By his side, Sage’s power filled her eyes and her entire being. She was turning into a powerful witch, and I wasn’t jealous in the least. We needed her, especially when I was holding us back.
“I heard Jaxton call out to us as we set up the bakery. Do you know what’s going on?” Sage asked.
I shook my head, pulling out my sword. I might not be able to set it aflame with a spell as easily as I had when I first lost my ability to use the magic I needed, but I could still fight with the blade better than anyone who lived within the town’s wards. “I don’t know, but that call means to come. So, here we are.”
I ran toward the lake and pond areas behind Main Street, noticing out of the corner of my eye that Ash was coming, as well. My brother, the one who had left the town limits long ago and was only newly back, gave me a tight nod and moved. I felt his magic within him, but I didn’t think he’d use it. Especially not when we could harm others. Ash used more than I did since his didn’t hurt him—at least as far as I knew—but he mostly did spells rather than use the earth element he was connected to. His earth didn’t crush him as my fire burned me.
Rowen followed us, her power immense, the air around her swirling. She didn’t speak to us, didn’t look our way. Though, I didn’t even have to look behind me to know she was there.
She was power.
Despite the fact that her life force was currently being drained to within its last inch to protect the town.
Something was coming, and we needed to fight.
A scream rent the air near the lake behind Main Street, and I ran faster, only to see Nelle, our resident goth mermaid, pulling herself out of the water and pointing behind her. “Revenants. I think there’s five.” She screamed again as one pulled itself out of the water and scraped its nails down her finned flank. She shoved at him, but mermaids weren’t as strong on land. They could walk on two legs, and they could move like a human, but they were their most powerful while in the water.
“Did you know revenants could swim?” Sage asked, and I shook my head, sword at the ready.
“Not in the slightest.” I moved forward as the revenants came closer and slashed down at the closest one coming at Nelle.
“Damn it,” she said as she shoved a dagger that had been strapped to her arm into the revenant’s skull. I pulled at the mermaid, gripping her arm as I got her out of the pond. She shook herself off, shifting into her human form. Her black scales turned into leather pants, and her chain and leather top remained the same since she didn’t swim topless. She gave me a tight nod, her kohl-ringed eyes bright with magic. “I think he’s the only one down there. The rest are up here.”
I growled, reminding myself of Trace again. “Are you okay?”
She held her side and then showed me her bloody hand. “I’ll be fine.”
“Okay. Then, duck.” She did as I said without question. I liked Nelle. I had known her since she was a baby, surprising all of us with her true form.
I slashed out with my sword, decapitating a revenant and wondering where the hell the necromancer was that controlled these undead bodies.
Nelle’s eyes widened, and she tugged at me. I turned, frowning at her for trying to distract me. Suddenly, there was a shout and the sound of a hawk. I ducked, doing my best to cover Nelle’s body as a fire stream soared overhead. My magic called out to me, singing its song of torment as it yearned to join with the magic and fight the only way it knew how.
Only I couldn’t.
Not if I wanted to live.
“That wasn’t me!” I called out, making sure everybody knew that I wasn’t the one using the fire magic.
“There’s another fire witch?” Nelle asked, and I tugged on her, trying to get us away from the flames.
And then Jaxton, hawk shifter, the man I couldn’t allow to be my mate, a man who happened to be Nelle’s half-brother, flew towards us, clawing out the eyes of a revenant who had been crawling our way. One I hadn’t seen. I screamed as the second revenant’s claws dug into my side, and I was afraid that Jaxton was too late.
Magic burned within me. It wanted out, but I needed to save Nelle. I needed to stop whatever was happening.
However, once again, it seemed that I might be too late.
Flames licked my side, and I watched the world burn.
Chapter
Two
Jaxton
Fire screamed around us before it died as quickly as it came, the furious tendrils threatening to sear our skin before it faded to nothingness. Laurel shouted that the magic wasn’t from her, and since she wasn’t scorched from the inside out, I had to believe her.
I looked down at both Laurel and Nelle and cursed under my breath before using my talons to rip off the head of the closest revenant. I held out my free hand. “Get up, Nelle. And stay behind me.”
She pulled her dark hair away from her face and scowled, even as she kept her gaze on the battle in front of us. “If you would just let me have a sword like Laurel, I could fight.”
“The sword is too heavy for you. We’ve been training with other weapons. Weapons you don’t have on you since you just came out of the deep with the one dagger that’s currently in the revenant’s skull.”
“Yes, so I can bash someone’s head in but not slice it off. So helpful.” She ducked out of the way as Laurel used her sword to impale the final revenant. My little sister glared at me.
“What?” I asked, my adrenaline pumping through my system. I hated the idea that Laurel was in pain, and that I’d almost lost my little sister. I hadn’t even known that revenants could swim. But, apparently, they could. And now we would have to deal with yet another way for the monsters to attack our people. Go after my sister.
“Thanks for the assist,” Laurel said as she slid her sword into her scabbard on her back and rolled her shoulders. She wore the blade on her back or on her hip, depending on the day. She was a master with the weapon and shifted where she carried it depending on the current scars on her body.
