accommodate the wounded woman groaning at his side, her head lolling to her chest. “What the hell do you mean?” he demanded. “They fought alongside you.”
Mike flinched, as if he understood exactly what kind of chain reaction those words would cause in his father.
Allen was dismissed with Tywin’s bark of amusement. “Michael, will you please show the riffraff to the door. We need space for the rest of the injured Fae to come through. I won’t have them blocking the exit.”
Something snapped inside me. “You still don’t get it. These people were injured helping to save your people. Step aside and let them through.”
The king’s attention was ice. Part of me wanted to flinch away, too exhausted to stand in front of him the way I had before. Panic slid beneath my skin as Tywin’s magic rose, a punishing force digging into the marrow of my bones.
His eyes brimmed with rage. “Repeat that for me, Miss Alderidge.”
I swallowed but stiffened my spine. “I told you to stand down and let them pass. They need immediate attention they won’t receive in the mortal realm, and as far as I’m concerned, Fae or not they deserve a place to be safe. They’re our allies.”
“Our.” Tywin tested the word. “I don’t recall a reason to need trash on my side. The situation is well in hand. Now, you’ve done me a favor by taking care of the wolves—” he spat the word “—terrorizing my school. My Fae halflings are safe.”
End of story.
I wanted to singe the expression off his face. And wondered if Tywin knew how perfectly capable I was of doing it.
Mike prowled at the edge of the portal with his hands balled into fists.
“So you’re refusing to let the shifters come into Faerie?” I repeated, to make sure I had it right.
“Animals belong in cages. Not in Faerie.” Tywin didn’t even acknowledge the moaning woman in Allen’s arms, one among many injured shifters.
“There are people here who fought for a cause that isn’t theirs.
They don’t owe us anything—yes, us—but they were here to protect people who needed protection.
Now we’ve cleared out this school and recovered the people we could and it’s because of them.
” My brow furrowed. “You are going to let them pass.”
Tywin held himself stern and proper, magic curling from his fingers, trailing to the floor and along the curling boundaries of my portal. As solid as any real bars blocking the way. “Stand down or I’ll—”
“What?” I prodded. “You’ll send your guards for me?”
Another bully, this one wearing a crown.
It was time to knock the crown right off his head. I’d deal with the consequences later, a problem for Future Tavi.
Tywin’s power might be lethal and his vengeance swift, but fuck him. My right hand curled into a fist, primed to launch into Tywin’s face.
“This isn’t your call,” he said.
“Like hell it isn’t. These people were protecting your students! I was there to fight alongside them. You weren’t. Just because they’re shifters doesn’t make them less worthy,” I seethed.
“Get them out of my kingdom!” Tywin bellowed.
His power lunged for me, and I threw up my hands but took the blow, absorbing it and standing firm even as it threatened to snap me into pieces like a broken matchstick.
A wave of blinding light surged out of my palms and someone screamed, the air going as cold as the heart of winter.
“You have no idea what kind of people are in your kingdom because you’re a broken old man who has outstayed his welcome,” I said, voice thunderous.
“You’re a joke. A tyrant. The only reason you still have your kingdom is because you’re too stupid to understand what’s happening under your nose.
But the end is coming for you, and Dorian Jade will make sure none of your ways of life survive his takeover. Unless you listen to me!”
Then pain suffocated me and I choked back a sob as the light was extinguished, Madam Muerte’s curse taking a toll.
“Captain Hezarwick.” King Tywin stared at me, furious, resolved. “Gather the guards and arrest Tavi Alderidge for treason.”
No one said a word as I was pulled through the portal, Bronwen and Mike behind me. A low moan squeaked out when I watched Tywin snap the portal shut, leaving our shifter allies on the other side.