The huge feline neatly avoided the burning debris and the bodies of the extremists as he ran toward them. When he reached them, Tiago shifted into human form.
The first thing Dylan noticed was the blood, the second was that Tiago was naked. “Geez, Cat Boy! What happened?” Dylan brought his hand up to block out things he really didn’t want to see.
“Ran into my parents.”
“Are you okay?” Sakura asked.
“I’m fine. Where’s Aiden?” Tiago winced as he wiped blood from his forehead.
“He’s up front with Nuala.”
Tiago blinked. “What?”
Oh right. He didn’t know about that. “I’ll explain it if you put some clothes on.”
Tiago spread his arms to indicate the war zone around them. “Go find me some, Lizard Boy.”
“I’m not complaining,” Izume muttered.
Tiago sprinted past them to join Aiden. Dylan almost stopped him. Even at full strength, Cat Boy shouldn’t be fighting dark fae, and despite what he’d said, Tiago did not look fine. Maybe Mr. Johnson would send him back to the rear when he saw how beat up Tiago was.
A moment after Tiago pushed his way to the front, a huge explosion rocked the street. Dylan barely managed to stay upright, turning to see what had happened.
Most of the front line had been thrown to the ground, leaving Dylan a clear line of sight. A group of dark fae stood grinning at them, and at the head of the group was Morgan.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Ears ringing, Aiden pushed himself to his knees and summoned a shield. Almost directly ahead of him, Morgan stood with his hands on his hips. Aiden’s blood ran cold, lungs tightening until he could barely breathe.
Something bumped into him, and he yelped before he realized it was Tiago. Aiden grabbed his boyfriend, making sure he was behind the shield.
Morgan grinned. “Light fae. I must say I’m surprised you would make such dangerous allies. You must truly be desperate.” His gaze focused on Aiden. “Hello again, Aiden. I was hoping to meet you here.”
The dark fae took a step toward him, and Aiden tensed. His shield spell was stronger now, but would it be able to stop Morgan?
The street lit with multiple colors as spells streaked toward Morgan and the other dark fae. Most of the spells dissolved against barriers, but two of the dark fae were knocked back. Morgan snarled. “Hold them here.” He disappeared.
The dark fae counterattacked, but the combined shielding of the light fae held. Aiden turned to check on Tiago. “Are you okay?” He looked him over, face heating at the sight of Tiago’s naked body. It’s not like you haven’t seen it before.
“Yeah. You?” Tiago struggled to get up, and Aiden stood to help him to his feet.
Aiden’s body ached in several places from being thrown to the ground, but he needed to be tough. “I’m okay.”
“Good.” Tiago rubbed at his shoulder. His boyfriend looked terrible, covered in blood, deep cuts, and bruises. Tiago hadn’t had time to explain what happened beyond saying he’d gotten in a fight with his parents. Aiden didn’t think he should be here at all, much less at the front of the battle.
“You should go back with—”
“He’s starting the ritual!” Mr. Johnson yelled.
The dark fae and the magic blocked most of Aiden’s view, but he caught a glimpse of a glowing blue circle and a figure standing in the center of it. Morgan was going to bring more allies from Faery.
“Can you get us through?” Mr. Johnson asked Nuala.
“I can,” Bryn said. “Give me room.”
Aiden started to move, expecting her to throw a powerful spell at the dark fae, but she ran the opposite way. She made it to an empty space behind the defenders and spun around. Magic shimmered around her for a heartbeat or two, the sensation of lizard skin and heated rocks overpowering all the other magic in the area. Then she was a huge red dragon, as tall as the three-story buildings. With a mighty sweep of her wings, she was airborne.
She flew overhead, kicking up smoke and debris. The dark fae threw spells at her, and Aiden tensed. Could she fly and shield at the same time? Bryn moved higher and dodged. Most of the spells missed, but a few hit her and she staggered. Righting herself, she opened her mouth, and a huge gout of flame shot toward the dark fae.
They scattered. The flames also poured out toward Aiden and the light fae, but the barriers protected them. Aiden’s face stung at the searing heat just a handful of feet ahead of him. Someone used a water spell to douse the worst of the fire, and they charged.