Neither Nelle nor I missed the wince on Laurel’s face that she tried to cover up when she moved. She couldn’t hide her pain from me. She had never been able to, which was probably why she constantly avoided me—or at least, part of the reason.
We hadn’t spoken since the last time I was in her home, and I had looked at her in the mirror, telling her it was time.
Of course, it was time. It was long past it. But Laurel wouldn’t take that step. And I knew there was a reason for it. It would cost too much, and it could hurt so many, but I couldn’t have Laurel die. I couldn’t lose her when I’d only just now found her. Or rather, let myself believe I’d found her.
Only this wasn’t about me. It would never be about me. It needed to be about Laurel, her choices, and the assholes trying to kill my sister and take over my goddamn town.
“Why are you glaring?” Nelle asked as she leaned forward, her voice a whisper.
“It’s nothing.”
“You should just tell her how you feel.”
I glared down at Nelle, doing my best not to look too menacing. She was a sweet baby angel, at least according to our mother. A beautiful mermaid who could do no wrong.
My mom, like my father and me, was a hawk shifter. My father had died when I was a young boy, and my mother had found another mate, something not too unheard of but quite rare. Only that mate had been one of the merpeople who lived beneath the surface of the water. He rarely came up these days due to the uneasy wards and failing magic beneath the core of the town since Ravenwood couldn’t hold itself to the paranormal world as it once had. As the alliance of witches faded through time and death, so did the magic tethering the town to the supernatural. My sister spent most of her time below the surface with her father these days, using their magic rather than ours.
My mother spent her days on land, trying to help me run the wing and baby my younger sister as much as possible. Because Nelle was half-hawk, half-mermaid—though only able to shift into her mer form—Nelle could go from
the land to the water far easier than any of her full-blooded mer relatives.
That meant I saw my baby sister more than I would have in any other magical situation. And I hated to see her hurt. I looked down at the wound already healing on her side. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. It sliced through part of my fin, but not enough to keep me down. I didn’t expect any revenants down there. Now we’ll keep watch.”
“Do you need to go down there now and explain to the others what happened?”
She shook her head, frowning. “No, Holden was already there.” I scowled, and she rolled her eyes. “We both know that Holden’s not for me, even if he wants his little mer princess.”
My father had been the wing leader before I took over. And then he died far too young. So, my mother was left as the wing leader’s mate—and influential in her own right. Of course, she ended up meeting with the king of the merpeople below the surface. Through magic beyond me, Nelle and the others could travel from water to water as long as the king was in charge of that particular area.
That meant when Nelle went below the surface, she wasn’t only in the large pond or the lake in Ravenwood. She could also go to saltwater areas all over the world.
It was a quirk of the realms and magic that I had no part in and didn’t understand. That also meant that Nelle was the princess of the merpeople and held power in her own right.
Even if she wasn’t a full mermaid.
“I was going to go see Mom anyway. I’ll follow when you go. I think she’s coming below the surface later for an extended period, but I miss seeing her up here, especially in her hawk form. Are you going back to the wing? To tell them what happened?”
I heard my sister, but my gaze was on Laurel. She was studiously not looking at me, however.
I didn’t blame her, but damn it, I wanted her to look at me. I needed her to see me. And she wasn’t going to. If she did, she would realize what we were both ignoring. And see that she was afraid.
I wasn’t. I couldn’t be anymore.
I had given her enough time, enough slack. Now, I would do what I should’ve done a long time ago.
“You’re growling. You’re a hawk, not a bear. You don’t growl.”
I held back my smile, despite current circumstances. “I do what I have to.”
“I need to go talk with the pack,” Rome said, his arm around Sage’s waist.
“I need to discuss what just happened with the wing.” I nodded tightly.
“And we will have a coven meeting,” Rowen added as she pulled her dark hair back from her face. I watched as Ash’s gaze locked on her movements, but I didn’t say anything. It seemed I wasn’t the only one who wanted something I couldn’t have.
“Is everyone okay?” I asked, my gaze moving around the others and the bodies at our feet.
“We are,” Sage answered. “Are you okay, Nelle?”
My sister rubbed her side, her jewelry glittering in the sunlight. “I’m fine. I wanted to come and visit with you all topside and wasn’t expecting the ambush. I honestly didn’t realize revenants could go down that far.”
“Or swim,” Laurel ground out. I met her gaze and saw the pain and flames in her eyes. Did no one else see the burning? The agony that was slowly taking her from us all?
Did they all just think that she was fine and could make it through the spells? I had to wonder why she was hiding so much from them.
Because she was in pain. She was dying. With each spell, each magical moment, her body burned from the inside out.
I didn’t know how they couldn’t smell the burnt flesh or see the flames dancing in her eyes.
One day, she would become ash, and no one would be able to stop the magic from consuming her from within.
I didn’t know what we would do then. What I would do.
We had already lost Trace.
Who would I become if I lost Laurel, too?
“Do you need any healing? Any of you?” Rowen asked as she sidestepped ever so slightly away from Ash. I wasn’t even sure she was aware she’d done it. But I saw it. We all did. The fact that she couldn’t be near Ash even though part of her probably wanted to was obvious.
