Chapter 17 #2
Healing blue and steady green set to work healing the worst of his ribs, mending the minor puncture in his right lung. Golden orange stops the worst of the pain, not permanently, but enough that he can focus on the woman barreling toward him.
Now that he’s not distracted by the suffocating pressure or the pain, it’s easy to recall the weaves that he’d used to build his ice staff.
He pulls on The Plain again, trying to pull moisture from his environment, but the Nashville day is hot, and the Air flows have made the surrounding air so dry it’s impossible.
She’s almost on him, a gun in her hand. It’s shaking, as if it’s not her usual weapon, but it’s the zealous fervor burning in her pale blue eyes that sends a frisson of fear straight down his spine.
The car door slams behind him, and seconds later, the hose to the cistern erupts to life, water arcing across the pavement in a roaring rush.
Thank the Goddess for Leo.
Grayson’s laugh is wild.
Ice blooms in his grip, the staff forming in a single seamless motion, veined with ice-cold light where heat and cold meet. He steps forward, wind at his back, staff cutting through the air in a gleaming arc.
He twirls the weapon like a baton, icy air sending tendrils of eerie blue steam in every direction, fractals of prismatic light arcing in the sun. The spinning action forces the woman around, her back pressed to the front of Leo’s car.
At the same time, Jay slams the henchman into the SUV hard enough to make metal scream. There’s a subsequent thud of a large body hitting the ground in an unconscious, bloody heap.
Grayson’s staff hums in his grip. In moments, he has the woman pinned, the sharpened edge of ice tucked under her chin where her pulse is hammering like a trapped bird.
“Drop it,” Grayson says, and the rage in his own voice surprises him.
Her gaze flicks past him, fast, calculating. The heavy pressure in the back of his head returns, but a yellow burst of light from The Plain smothers the attempt.
“Now, now. That’s not nice,” Grayson growls. “Try that again and—” He widens his eyes and lets his words trail away, the threat clear.
Grayson doesn’t have to turn around. Jay is a furnace at his back. Controlled now, but not calm.
He catches a glimpse of his soulmate out of the corner of his eye—glowing with white light—standing on the hood of the SUV. He’s dragged the other magic user across the hood, his yellow Converse pressed to the man’s neck as he squirms.
Leo stands, hose in hand, feet planted, water roaring across the asphalt in a hard, glittering arc that makes the whole lot shine like it has been freshly baptized in the prismatic brilliance of The Plain. He looks furious in a way Grayson rarely sees. A mate with something to protect.
“I. Said. Drop. The. Gun,” Grayson growls, pressing the tip in just enough that a drop of red forms and freezes on her throat as she swallows against the ice.
The gun lowers, dropping to the wet asphalt with a clatter.
“You’re making a mistake,” she rasps out, eyes flicking from side to side. “You are meant to serve. You are the One.”
It’s the second time Grayson has heard that, and this time he’s sure as fuck going to ask questions.
“The One?”
“We have been searching for the One. Powerful in The Plain, with access to all that entails. But, most importantly, in Time. You are the One.”
Leo turns the water off, staying well back but close enough to say, “That sounds like another prophecy.”
The woman’s jaw clenches as if something is holding her words back. Thanks to Kirwan’s foci, Grayson knows just how that feels.
“Listen, lady. You’re insane. I’m just me. Nothing special. I’m not going with you anywhere.” Grayson rolls his eyes. “I’m Were first and magic second.”
The woman presses against the staff when she hears the words. Her face crumples with disgust. It seems prejudice in the magic community isn’t as uncommon as one could hope.
“You will join us or—” she snarls, lips pulling back in a fiendish expression.
“Why do you need Grayson to go with you?” Leo asks again.
A sliver of triumph flashes over her face before it’s gone. The zealous fervor replacing her frustration as if it had never been.
“He is the One. Powerful in The Plain and with access to all that entails,” she repeats. “He will train at the Academy under the high-mistress to change the course of—” Her voice cuts off, surprise flashing in her eyes.
She begins to scream. The same spider brand under her shirt begins to glow and smoke. The scent of burning flesh is even stronger without the insulation of Grayson’s Traveling.
Grayson pulls back the staff so she doesn’t inadvertently impale herself. He lets Jay pull him out of the way as she falls to the ground, writhing in agony.
“He is the One! He is the One,” she shrieks before she passes out, and the spider eventually fades. The T-shirt is ruined, but her pale skin is once again unmarred.
“Holy shit,” Leo whispers. He looks green, and Grayson can’t blame him. It’s no easier to watch the second time around.
“Hey, Jamie? Big and Stupid Take Two is waking up! Do we want to hold on to him until Gideon gets here or…?” Nix hollers over the cursing magic user shouting at him from the hood of the car.