Bryn went on ahead, and Aiden’s heart lifted. She could stop Morgan, and then all this would be over and they could go home…
Something flickered through the clouds—Clouds? The sky had been clear just a few minutes before—and a purple-tinged bolt of lightning streaked downward. A massive crack of thunder echoed through the sky, stealing Aiden’s breath. Blinking away the bright afterimages, Aiden watched in horror as Bryn fell.
The way she hit the ground in a boneless heap made Aiden’s stomach lurch, and he turned away with a hand to his mouth. She can’t be dead. Oh God, please!
“Holy shit.” Tiago sounded as shocked as Aiden felt.
“Mom!” Dylan came running, shoving people out of his way.
Aiden tried to grab for him. “Dylan, wait!” He wanted to check on Bryn too, but there were almost a dozen dark fae and who knew how many extremists standing between them.
A ball of fire formed around Dylan, both shield and weapon. He was almost across the space Bryn had cleared with her attack. Aiden couldn’t let him charge out there alone. Heart pounding, Aiden ran after him. Distantly, he heard Mr. Johnson yelling at both of them.
It took a moment for Aiden to realize Tiago was running beside him in jaguar form, blood standing out against his golden hide. He moved with a slight limp. Aiden was about to tell him to go back when the extremists came at them.
* * *
Tears blurred Dylan’s vision. She can’t be dead. She can’t be.
Through the flames swirling around his body, Dylan saw the bright flashes of spells streaking toward him. He dodged two; a third sizzled against the barrier. Dylan kept running, gaze fixed on the spot where Mom had fallen. Her dragon form had disappeared, which was bad. It meant she was unconscious or…
No.
A dark fae stepped into his path. Not Morgan, but her blue-black skin was the same shade as Morgan’s. Morgan. He was the one who’d shot Mom out of the sky. Dylan didn’t care how powerful Morgan was, he was going to kill that son of a bitch.
Anger fueled Dylan, but exhaustion hovered just behind it, waiting to take Dylan down. He had to do this quick. Check on Mom first, then take out Morgan.
Dylan drew on his power and sent out a huge gout of flame. It curved as it hit the dark fae’s shield and flowed around it. For a second he considered another attack. The rage surrounding him whispered that it would feel so good to hurt her. But Mom was the priority, so Dylan went around the dark fae.
A little shiver of fear went up his spine. As upset as he was, he still recognized it was stupid to turn his back to the dark fae. Maybe she’d blast him and he’d be knocked out or dead before he reached Mom. Dylan poured more magic into his shield and charged ahead.
It was darker here, away from the burning buildings, and at first Dylan couldn’t see anything. What if Morgan had grabbed his mom? Then Dylan spotted a figure crumpled on the ground.
“Mom!”
The fire around him went out as he sprinted the last few steps. Dropping to his knees, he formed a barrier around them both. The street was wet with melted snow, but he barely felt the water soaking into his pants. Mom lay partly on her side, covered in blood, the scent of it sharp. She also smelled of ozone and burnt cloth, smoke rising off her in fitful wisps. She wasn’t moving.
“Mom.” He grabbed her shoulder, desperate to wake her, but froze. What if shaking her made her injuries worse? Was she even breathing? He slid his hand up to press aga
inst her neck.
“Dylan!”
Aiden skidded to a stop, the air around him shimmering as he summoned a shield. A jaguar stood next to him—Tiago.
“She’s hurt,” Dylan said dumbly. Of course Aiden knew that.
Other people came running toward them. Dylan tensed for a fight. Then he recognized Sakura and Izume and… Aiden’s fae mom.
“It was foolish to charge the enemy like that. We must rejoin the others,” Nuala said.
“Bryn needs help.” Aiden’s voice shook.
Nuala looked at Aiden, then down at Dylan and his mom. Lifting her hands, she formed a shield around all of them. “Drop your barrier, dragonkin. I will examine your mother.”
As soon as the spell disappeared, Nuala knelt next to Mom. “Is she—?” Dylan couldn’t choke out the rest.
