Chapter 27 #2
Two sleek red dragons touched down on opposite sides of the opponents, while a golden gryphon crouched over home plate, tail lashing as she eyed the combatants with unconcealed fury.
Callum was not alone.
And yet, even as I held my breath in eager anticipation of the moment they would combine their efforts to take Blake down, the three did not move.
They waited.
Waited while Callum struggled to his feet, rose to his full height, spread his wings…
And roared.
It was not simply the roar of battle. This was the sound I’d first heard months ago—a dagger of power that shot straight through my brain, pierced the part of me that answered to my shapeshifter magic, and dropped me to my knees.
It was pure, devastating strength of will, and a sense of threat so overwhelming that I nearly bowed my head. Callum’s eyes glowed too brightly to look at, and for an instant, everyone in the stadium froze, sensing the presence of a predator far more terrifying than any they’d encountered before.
This was the roar of the shapeshifter king, and Blake didn’t stand a chance.
He staggered once and then collapsed, belly to the ground, his stolen shapeshifter magic overruling his purely human defiance as it recognized a far greater power.
The moment Blake’s head hit the field, Callum pounced, seizing the larger dragon’s neck between his teeth and shaking him like the rat he was.
I heard a snap.
And that enormous head fell back to the ground, limp and unconscious.
Callum roared again, a sound of pure triumph that was echoed spontaneously by every soul in the stadium—a roar of victory unequaled by any crowd for any game ever played within those walls.
We’d won.
Against all odds, we’d somehow won the day.
So much had been broken. So much trust had been destroyed, and it was too soon to determine whether the humans around us would respond with hatred or with acceptance.
But our city would survive.
Now it only remained to be seen how much of my family had survived with it.
I went looking for Faris first, and found him by following the unmistakable tone of his bellowing over the sounds of the crowd.
He was sitting down, his face still covered in a ghastly mask of dried blood, but his green eyes were bright as he issued orders and sent people scurrying in one direction or another.
I was so glad to see him alive, I almost cried, but thankfully he caught me with one of his patented scowls before any tears could fall.
“Cutting it close, weren’t you?” he grumbled, and then I had to press my fingers to my lips to keep from bawling.
His expression softened. “What happened?”
“It’s fine. We just… I don’t know how it ended. We got the kids out and rescued Tairen, but I left her there with Logan to wrap up. He said he could destroy the artifacts, but…”
Faris looked at me blankly for a moment.
“Logan? But he was supposed to be…” Then he just shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter how he got there. If he said he could do it, he can.” He threw a glance at the field, where Blake’s body had fallen. “And even if the gateway went down with Blake, Tairen will get him home—you can bet on it.”
I already had.
“How long before the police and the ambulances show up?”
“Already on their way,” he assured me, shifting in his seat and wincing. “I called them to start mopping up as soon as Callum went after Blake.”
“And… are they going to arrest you?” After all, from a human perspective, a portion of their city had just been turned to rubble by rampaging Idrians.
Faris’s lip curled, and a satisfied gleam appeared in his green eyes.
“I have a good enough relationship with the city that they listened when I told them what was happening. And I recorded Blake’s phone call to play back for them.
By now, the head of the Bureau of Idrian Affairs has been relieved of his position, and the governor will be making a strongly worded recommendation for more equitable hiring in the future. ”
Wait, did that mean…
“So you told them everything? Even about the stolen magic?”
Faris grunted an affirmative. “Thankfully, it’s been destroyed by now, and no one outside of Blake’s people knows why he wanted Kes.
But it was past time for more transparency between us.
We can’t go on as two separate groups, with separate laws, sharing the same cities. We need cooperation. Bridge builders.”
He was right, and yet… It was such a huge step.
“The only reason Blake almost succeeded is how divided we are,” he pointed out. “How little we understand or trust each other. That has to change.”
And today, hopefully we’d made strides in the right direction.
“Where is Kes? Did she go with Kira, Morghaine, and Ari?”
He nodded. “They’re all at my place with Hugh.” Then he looked at me a little sideways. “I don’t know what happened, but Logan wanted to stay behind to defend your apartment, and… I decided to let him.”
Not like I was going to argue under the circumstances.
“And Ethan?”
Faris didn’t answer, just looked at someone over my left shoulder, and then…
“He healed me.”
I turned, let out a soft cry, and threw myself into Callum’s arms, burying my face in his chest so my tears could fall unnoticed.
Tears of relief and joy, because he was whole. I could feel his emotions again, wrapping around me like the warmest of blankets—safe and secure.
We stayed there, unmoving, barely noticing the crowds and the noise until we were jostled by a team of paramedics moving past at a run. When we broke apart, I looked up at him, and then laughed a little at his choice of clothing.
Someone had apparently borrowed an outfit for him from the ballpark’s gift shop—a pair of sweatpants with the current team’s logo and a sleeveless purple workout shirt that outlined his chest to perfection.
It was very unlike his usual attire, but not even a tiny bit less attractive to my eyes.
“When you say Ethan healed you…”
“He neutralized the poison,” Callum explained. “No idea how. I don’t think he knows either. But we were desperate, and when he asked to try, I decided I might as well hope for a miracle.”
And Ethan had delivered one.
“I’m so happy for him,” I murmured, with a rush of thankfulness for every strange twist in the path that had brought him back to us. That path had finally given him purpose, along with a new family and hope for the future.
Which was what we all had, now that Blake had finally been taken down. The question was…
“Is Blake…”
“Not dead,” Callum said. “But he may never walk again. Once he shifted back, shapeshifter healing couldn’t help him, and his neck is still broken.”
I dared to hope that after all of this, he would eventually have to face justice. For all the lives, all the pain, all the shattered city streets and traumatized kids.
“Do we know what happened to Heather?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. But we won’t stop looking.” He reached out, took my hand, and laced his fingers with mine. “Just as long as you’ll do it with me, because I’m never doing this separation thing again. Not ever.”
I leaned against his arm with a grateful sigh of agreement. “I’m with you. And that being the case… I need to check on my family. Will you come with me to make sure Ari and Kes are okay?”
“To the ends of the earth,” he said with a smile. “Or even just the post office or the grocery store.”
“Let’s try the grocery store tomorrow.”
He bent down and dropped a kiss on my lips. “Deal.”