Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
AVINE
The wards screamed her awake.
Not a sound—a sensation. Like tearing metal, like breaking glass, like every nerve ending in her body catching fire at once. Avine gasped, jackknifing upright in bed as the inn’s magic shrieked through her bones.
Blue fire raced up the walls. Across the ceiling. Burning cold instead of hot, ancient defensive magic activating for the first time in decades. The Siren’s Rest was fighting. And losing.
She threw herself out of bed and hit the floor hard as the whole building shuddered. The hardwood beneath her palms pulsed with wild, panicked energy—the inn’s own awareness, terrified and hurting.
“Hold on,” she gasped, pressing her hands flat against the floorboards. Her magic surged in response, trying to reinforce wards that were already fracturing. “Just hold on, I’ve got you—”
Another pulse of invasive magic slammed into the building. Avine’s head snapped back, teeth clacking together. She tasted copper.
When she opened her eyes, dark sigils were burning themselves into the floor around her. Black flames licking at old wood. And in the corners of the room, in the shadows between the blue fire’s glow—
Shapes were forming.
Salt constructs.
The first one materialized in front of her bedroom door, blocking escape.
Humanoid but wrong—too tall, too angular, proportions that made her brain dizzy.
It was made entirely of sea salt crystallized into a parody of human form.
Where eyes should have been, two hollow sockets glowed with sickly green light.
It moved toward her. Joints cracking like ice breaking.
Avine’s magic erupted.
She didn’t have time to think, to shape, to control. Raw power poured out of her—storm-surge and every drop of magical potential she’d spent years suppressing. It hit the construct like a battering ram.
The thing exploded. Salt rained down, coating her hair, her skin, the floor.
More were coming. She could hear them—dozens of them, forming throughout the inn, crashing through windows, tearing at doors. The wards screamed again, weakening further.
Avine scrambled to her feet. She was wearing an old t-shirt and underwear, barefoot, hair tangled from sleep. None of that mattered.
She threw open her bedroom door and stepped into war.
The hallway was chaos.
Blue fire competed with puke-green light. Salt constructs lurched toward her from both directions—three, four, half a dozen. The inn’s walls groaned and cracked around them, the inn’s own magic straining against the invasion.
Avine planted her feet and drew on power she didn’t know she had.
The first wave of constructs hit her defensive barrier and shattered. The second came faster. She threw bolt after bolt of raw magic, each one stronger than the last, her body shaking with the effort. A construct got through, reached for her with crystalline fingers—
She grabbed its arm and PUSHED.
The thing disintegrated from the inside out. Green light flickered and died in its eye sockets. Salt cascaded around her feet in glittering piles.
I did that. How did I do that?
No time to wonder. More were coming. Always more.
She fought her way down the stairs, magic blazing, the inn shuddering around her with each impact. In the lobby, the front doors hung off their hinges. Through the gap, she could see the predawn darkness filled with glowing shapes—an army of salt constructs marching up from the beach.
Someone had done this. Someone had summoned an army to destroy her inn.
Later. She’d figure it out later. If she survived.
The howl cut through the chaos.
Deep and resonant and brimming with pack magic, it hit Avine’s ears and her knees went weak for an entirely different reason. Theo. She’d know that sound anywhere—had heard it in her dreams every night since the ward work.
He burst through the shattered doorway in wolf form. Massive. Gray fur rippling over muscles that could tear a construct apart with a single swipe. His eyes found hers across the chaos—steel gray even in wolf form, burning with fury and fear and possessiveness that made her blood sing.
More wolves poured through behind him. Beck, recognizable by his sandy-brown fur and the way he immediately flanked Theo’s position. Others she didn’t know—the pack, responding to their alpha’s call.
They fell on the constructs with savage efficiency. Fangs tore through crystalline forms. Claws raked salt bodies into pieces. The wolves fought as one unit, moving in perfect coordination, covering each other’s blind spots.
Theo’s howl rang out again—not fear this time, but command. Directing the attack. Calling for reinforcements. His pack magic flooded the inn, strengthening the faltering wards, buying time.
A construct lunged at her from the left. She barely got a shield up in time—
And then Theo was there, wolf form slamming into the thing, jaws closing around its neck. It shattered in his teeth. He spat out and positioned himself between her and the next wave, a low growl rumbling through his massive chest.
“I can fight!” she shouted over the din.
He snarled in response. Not a debate.
Fine. Side by side, then.