“The dragonkin yet lives, but she is badly injured. I cannot protect us all and heal her at the same time. Aiden, you must take over.”
Aiden and the others had moved in closer, staring down at Dylan’s mom with concern. “I don’t know if I can—” Aiden started.
“You can.” Nuala’s tone was firm.
Aiden licked his lips. “Okay.” He closed his eyes, and the barrier flickered. “I got it!”
Nuala put her hands over Dylan’s mom, fingers barely touching her body. A faint blue light formed over his mom. She looked so terrible. Helpless. He’d never seen her like that.
Sakura sat next to him without a word and wrapped an arm around him.
“How bad?” Dylan asked, throat tight.
“I will not let her die.” Nuala looked down at his mom with a frown of concentration.
That should have been comforting, but all he could think of was the possibility that she could die.
“What the hell?” Izume said.
Dylan looked up to see a purple glow shimmering above them, a little like the lights in the sky from last year. Were the extremists trying to destroy the wards again?
Nuala glanced around and tensed. “This is a trap.”
“Oh God,” Aiden said, his voice panicked.
Dylan turned to find Morgan walking toward them. “Hello, young ones.” He grinned wide. “Now we can begin.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Cold dread spread through Aiden. It spiked into terror when Morgan lifted his hands and set them against the barrier. A little whimper escaped Aiden. Morgan had destroyed his shield so easily at the prison, like it was made of paper.
“You can hold against him. You must,” Nuala said.
Aiden knew his spell had gotten stronger, but he didn’t have faith that it had gotten strong enough. Sweat dampened his armpits, and the metallic taste of fear filled his mouth.
Morgan pushed. Aiden poured everything he could into the shield. Everyone was counting on him.
The force of Morgan’s power was immense. It felt like being lost in a cave. No light, no way out.
Tiago changed into human form and stood close, not quite touching. “You can do it.” Humid air and soft fur brushed against Aiden’s mind, like a comforting hand in the darkness.
The barrier held.
Morgan frowned. “You have been training.” His chilling smile returned, and he pushed harder. “Aiden Spencer, let your power be disrupted.”
The shield weakened, and for a heart-stopping second, Aiden thought it would break.
“C’mon, Aiden!” Dylan encouraged.
Aiden tried to draw more power from the boulevard nearby, but there was only one tree barely waking up from winter and a tiny strip of dead grass. He wished he were in the woods, or that it was the middle of spring rather than the tail end of winter. More sweat broke out over his body, and he started to shake with the strain of using so much magic. But Morgan couldn’t get through.
With a frustrated snarl, the dark fae took a step back. “Not your true name then,” he muttered. “How long can you hold, Aiden? No one is coming to get you. My companions are using the power of your ridiculous wards to fuel a barrier around us. By the time they’ve used up the energy, the pathways to Faery will be open again.”
Aiden fought against rising panic. They were stuck in here.
“Bring the bodies!” Morgan shouted, taking a few more steps away. Something moved in the dark with a dull rattling sound. It took a while for Aiden to make out the strange shape, and when he did, his stomach lurched. A dark fae was pulling a large, flat cart. It was piled high with corpses.
“Place them here. I want them to watch.” Morgan pointed, and the other dark fae dumped the bodies in a heap. Aiden turned away, swallowing hard at the horrible, meaty thuds.
Did he know people in that pile?
“Bastards.” Dylan growled, getting up to stand next to Aiden.
Aiden dared to look. Two more people walked up to the pile, carrying bloody bodies. Dalton’s parents. They set the corpses down.
“Good, good,” Morgan said. He turned back to grin at Aiden and the others. “Even without you, this should be enough blood and death.” He closed his eyes and inhaled. “Ah, I have waited so long for this.”
Dalton’s parents growled, claws springing from the ends of their fingers. Then they turned and leapt at Morgan.
The dark fae’s eyes snapped open, and his hands whipped out. Ice formed around both werewolves, catching and freezing them midair. “And so comes the betrayal.”
Their heads had been left free of the ice. “We can’t let you do this,” Kathleen snarled.