He is trying to use Fire and Air to get Nix to take his foot off his neck.
But the flames bursting from his hands are snuffed out before it even leaves his fingertips.
Nix’s immunity makes him so angry that he looks like he might melt the front of the vehicle.
Sure enough, the henchman that Jay had beaten into submission is staggering to the driver’s side of the SUV.
“Clear out, Nix!” Leo shouts.
“You sure? We could keep one just to send a message?” He back flips off the hood and stands, immovable, in the henchman’s way.
Slender arms crossed, Grayson can see his blue eyes flash, long fangs bared in a challenge that makes the henchman flinch.
The woman groans from the ground in front of them, and Grayson considers for a moment sending that message.
He knows from a hundred-year-old memory that his staff could leave her with a wound that would never heal.
The opposite of Healing, the ice and fire would burn like agony for the rest of her life.
“Gray?” Nix is by his side as the SUV lies on the horn. Both men are inside once again, invisible behind the tinted windows. “Are we keeping this one?”
“No,” he says. “I won’t sink to their level.”
He sees that the woman hadn’t been sure of his mercy, and that scares him more than he’d like to admit.
“Go. Tell them I’m not who they’re looking for.”
“See you soon, Pearce,” the woman hisses. She escapes to the SUV, looking back with a grin that could only be called evil. Then she’s slamming the door behind her.
Grayson watches it peel away until it merges with noon traffic and becomes just another black shape among a thousand others.
Only then does Grayson feel his legs start to shake.
Only then do his ribs remember they hurt.
Only then does the reality settle into him like a stone dropped into water, rippling outward.
He lowers the staff. It melts in his hand in a hiss of steam and cold, the last of it evaporating into the air as if it never existed at all.
“Leo!” Jay has Leo in his arms before he hits the ground, unconscious.
That explains the grin. He hadn’t noticed that the woman’s parting shot had been to hurt his mate.
There’s a deep, rage-filled rumble beside him, and the only thing stopping Nix from chasing the SUV down the street is Grayson’s arm around his waist while he growls creative threats.
“Come back here, you crazy shit! How dare you—”
“Nix. Stop. I’m alright.” Leo’s eyes open slowly, flinching at the bright light as if he has a migraine or a concussion.
“Are you sure? I could track them. They stink.” Nix rubs his nose in Leo’s hair, while wiping the blood from Jay’s forehead with the hem of his It’s Bitch O’Clock T-shirt. “I’m not wrong thinking that, am I?”
Leo groans, turns away, and throws up. “Fuck. Can’t smell anything but that crispy chick.” He gags again, even greener than before.
“Yeah, sorry.” Nix frowns. “But it wasn’t that. It’s not like Withers. More like patchouli that’s gone rancid. Know what I mean?”
Grayson tries to remember what the woman had smelled like when he’d been close, the wind swirling around him, her throat under the tip of his staff. He hadn’t noticed, but maybe that’s Nix’s sensitive Omega nose.
“Smelled like magic to me,” Jay says. “Should we have let them leave?”
Leo curls into Jay’s chest, eyes squeezed shut. “What would we have done with them? It’s not like we have a dungeon where we can keep crazy magical henchmen.” He pauses before cracking an eyelid. “We don’t, right?”
“Too bad,” Nix snorts. “Cuz that’s going to piss Gideon off when he gets here.”
The words drop like a bomb, and Grayson remembers what Nix said on the hood of the car. Do we want to hold on to him until Gideon gets here or…? He’d assumed that Nix had meant they would be calling Gideon, not that Gideon was on his way right now.
“You didn’t—” Jay groans.
“Well, Gray has broken ribs.” Nix shrugs. “I had to tell Finnie. He was worried. And you’re hardly a criminal mastermind, Jamie.”
He runs a soft hand over Jay’s head in consolation. “But you kicked that guy’s ass like a pro! I’m impressed. Super hot, Alpha.” He looks toward the empty entrance to the lot. “They’re here.”
“Why does it feel like you’re humoring me? Did you let me beat that guy?” Jay asks incredulously.
“Well, you enjoyed it. I could tell.” Nix is grinning like he’s given Jay the best gift ever.
Finn’s Land Rover peels into the parking lot and slams to a stop in front of the Lexus. He’s kneeling beside Leo before Gideon even gets out of the car.
Finn looks harried. Hair sticking up all over, med-bag in hand. “You said it was just Gray’s ribs, Nix.”
“Sorry, I didn’t want you to crash the car.”
“What happened? Did you fall?” Finn shines a light into Leo’s eyes.
“Ow. Fuck. No, I didn’t fall,” Leo croaks. “Felt like a knife to the brain.”