by Riley Storm
Lightning cracked in the sky and thunder boomed loudly.
Someone giggled.
Rane looked around, realizing that several witches had stopped and were currently admiring his naked body.
“Ladies,” he said awkwardly, stifling a groan, and then he leapt into the sky on a current of air, shooting for his window. Lightning sliced down from the sky, striking his body, filling him with its power as he re-entered his room, blowing in the last of the glass and sticking out a hand, ready to obliterate Loiner from the mortal plane.
But he stopped straight.
The witch had made her move while she was gone, and now stood with Natasha in front of her, a wickedly curved blade held to the throat of the woman he loved.
“You lose again,” Loiner chuckled nastily. “Leave us, or else I slice the bitch’s throat wide open and you can watch her bleed to death.”
Rane trembled with barely restrained power and fury, wanting nothing more than to shove his hand down the bitch’s throat and unleash every ounce of power in his body. The hag deserved to fry, and he wanted it bad.
But Natasha. You must save her.
“It’s okay, Rane. You can leave,” Natasha said with a calmness he couldn’t understand. “Please. It’ll be okay.”
His eyes were drawn to her naked stomach where she was giving him a thumbs up. A sign that Loiner couldn’t see. Rane didn’t know what, but Natasha had a plan. She was ready to deal with Loiner.
Trust me, she mouthed when he didn’t immediately respond.
Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Rane nodded. “Very well,” he said. “But know that if you do kill her, I will hunt you down and make you scream for forgiveness as I slowly fry every nerve ending in your body.”
Thunder boomed loudly in response to his threat. For a moment, Loiner looked somewhat afraid, but then the witch reasserted herself.
“Get out,” she snapped, pulling the blade tighter to Natasha’s throat.
“I love you,” he said, directing his words and gaze at Natasha.
“I know,” she said and grinned.
Rane stepped back and out of the window, though he didn’t drop out of sight. He stayed watching, floating in mid-air as the two talked.
Then Natasha laughed.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Natasha
“That was very smart of you,” Loiner sneered. “I didn’t think you’d make it. I can practically feel your body wanting his.”
“Is someone jealous that they’ve never been touched by anyone as good-looking at him?” she fired back, not succumbing to the taunt.
“Jealous of that alien monster pawing at me with his grubby hands? Absolutely not,” Loiner snapped, sounding legitimately disgusted at the idea.
“If their coming here had in any way raised your own prestige, you know full well that you’d view them as glorious specimens, that you would be doing your best to get one of them to take you home,” Natasha said, smiling. “The only reason you act like they’re horrid beasts is because they took the spotlight away from you, and you’re jealous.
“That’s enough out of you,” Loiner snarled, pulling the blade tighter, its edge pricking against her skin.
Natasha wasn’t sure where her confidence was coming from, but she was filled to the brim with it. Her magic was thrumming through her veins, positively filling her entire being in a way she’d never experienced before, never known was possible.
Outside, thunder rumbled and she felt it. She felt the storm, felt the power it brought, and she reached out to it, tapping into it, feeding off it.
Then she laughed. The storm raged harder in the skies above Winterspell, as if responding to her laugh.
“What is it? What’s so funny?” Loiner asked, showing her uncertainty for the first time.
“You,” Natasha said in a voice that almost didn’t sound like herself.
She reached up and touched her hand to the blade, feeding power into it. Loiner shrieked as the power raced up the handle and into her hand. The metal grew bright and disintegrated, falling to dust as it could no longer contain her spell.
Loiner was flung backward, off the bed and onto the floor beyond it. Natasha’s hand shot out and her robes came flying to her from where they had pooled on the floor. She cinched them closed even as Loiner was rising.
“How dare you break into here!” Natasha shouted, her voice booming out. She raised her hand and a blast of blue energy spat at Loiner.
But the Master was ready, and the spell was deflected into the wall, sending chunks of stone and masonry into the air.
“How dare you judge me!” Natasha said, striking again.
Loiner once more deflected it. Right back at Natasha.
She ducked and the blast went right over her head, blowing open an even larger hole in the wall where the window had been.
Power rushed in, filling Natasha as she fed off the storm again. What sort of connection was this? Rane could do this, but not her, not any witch—this was beyond them. At least, it had been until now.
Loiner launched her own attack, fire rushing at Natasha. She thrust both hands forward and the air shimmered in front of her, turning a pale blue color. The fire struck it and splashed across the oblong shield, dissipating as it spread.
The strike was strong. Loiner had been surprised, but she hadn’t earned her position by chance. She was one of the strongest witches at Winterspell, which was what led credence to her threats. The fire pushed Natasha back one step, then another.
She was pushing her to the edge!
Natasha realized what was going to happen then, what the other woman was trying to do. Planting her feet, she dug in, pushing more energy into her shield.
“You can’t stop me!” Loiner cackled and raised her other hand. More fire belched forth, wilder, more uncontrolled than that which flowed from her wand, but deadly nonetheless.
Natasha skidded back a handful of steps. She was now precariously close to the edge.