I didn’t know how she did it. Then again, I kind of understood. I was living in my own new world.
“I’ll have Mom take a look. But my fin, or rather my leg, is already healed.”
“None of us got hit.”
I looked at Laurel and narrowed my eyes. She rolled hers and held up her hands. “I’m fine. Mr. Hawk over there made sure of it.”
“You could’ve been killed,” I snapped.
“I wasn’t. Thank you so much for taking care of me.”
“You need to take better care of yourself!”
Why was I yelling at her? I couldn’t fix things, so I kept lashing out.
She would probably hurt me later, and I would only have myself to blame.
“Stop fighting,” Sage said as she rubbed her temples. “We had a break from this, a moment where we could all breathe. Now Oriel, or whoever he sent, is back. And we have to deal.”
“You think it was just Oriel then? Or was it someone else?” Ash asked, his voice wooden.
I met his gaze then gestured over to my little sister. She knew some of what was going on, but not everything. The more she learned, the more likely it was that she’d get hurt beyond the scratches she received today.
I refused to let my baby sister be part of this.
“I saw that. You should let me help. Aspen and I want to help.”
I froze and then glared at her. “Been speaking to Aspen a lot then, have you?” I asked, and Laurel snorted.
“Oh, you sweet baby angel, you’re so adorable when you’re clueless.”
“Do you want to talk about clueless right now?” I asked, glaring.
“What did I just say about fighting?” Sage cut in.
Laurel snorted. “We’re not fighting. We’re talking. This is my voice.”
“Petulant and confrontational?” Ash asked, and I snorted, enjoying that Ash could joke with us. He didn’t often laugh. As if he had forgotten exactly who he was before the curse had taken place. And maybe parts of him had, but I didn’t think that was all of it.
“Thanks for that,” Laurel said as she punched her big brother in the shoulder. “So glad to have you back in town and on my side.”
“We all should be on the same side,” Rowen stated as she pulled her hair back again. “And I broke my hair tie.”
Laurel waved her hands in the air, though I saw the fear in her eyes. “Oh, no, whatever shall you do without your perfect little hair tie to keep your long, glorious locks away from your face?”
“Your hair looks as if you put your finger in an outlet and let it go into this glorious red fire. I wouldn’t talk.”
“Enough,” Sage growled, the water in the pond behind her rising.
Nelle’s eyes widened, and I tugged her away. “Come on. Let’s get you to Mom and make sure you’re going to heal.” The skin had mended on its own thanks to her magic, but I never could be too careful when it came to my sister.
“So, we’re just not going to talk about the fact that I mentioned Aspen?” she asked sweetly.
I let out a breath. I knew she was teasing to cut the tension, but I wasn’t sure I could hold back my questions when it came to the fae king for long. “Let’s go.”
“We need to have a meeting. With the six of us,” Sage replied, and Rowen narrowed her eyes. “The six of us. Not just those you get along with, Rowen.”
I froze, wondering about Sage’s tone. Sage never stood up to Laurel or Rowen. Mostly because she was still new to the group and figuring out our past truths and secrets. Wading through the waters of our shared connections, even as they changed, wasn’t easy.
The fact that Sage felt comfortable enough to stand up for herself now made me smile. She was learning her powers and her position in the town and within the coven.
Honestly, none of us had t
ime to hold back. We needed to ensure that we were taking care of each other and finding out exactly who was trying to hurt our home.
“Coven meeting soon,” Rowen said and nodded, her shoulders lowering. “All of us.”
“Where we’ll figure out if this was Oriel or someone else,” I added.
“Let’s hope it was just Oriel,” Rowen said with a frown. “Because if it’s someone else, then we have another necromancer out there, raising the dead from around the country and using their corpses for their own agenda.”
Rome’s bear rose to the surface as he spoke. “They won’t take any more from us.”
Laurel’s chin lifted as she vowed, “I refuse it.”
Ash and I remained silent.
“Same here. So, we figure it out. We’ll meet and find out who did this. Now, let’s make sure we’re all healthy and take care of our town so we can.” Sage nodded tightly and then spun on her heel and stomped back towards Main Street. Rome gave us all a look, lifted a shoulder, and followed her.
“Not that I don’t like it, but when did Sage get all badass?” my little sister asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. But she’s keeping us on track, and that’s all that matters.”
Nelle smiled before pressing her hand to her now-healed side. “Let’s get back to the wing.”
“We’re not going to talk about it?” my little sister said as we made our way to the aerie.
“Talk about what?” I asked.
“The fact that I’m seeing Aspen, and you can’t keep your eyes off Laurel.” She smiled widely at me, her black-tinted lips gleaming.
“Some things don’t need to be discussed, little sister of mine. What we do need to talk about is the fact that you were hurt. I don’t know if I want you moving around town as freely as you have been without someone around you to keep you safe.”
She punched my arm and glared. “Oh, no, you don’t. You don’t get to be all caveman, big brother.”
“I will if I have to be.”
“No. You are the nice brother. The sweet cleaner who helps to fix the town and takes care of those around him. You don’t get all growly and overprotective like a bear.”
Dusk Unveiled (Ravenwood Coven Book 2) Page 2