Chapter 51 Khalid
Shifting lessons with Iman were great, but I hadn’t learned a damned thing about her the whole time she was helping us. We stepped up our lessons even more because of Adrian. In theory, he also had an animal, and we were sure unlocking it might help him find his fire.
Adrian was a goof, but he was taking this seriously. Radames killed him once and if they figured out Iman was the cat who saw him, she would be next. If Iman died, she’d stay that way, so their group was all taking this seriously.
Our group was mostly Mazen, Ari, Adrian, and me, but Ivar always showed up, too, even though Iman was fluent in eight languages and also knew sign language, so she could understand Ari just fine.
It was a week before Winter Solstice. We’d all gotten stronger.
I was so in tune with my jackal now from all my lessons with Iman and I was progressing a lot further with Veil walking in my private lessons with Professor Gefn.
I’d actually managed to successfully cross for about a minute before I was kicked back out, but I had a long way to go before I could have a foot in both worlds.
Lucian had been busting his arse and had Darian’s seal of approval that he would do the vampires proud if he ever got into a fight. He was ready to end this, even if he would have preferred settling this another way.
Liam’s part of Sage’s plan had two parts.
He’d been working Lola so that she and Radames would be where we needed them to be on the night of Winter Solstice.
He’d also been spending time with the Sirens and his guitar because Sage figured out how Adrian could use his fire before their shades just came back from the void and started healing them before he could finish.
Sage was owning Magical Combat, even if she was still terrible at running. Her magic was growing. No one could land a blow on her because she knew it was coming and could avoid it. She could see everyone’s weakness and exploit it. Sage was quickly becoming Professor Adamastus’s favorite student.
In other words, she was an utter badass.
Adrian was the holdout, and it wasn’t from lack of effort. As soon as Iman asked him to stop with the antics to get her in bed, he did. He was completely respectful of her boundaries and we could all tell how hard he was working.
It just wasn’t happening and we kind of needed it to.
Adrian was generally perpetually in a good mood and easy going, but I was learning when he did get angry, he kind of just exploded. He’d bloodied his knuckles punching a tree when it didn’t happen again.
Iman just stared at him and didn’t look the least bit scared.
“Good. Get angry. All of us shifted for the first time because our emotions were overloaded. You’ve got fire and you’re also the most textbook Leo I’ve ever met, so you’re also a fire sign. You need to get pissed.”
“You believe in astrology?” I asked.
“My roommate is a witch. She got mad at me one day and accused me of being an Aquarius with a Scorpio rising. I didn’t understand the insult, so I looked it up. Morgana didn’t know my birthday, but she was spot on. I did some study on it and it has merit.”
“She’s right,” Mazen said. “My emotions were all over the place when I shifted for the first time and every time it happened when I wasn’t wanting it to.”
Ari started furiously signing. We were all trying to learn with everything going on, so I only picked up some of it. We were all telling Adrian getting angry was the key to this and I could tell he heard us, but he was fairly irate right now and it wasn’t even warm on the field we were standing in.
“Does this plan have to rely on me? We’re getting close to the deadline and I got nothing.”
“Yes. And we’re still going forward with it if you don’t. Bastet handled Apep numerous times in their first life. I’m not in that prophecy, but I’ll insert myself if you need motivation.”
“Gods, she perfect,” Ivar moaned.
Ari poked him in the side and I caught enough from what he was signing that he didn’t want Iman in the fight and that seeing Iman in danger would trigger Ivar’s battle lust. Mazen had, apparently, picked up a lot more sign language than I had.
“Mine, too, but something tells me Iman can handle herself in a fight. She only ran the first time because she knew he’d come back. Isn’t that right?”
“Well, that and I thought it was pertinent to tell all of you that I knew who Apep was. I could have shifted into a bigger cat and taken him if he would have stayed dead.”
“So sexy,” Ivar groaned. “I want to go to battle with you.”
“Do I get a say in this?” Adrian asked.
“Only if you find your phoenix, big guy,” Iman said.
That was such a Sage thing to do. She was already prophesized to be in that battle, but if she thought she had a chance of winning and needed to motivate us enough to trigger magic. I shifted for the first time because I thought Sage was in danger from Mazen.
We might have to put Iman in danger to get Adrian to call his fire, but Iman was the one who volunteered.
And cat beats snake.