Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
Panic gripped me for a second, then, I backed away slowly. “Ah. Excuse me. Sorry.”
Shit. Not what I expected. Far, far worse than what I was expecting, in fact.
I thought I’d catch a hint of lavender sparkle magic or a touch of violet skin.
Instead, every single creature in the room was bright-purple, enormous, tense, strapped with thick muscle, veins bulging, eyes wide, focused right on me.
The berserkers were absolutely terrifying. “I’ll just be heading out now?—”
A low rumbling sound rolled towards me. “Stop her.” The voice sounded like furious rocks grinding together. “She can see us,” another one grunted.
A woman lumbered forward as I backed out the door, swinging her enormous shoulders and moving far faster than she should have been able to. Panicking, I staggered backwards and tripped over Cecil behind me.
He let out a strangled yelp. “What the fuck, Chosen?”
“Chosen?” The woman charged at me. I tried to shut the door, but she rammed against it, threw it open, grabbed me by the shirt, and dragged me inside with one hand. She yanked Cecil’s collar with the other, tossing him into the room like he was a tiny toy poodle, and slammed me up against the door.
Cecil snapped. “Let me go, you purple freaks!”
“Quiet.” A male berserker—muscles bulging so much he looked like every part of his body was having a separate allergic reaction—put his hands on Cecil’s snout and held his mouth closed.
They moved closer. Twenty terrifying monsters surrounded me. All my bravado disappeared.
The big woman who had dragged me inside moved closer, studying me carefully with glowing violet eyes.
She was only an inch or so taller than me, but at least twice as wide, almost blocking out my view of the rest of the room.
Her tight pink booty shorts barely covered her bulging glutes.
Enormous pecs strained at a matching sports bra, distorting the logo on the front so much I couldn’t make out what it was.
The only part of her that wasn’t glowing purple was her hair, which was bleached blonde and braided back off her face into tight cornrows.
Her muscles were insane. I could count every single abdominal muscle on her stomach. They looked like buns on a tray. “You are the Chosen One.” She glared at me, huge arms crossed over her chest.
I licked my lips nervously. “I am.”
The circle of monsters edged closer. Too close. Everything was too close. Even the atoms in the air condensed, vibrating with unbearable intensity.
“Why are you here?” The female berserker narrowed her eyes. “Tell the truth, or we will rip your arms off.”
Be brave, Susan. You’re a smart, capable woman.
My knees shook. Turns out, mantras don’t work when you’re surrounded by monsters.
“I— I?—”
“She’s not the Chosen,” a huge male at the back grunted. He appeared to be wearing a Hawaiian shirt, the buttons straining against his enormous chest. “I said from the start that the Chosen is meant to have magic.”
But I did have magic. It was about time I started to use it more often.
I took a breath and focused. Heat pooled in my gut. Mentally, I reached out to it, spooling it, winding it within me, and letting it seep power into my limbs. Power surged through my blood. It was mine to command.
Now, what was I supposed to do with it? I could freeze them all for a few seconds—I could probably push a few of them, hurt them, maybe, throw them in the air, grab Cecil and run.
They would chase me, of course, but this was a crowded arena with plenty of security. It was the reason we were having so much trouble abducting a berserker in the first place.
I took a shallow breath in, then another, watching them carefully. Apart from the bulging muscles and glowing purple skin, they looked…
Normal.
I frowned. “I thought you only manifested your magic when you’re channeling powerful emotions?”
“We do,” the blonde female said. Her brow creased for a second, then, her face hardened again. “Tell us why you’re here. Or we will rip you apart, piece by piece.”
It wasn’t a lie—no buzz rolled over my skin. She could destroy me with a click of her fingers.
But the threat still sounded empty.
I looked around the massive woman, staring at the berserkers surrounding me. They were all manifesting their magic. All of these berserkers were channeling very powerful emotions right now.
But what powerful emotion were they channeling? It didn’t feel like anger. Was it… fear?
The blonde leaned closer, her violet eyes glowing brighter. “Speak,” she rumbled. “Now.”
I was still too confused. I held up a finger. “Can you give me five more seconds?”
The woman frowned. “Why?”
“I’m still thinking.”
The berserkers glanced at each other, but nobody punched me. My train of thought, already shunted right off-track, chugged on to a place I didn’t expect.
These creatures in front of me might look like terrifying monsters, but they lived here in the human realm. They lived and worked in my own world. And now that the blonde’s huge pecs had deflated a little, I could see the sponsor’s logo on her sports bra appeared to be for a children’s daycare.