“Natasha!” Rane roared from outside.
The storm responded to his call, and her backward progress stopped as she fed off that energy. Something in her clicked.
“Rane!” she shrieked over the horrible cackle of the fire as it tried to get at her, to burn her. “The storm. I can feel it! Call it. Make it stronger.”
Rane didn’t reply. He just acted. “I am Rane, of Clan Storm Dragon!” he roared, reaching for the sky. “You will hear me and obey!”
The storm responded. Thunder cracked and boomed. Lightning flashed. Power. It was sheer power. Natasha drew upon that and took another step forward.
Loiner’s eyes went wide as Natasha’s shield solidified, blocking more of the fire, driving Loiner back a step.
That was when the fire changed. Red-orange at first, the stream brightened, from oranges, to reds, until the flame turned blue, shrieking with brutal intensity.
Natasha was once more driven back, forced to give it her all to combat the onslaught. She needed more power. The sky wasn’t enough. But there was only one source of power left, only one thing she could draw upon.
Grimacing at the mental effort necessary, she transferred all her power into one hand, holding the shield with it while she turned side on, looking back out the window.
“Hit me!” she howled as the fire pushed her shield closer to her hand, and her feet closer to the edge.
Rane hesitated. “But Natasha…” he called over the roar.
“Do it! Do it now!” she shrieked, stretching out her other hand toward him. “Everything you’ve got. Do it or we die!”
Loiner laughed. “You will die anyway!”
The world went white as lightning filled the sky in a burst unlike anything she’d ever seen before. A bolt so pure it dazzled the eyes struck Rane. He seemed to glow as he absorbed the energy.
The storm dragon lifted a hand as lightning continued to pour down, illuminating the entire courtyard below and windows all around. Natasha braced herself.
It str
uck her hand and she screamed. The agony was beyond anything she’d endured before.
But the power, oh the power! It surged through her, and out her other hand. It poured from her fingers, infusing her shield, and then pushing through it. Pure white lightning slowly absorbed the fire, transforming it as it followed back to the source.
The first bolt struck Loiner’s wand and the magical instrument shattered. The feedback was too immense, and the evil Master was blown backward, through the weakened stone wall into the room beyond, where she lay still.
Natasha stumbled, suddenly weakened as her legs and balance were stolen from her. She reached behind her for more support, but only found air. The floor was gone, and she fell backward.
“Easy there,” Rane said as strong arms closed around her, slowing her descent. “I’ve got you. It’s going to be okay.”
“Rane,” she said with a tiny smile. “I could feel it. I could feel you. The storm. The power.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “I know you could. I could feel you too.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I just don’t know. But we’re going to find out. Together.” He paused. “But not until tomorrow.”
Natasha laughed weakly. “Can we make it the day after? I think I’m going to sleep all through the day.”
Rane grinned. “We can do that.”
“Good,” she said, then passed out, safe and secure in the arms of the love of her life. Her man.
Her mate.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Natasha
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Rane raved from where he stood next to her. “That’s it? After all the woman did, this is the only punishment she’s to receive?”
Natasha squeezed his hand, searching for the best way to explain to Rane that this was about all she’d expected to happen.
“Loiner is well connected,” she said quietly. “And in the larger world, Winterspell is one of the newest schools. It simply does not have the prestige, and therefore the authority, to overrule others on this matter.”
Rane trembled with barely restrained fury. “She was going to kill you,” he pointed out. “How does that not merit a worse treatment? She’s getting off free!”
“Not entirely,” Natasha said, though she had to admit, it seemed incredibly light, even to her. “She’s going to go somewhere her powerbase is much smaller. She has a few friends on the Coven in Germany at our European headquarters, but nobody else there knows her.”
“She should be locked up, or killed,” Rane growled. “Put an end to her threat here and now.”
“I’m sure Circe would have loved to do that,” Natasha agreed, sidling up closer to him as they watched the procession play out on the courtyard in front of them.
Four members of the Winterspell Coven stood surrounding Loiner, who stood proudly, spine erect, hands in front of her. They had been secured with magical binders and would remain that way until she was long gone from Winterspell.
“What’s to stop her from coming back as soon as she’s free?” Rane wanted to know.
“Circe has put a tracking spell on her,” Natasha said as the air in front of Loiner and the Coven members shivered. “If she leaves Germany then Circe will be informed immediately, and the second half of the spell will be activated.”
“What happens then?”
“Loiner dies.”
“Oh. I like the sound of that part. Couldn’t that be the first half?” he asked innocently.
She nudged him with an elbow. “Now, now. We’re not into killing people if we can avoid it,” she said. “People deserve a second chance, to reinvent themselves, to heal and learn how to interact with society again.”
Rane scoffed. “People don’t change.”
Dropping his hand, Natasha crossed her arms, twisting at the waist to face Rane. “Oh, is that so? They don’t change at all? Are you telling me I haven’t changed? Am I still the dragon-hating manipulator that I was when you first met me?”
The dragon shifter’s face bunched up in thought as he realized his screw-up. “Ah crap. There’s no coming back from that one, is there?”
