21. Quill
Quill
“But… But you’re dead,” I heard Wild say. “The cube absorbed you. There was no way out…”
The woman just laughed, cold and heartless. “I told you that you would never be rid of me, Wilderain.” She lifted her hands again, magic crackling around her. “And I never break my promises.”
I watched the magic explode outward in a wave of sickly green that made my skin crawl. Wild threw up a barrier of his own magic, but I could see him straining against the force of it. Whatever this woman was, whatever she’d been to him, she was powerful. Terrifyingly so.
Magic wrapped around the barrier, the force of it knocking Aeron back a few feet.
“Aeron!” I cried, running toward him before I could even think.
I grabbed Aeron’s arm, hauling him to his feet as another wave of magic tore through the space where he’d been standing just seconds before. The ground itself seemed to ripple from the impact, and I could feel the heat of it singing my hair.
“Go!” Wild screamed, his voice cracking. He was terrified. And that scared me more than anything else that had happened tonight. “Get to the circle! Now!”
I didn’t need to be told twice. I pulled Aeron with me, my legs pumping as hard as they could carry us across the devastated campus.
Behind us, I could hear the woman, Wild’s mother, apparently, which was absolutely insane, laughing as she continued her assault.
The sound of magic crashing against Wild’s barriers was like thunder, each impact sending tremors through the ground.
“I can’t leave him,” Aeron growled, trying to pull back toward the fight. “I can’t leave a member of the Elder Council behind!”
“You have to!” I shouted back, using every ounce of strength I had to keep him moving forward. “If we don’t make it to that circle, we’re both dead, and then all of this will have been for nothing!”
That seemed to get through to him. Aeron’s jaw clenched, but he kept moving, his long strides eating up the distance toward where Wild had indicated the teleportation circle would be.
I could see it now, a faint shimmer of magic near the academy gates, its teleportation circle runes glowing softly in the darkness.
We were almost there. Maybe thirty feet away. Twenty.
Then that woman’s magic found us again.
It came like a whip, wrapping around my ankle and yanking me backward with enough force to knock the wind from my lungs. I hit the ground hard, my hands scraping against grass and dirt as I was dragged away from Aeron.
“Red!” he roared, spinning around immediately. His eyes had gone fully reptilian, his pupils slitted and gleaming with rage.
“Keep going!” I screamed, trying to claw my way forward even as the magic pulled me back. “Aeron, please! Just go!”
But he didn’t. Of course he didn’t. The stubborn bastard charged straight back toward me, his half-shifted form growing more pronounced with each step. His muscles bulged, his claws extended, his teeth sharpened into fangs as he roared a sound that was distinctly draconic.
The woman’s magic released me, and I scrambled forward on my hands and knees, gasping for air.
I could see Wild still holding his barrier, sweat pouring down his face as he fought against his mother’s onslaught.
And now Aeron was engaging her directly, his claws raking through the air as he tried to close the distance between them.
“Foolish boy,” the woman laughed, sidestepping his attack with inhuman grace. “You think you can defeat me? I’ve been fighting since before your grandfather was hatched.”
Aeron didn’t respond. He just kept coming, his movements becoming more frenzied, more desperate. I could feel the mate bond pulling at me, that strange connection between us screaming at me to do something, to help him, to protect him.
But I was just a witch and not even a great one at that.
I knew I had no magic that could stand against what she was wielding.
No power that would make a difference against someone who could overpower a member of the Elder Council.
But I couldn’t leave Aeron behind either, not after he’d told me he loved me.
I made a decision in that moment, one that probably wasn’t smart but felt inevitable anyway. If I couldn’t fight her with magic, then I’d fight her with the only other thing I could use, my speed.
I pushed myself to my feet and ran straight at her, not toward Aeron but at an angle that would put me between her and him.
She was so focused on dodging his claws that she didn’t see me coming until I was already there, my fist connecting with the side of her mask with every ounce of strength I possessed.
The impact sent a jolt of pain through my entire arm, but it worked. Her concentration fractured for just a second, her magic flickering. Wild’s barrier held firm, and I heard him gasp as the pressure against it eased.
“You little—” she snarled, turning her attention toward me.
That was her mistake.