Maybe they weren’t what I thought they were.
Was I being na?ve, just like I had been with the sea witch? That tentacled bitch could have easily eaten me and used my bones to decorate her lair. But this was different. I knew this was real. I just wasn’t sure how to handle it.
In the end, as usual, my impulse for diplomacy won. “My name is Susan. You don’t have to call me Chosen. Please forgive me—I’m new to all this magic stuff, so I’m sorry if I sound uneducated.” I held eye contact with the blonde monster in front of me. “Are you comfortable telling me your name?”
“I’m Candice. She, her,” she added automatically.
I nodded. “It’s nice to meet you, Candice. I’m very sorry to barge in on you like this.”
Her jaw clenched. “We were praying. You interrupted our prayer circle.”
Oh, good grief. “Please accept my apology for interrupting your worship, Candice.”
Her eyes flared purple again. “Why are you here, Susan?”
“I think you know.” I lifted my chin and met her eye. “You abducted my friend, Audrina. I came to get her back.”
The monsters behind Candice shifted on their feet restlessly. Some of them dropped their eyes.
“We didn’t abduct her.”
My skin subtly buzzed at her lie. “Well, you did. You snatched her from Golden Gate Park where she was walking with my friend, Bart. He’s a shifter, so he knew it was a berserker who took her. You guys are a tight-knit group. I know you know, Candice, I can see it in your eyes.”
She took a step back from me and exhaled a tight breath. A little of the purple in her skin faded. “Okay, fine. We did take her.”
“Why?”
“We thought she was you. The Chosen. The One of Every Blood.”
The reason could wait. “Where is Audrina now?”
Candice breathed in through her nose, her enormous pecs expanding. The purple flared again, but it wasn’t rage she was channeling.
I was right; it was fear. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” There was no buzz of magic. She was telling the truth.
She shook her head. The muscles on her neck began to bulge again, veins rising like fat snakes under her skin. Candice was dealing with a seriously heavy emotional load.
I reached out and patted her arm. “Candice, it’s okay,” I said gently.
“Sometimes, we make stupid decisions, and we really regret them. You don’t need to let this guilt consume you.
Together, we can fix this, but we have to be honest with each other.
Tell me,” I implored her. “Tell me what happened.”
One of the men in the back let out a sob. “I told them it was a terrible idea!”
“Shut it, Todd. It was a good idea.”
“Yeah, a good idea, terribly executed.”
“We got fucked over.”
“Yeah. It would have worked, except–”
“Quiet!” Candice bellowed. “I’m telling her.”
I waited patiently while she gathered her thoughts.
“We heard the Devourer had come to the Middle World,” she began. “It scared us stupid.”
“Don’t tell her that, Candy! You’re going to ruin our reputation!”
“Shut up, Todd,” she snapped. “She’s right. We could have avoided all this if we were just honest to start with.”
The berserkers grumbled but settled down. The purple glow of their skin dimmed a little.
“Go on,” I told her. “You were scared of Connor? The devourer?”
“No.” Candice shook her head vehemently.
“Not of him. We could take him easily. We weren’t even that worried about him coming for our spark stone.
Even if he got his hands on it, he’d never be able to break the protection wards on it.
It’s hidden until the protections are deactivated.
And the spells can only be unwound by a berserker. ”
“Okay.” I furrowed my brow. “So, what were you worried about?”
She shuddered. “His little bloodsucking army of banwyn.”
“You’re scared of the banwyn?”
Candice nodded vigorously, eyes blazing purple. “The games were coming up, and we’re all so fucking nervous about it. Banwyn feed on fear and panic, you see, and if they found us, they would swarm and drain us of our strength. They could annihilate us.”
I opened my mouth and shut it again. “Oh.”
“You have to understand, Susan. Todd’s right.
We’ve got a reputation to protect. If the whole Middle World found out we were terrified of a bunch of little cockroach kids, nobody would hire us as mercenaries anymore.
Any other time, we might be able to handle dealing with a few banwyn, but…
” She trailed off, her eyes imploring. “The Ultimate Strong championships are everything to us. We’re all terrified. The stakes are so high.”
I opened my mouth to ask something, then shut it again.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Tell me.”
“Well… You’re berserkers,” I said. “You’re competing against a bunch of normal humans, and you have a magical advantage. That’s not really fair, is it?”