“Not right now,” she said haughtily, unable to keep the smile off her face. “But you will make up for it in time, don’t worry.”
Rane grinned, dropping one thick arm around her shoulders and pulling her in tight. “I have no doubt you will see to it that, in this case at least, appropriate punishment is handed out.”
“Oh yes,” she laughed wickedly. “Much punishment will be given indeed.”
“Hey now,” he protested. “The punishment must fit the crime!”
“And what a terrible, terrible crime has been committed,” she continued in the same voice, as if she hadn’t heard him at all.
“That’s not very nice. You’re blowing this way out of proportion,” Rane said.
They both fell silent as reality parted and a pair of elegantly dressed witches stepped through the rift in reality.
“Well they certainly like to flaunt their station, don’t they?” Rane observed.
Natasha had to agree. While the robes for those at Winterspell were dark, thick and practical, they were not much more than functional. There was no flair, no style. One might almost call them drab. Natasha had been less than enthused the first time she’d tried it on, realizing this would be her common outfit for most of the rest of her life, but in time she’d become numb to it, not caring anymore.
“Fancy,” she said.
The robes the pair of witches from Germany were wearing, however, were anything but dull and boring. Gold stitching ran down the sleeves and around the cuffs, while the material itself added some luster to the outfit. Not just black, it appeared more like silk or satin. She couldn’t tell from the distance, but it was shiny. Elegant, even.
“Loiner belongs there,” Rane said abruptly. “She is going to fit right in with people who care that much about how they look.”
Natasha sniffed. She was forced to agree. Which was probably why the disgraced master didn’t look like she felt disgraced in the slightest. In fact, Loiner almost looked happy to be leaving Winterspell, as if she felt she was going somewhere she belonged.
“I really hate her,” Rane said out loud as one of the newcomers began speaking to the representative from Winterspell.
Loiner turned her head as if she could hear the two of them talking, and her eyes glittered.
Rane stuck up a middle finger at her.
Loiner just grinned and turned her head back around.
Thunder rumbled distantly in the sky. Natasha reached up and grabbed at his forearm, squeezing it. “Easy, my love,” she said, still enjoying the way it rolled off her tongue.
Love. She’d never been in love before. The only times she’d used it were with her parents. Never with a man, or a woman. Someone she wanted to be with. There hadn’t been anyone, not until Rane had entered her life, in the most round-about, messed-up way possible.
And yet…despite all that, Natasha was at peace with the way things had worked out. She’d lost most of those who were her friends, who she’d thought were her friends, but it didn’t seem to matter. She’d found out who really, truly liked her, regardless of her political motivation.
Footsteps sounded behind her, and she smiled as Anna and Damien moved up to stand next to her.
She’d also found new friends. People who didn’t judge her from the start. Natasha was sorry she’d ever judged Anna for falling in love with one of the shifters. As it turned out, the two of them had quite a lot in common.
They’d only talked a few times, but Natasha found herself looking forward to seeing the woman again. Anna was just so genuine, so open and honest, it was a refreshing change, and something Natasha vowed she was going to be more like. No more secrets, no more hiding her thoughts and feelings.
One of the gaily dressed witches gestured and Loiner started forward, walking proudly between the two of them as the
y headed for the rift.
They reached it, and disappeared, simply walking through. A moment later, the air shimmered and the rift was gone. Just like that, Loiner was gone, and everything at Winterspell was back to normal.
Well, she thought as Rane took her hand. Not quite normal.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Natasha
“You planned all this?” Natasha gaped as she walked into the main ballroom.
Music thumped in the background and people mingled and talked. Some sat at tables, others wandered around the huge room, while more still swayed and moved out on the dance floor, smiling and laughing.
“Maybe,” Rane admitted, linking her arm through his. “What’s it to you?”
Natasha shook her head. “You know what this means though, don’t you?”
The big dragon shifter looked down at her, blue eyes filled with confusion.
“Of course, you don’t,” she laughed, squeezing his arm, feeling the muscles underneath his shirt. "Why would you!”
“What do you mean?” Rane wanted to know as they waltzed past a table filled with finger food, both of them snagging a little chocolate pastry as they went.
Natasha popped it in her mouth and practically drooled. “That’s so good!” she exclaimed around the remnants, her taste buds clamoring for more sweet cocoa goodness.
Rane beamed. “Thank you. It was…tough, to get this all planned with minimal involvement of other witches.”
“I can imagine,” she said, shaking her head, stunned at the magnitude of what Rane had done. “And you didn’t tell anyone about it. You didn’t slip.”
Her man, her mate, grinned happily. The term was new, but Natasha had found herself enjoying the way it sounded. Loiner might have used it in a derogatory sense, but she was quickly coming to like it. It fit in a way she couldn’t quite describe to anyone who hadn’t experienced what she was experiencing with Rane.
“But, you know Rane, this means that, all along, while I was trying to find out what you were up to, what you were planning? When you were telling me that you had nothing going on. That means you were lying to me,” she said.