Aeron was on her in an instant, his claws raking across her arm with enough force to draw what looked like actual blood from beneath her gray skin. She shrieked, a sound that made my ears ring, and threw a burst of magic that sent both of us flying backward.
I hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind from my lungs for the second time that night.
My vision swam, but I forced myself to focus, to stay conscious.
Aeron was already moving again, his dragon form pushing through more fully now.
His wings were starting to unfold from his back, tearing through his shirt as his body expanded.
“Run!” Wild was shouting again, and this time there was a different kind of urgency in his voice. “She’s stronger than you think!”
He was right. I could feel the power building around the woman, could see the air itself beginning to distort around her. Whatever this was, whatever power she had, she was about to show us her true nature.
I forced myself to my feet despite every muscle screaming in protest. “Aeron!” I called out, my voice hoarse. “We have to go! Now!”
But there was no time left to react. Her hands reached skyward, sickly green magic swirling around her. With one swift motion, she sent everything she had toward us. And I knew, just from the way my skin prickled, that this magic was going to not only kill us, but vaporize us on the spot.
Or at least it would have if Wild didn’t step between us, his shielding magic going up like a bubble around all three of us.
The impact of her magic hit Wild’s shield like a meteor strike.
I watched in horror as the barrier flexed inward, the fae lord’s entire body straining against the force of it.
His nose started to bleed, crimson drops falling to the scorched grass below, but he didn’t falter.
His teeth gritted, his jaw clenched so tight I thought it might shatter, but he held firm.
“Fuck!” Wild gasped through gritted teeth. “I can’t hold it for long!”
His shields began to crack, the woman’s laughter growing louder and more shrill.
For one brief, horrifying second, I realized she was going to win.
That Aeron and I were about to be obliterated before I’d even had the chance to tell him how I felt about him in return.
Suddenly my life felt far too short, like I hadn’t really lived it at all.
Regrets filled my mind as I looked at Aeron and reached out for his hand.
Another crack filled the air as our hands met and I just stared into his golden eyes, waiting for the tragic fate that was about to befall us.
However, just as the shield was about to give way, another figure appeared.
And this one I recognized. It was Dax, the werewolf that had been sharing a bed with Wild since the semester began.
But as he rushed through to Wild’s side, his own magic flaring, I watched as the glamor melted away from him too.
Suddenly he was taller, larger, more muscular, and far more frightening.
“We need to go, Wild,” he said through gritted teeth, his muscles straining as his magic reinforced Wild’s shields. “There’s nothing more we can do here.”
“We can’t lose the academy to these monsters!” Wild shouted back. “I can’t let them win!”
“You don’t have a choice, my love,” the new Dax replied.
With one hand, he pulled a glass orb, like an ornament filled with starlight, out of his pocket and dropped it onto the ground. He looked at us, reaching out.
“Come on!” he shouted.
I didn’t wait for Aeron’s response. I just grabbed the werewolf’s hand, still holding tight to Aeron with the other. Dax reached out and grabbed Wild’s shoulder at the same time, his foot slamming into the glass orb and shattering it into a million tiny pieces.
The whole world seemed to stop for a moment.
Then Wild’s mother was shrieking. Not sounds of joy or vengeance like she had been making, but cries of fury.
I realized, in the fraction of a second we stood there, that this was some sort of emergency enchantment.
The moment I felt the world shift and my feet leave the ground, I realized it must’ve been a teleportation spell.
The world solidified around us with a jolt that made my teeth snap together. One moment we were suspended in that crystalline void between places, and the next, my feet hit solid ground and I stumbled forward, gasping for air that suddenly felt thick and heavy.
I blinked, trying to orient myself. We were inside somewhere, a grand foyer with soaring ceilings and marble floors that gleamed under the light of dozens of sconces.
The walls were lined with paintings and books and trinkets, none of which I recognized.
The windows high above were frosted, the stars and moon beyond them obscured and fuzzy.
“Everyone accounted for?” Dax asked, his voice still carrying that deeper timbre it had taken on when he’d revealed his true form. He was still holding onto Wild’s shoulder, and I could see the fae lord’s legs were shaking with exhaustion.
“Yeah,” Wild managed, his voice hoarse. “We’re all here.”