“Let? Oh, you are amusing.” Morgan tilted his head. “Fresh blood will help things along quite nicely.” He pulled a dagger from his belt and slashed her throat.
Stanley let out a wail of anguish as his wife choked, blood gushing bright red against the ice. Aiden turned away, sick horror threatening to make him faint.
Morgan laughed. Aiden imagined dying like that. Watching Tiago die like that.
“We gotta do something.” Dylan’s face was pale in the faint glow of the barrier.
Aiden forced himself to look. Both of Dalton’s parents were dead, and Morgan had formed a glowing purple circle around himself and the dead. “How?”
Morgan moved his fingers, and a dark purple symbol appeared on the ground. It was similar to the one Dylan had used to open a door to Faery both times but not exactly the same.
“We have to protect your mom, and we’re outnumbered.” What would happen when all the pathways opened? Would dark fae pour into the world? Morgan and a handful of others had killed so many supernaturals. What would a hundred, a thousand dark fae do to mundane humans?
“We just need to take out Morgan,” Dylan said, as if that were easy. He looked like he could barely stand, let alone fight someone so powerful. And Aiden was worn out from the battle and keeping the barrier up.
Morgan drew the next symbol. Aiden racked his brain for an idea.
“Aiden!” Nuala said sharply.
He looked over his shoulder, and she pointed. Aiden didn’t understand what she meant. Nuala made the gesture again, sharper, and he realized she was pointing at his hip.
At the cloaked dagger. Aiden couldn’t see the weapon, but he felt the weight of it at his hip. If Aiden could get close enough, he could use it to kill Morgan.
No, someone else could do it. Aiden could give the dagger to Nuala and have her attack instead. He opened his mouth to say so, then realized Morgan couldn’t see or sense the dagger. If Aiden gave it to someone else, Morgan would see it and they would lose the element of surprise.
“What about the shield?” Aiden couldn’t leave Bryn and Nuala vulnerable.
“The dragonkin is stable. I can protect us both while I heal her now.”
Both. “But what about—”
“We can hold the others off,” Sakura said.
Izume and Dylan nodded eagerly.
Aiden looked at Tiago. “You can’t fight dark fae.” Even at full strength, Aiden and Dylan had only survived through luck. His boyfriend looked a little better than he had a few minut
es ago thanks to his supernatural healing, but Tiago was still clearly injured.
Tiago grinned. “We don’t have to fight them, we just have to keep them busy.”
The thought of losing Tiago was like having his chest ripped open. And Dylan… His friend looked like he was ready to fall over. Sakura and Izume looked rough too.
This was way too much for them to handle, but no one was coming to help. Bryn was barely alive. Nuala had to stay with her. Mr. Johnson and the others were cut off by the dark fae. If Aiden and his friends didn’t do something now, Morgan would open all the pathways to Faery.
“We gotta do it now,” Dylan said, voice tense.
Aiden turned to see Morgan had drawn three symbols and was in the midst of the fourth.
Tiago pulled Aiden into a quick, desperate kiss. “Let’s go.”
Terrible certainty settled over Aiden. No matter the risks, they had to do this. Dropping the barrier spell, Aiden ran toward Morgan.
* * *
Just as Aiden reached the circle, the purple light flared up and he slammed into it as if it were a wall. The shock vibrated through Aiden’s body, and he fell back. The circle itself was a shield. Oh God, how was he going to get past it?
Shouts and the sounds of flying spells surrounded him. Aiden didn’t dare look. Tiago might be dying right now. Or Dylan. Aiden had to figure something out, or they were dying for nothing.
“Use his name!” Nuala shouted.
Yes. Morgan had tried to use Aiden’s name to get past his barrier spell, and it hadn’t worked because the dark fae didn’t know Aiden’s true name. But Aiden knew Morgan’s.
He took a breath to speak, and Morgan was suddenly there, inches away. Only the circle separated them. “Will you fight me then, little changeling?”
Aiden’s body tried to give out on him. Panic sucked the air out of his lungs, and little spots danced in front of his eyes. He thought of how Morgan’s ally had almost killed him sophomore year and how much more powerful Morgan himself was.
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