Magical Collision

by Jaliza A. Burwell

  “Let them come,” a short blonde said. “Then we’ll eat them.” Her smile was toothy and evil.

  I yanked on my power, desperate to reach them. The wall had thinned enough, and I broke through, gathering what I could. When I had enough power, I pushed it outward. “No.” My voice was a crack through the room. Everyone froze. All the small hairs on my body stood to attention as I forced them to listen.

  “You are not invincible, and right now, shit is happening that no one knows anything about. You do not know how many there are and you’re prepared to go to war? Most of you can barely even move, and I know whatever shit they gave you has affected your connection to your animal side.” I glared at all of them. “And if you try to kill them all, if you call war to them, you will find that I am not on your side.” I pushed out more power, ignoring the way I got light headed. “And you do not want to go against me. You will not win.”

  After saying my piece, I released my hold on my power, which released its hold on theirs. There was a collective sound of everyone taking in a sharp breath. I held my own.

  Their Luna got into my face. “Are you a sympathizer?” she seethed. Her eyes flashed golden orange as her shifter counterpart came to the forefront. I wasn’t sure if she was a wolf like her Alpha mate, or something else altogether.

  “I’m on the side of the people I care about. I have people who will fight against you if you go down that road, and frankly, I’d proudly help. I won’t let you murder others because they don’t fit perfectly into your little world.”

  She growled, and I held my ground, refusing to look away. If she wanted to shred me apart, she could, but I’d go down swinging and I’d take as many of them with me as possible.

  “Venni,” she said, her eyes narrowing. I didn’t respond. She worked through something in her thoughts before backing off. “Truce. For now.”

  “Truce,” I responded.

  Her lips curled into disgust before she turned to face her people. “We will hold until we can come up with a game plan.”

  They didn’t like that. They wanted to do something now.

  “What are we going to do?” a girl asked. She looked younger than me, with dark skin and frizzy light brown hair. Her eyes were big and innocent looking.

  I could tell the Luna had no idea. Neither did I, not really. I tried to see if transportation would be possible. I knew what the room looked like, and if I were close enough, I could bring people here and do a raid from the inside.

  “Something is blocking my transportation,” I said. “So I can’t go get help.” I shook my head. “And without knowing where we are, I can’t even say if we are close enough to people to get help anyway.”

  “They won’t be able to find us,” the Luna said. “And we can’t afford to play innocent. The longer we wait, the harder it will be to escape. Right now, they think we are all still passed out, but the moment they know we are awake, they’ll separate us.”

  “And separate, we’ll be completely useless,” I said, rubbing at my jaw.

  “What if only one guard comes in? We can take them down, and they should have a phone on them. We can call for help. Maybe they can track the phone?” another woman said.

  The Luna shook her head, but an idea sparked, and I lost interest in her explanation about not knowing how many people were around us or what the guard setup was like. I focused on that last question. Maybe they can track the phone?

  “Tracking the phone,” I whispered. “That’s it.”

  The room quieted and all eyes turned to me.

  “Venni was caught up in an attack, and we had gone to the location. With all the furious shifters, there was a cloud of energy in the air. I used that to know where to go.”

  “I don’t understand,” the young shifter said.

  The Luna’s eyes narrowed on me as she put the pieces together. “It means she can release a massive burst of power and hope someone uses that to find our location.” She faced me completely. “Do you know someone who would be able to track that?”

  I nodded. “My aunt.”

  “I heard about you, Dr. Laila Porter. The elementalist lab techie at Biomystic.”

  “I hope it was good things?”

  “My mate wouldn’t feel a loss if you were dead.”

  I stiffened. “Because then Venni would be in his clutches.”

  She snorted. “He needs to accept that Venni is not ours. He hasn’t been for a long time, but he’s stubborn. And so is Venni’s family.”

  “You don’t care if he takes his place as Beta in the pack or not.”

  “I want someone who wants to be Beta as the Beta. Venni won’t be a good one because the pack doesn’t come first to him.” She held up her hand. “That is fine. It is what it is. I’ve accepted it a while ago. The others not so much. Now, if you think you can do it, then do it. Maybe your aunt is smart enough to understand that which she senses.”

  I smirked. “She is.”

  “Will the others feel it?”

  I shrugged. “I hope the shifter blood through them is small enough that they won’t. Most shifters are sensitive to energy, not magic, and while they are financially strong, I don’t think they have anyone on their payroll capable of sensing me.”

  “Do it.”

  Getting space, I went to the corner and sat down. Soft whispers moved around, but I ignored them. Their buzzing turned into background noise as I reached deep into me. Gathering up as much magic as I could was a slow process, and I wasn’t sure how much I needed, not knowing where we were. The further away I was, the more boom I needed.

  Once I had what I hoped was enough, I did what amounted to a mental scream, sending it all upward and outward. A breeze brushed against my skin. A gasp echoed through the room from someone who was more sensitive than the others.

  I felt empty and a little tired. But I did it again.

  And again.

  And again.

  I became a living beacon.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  A hand grabbed my shoulder, and I gasped, pushing straight up. I knocked the hand away and prepared for a fight. The room was the same, the others around the room. They were lying back down on the floor, and I frowned.

  “What?” Where were the explosions and yelling? Or with shifters, the growling? No one looked like they were being torn apart.

  “It’s okay,” the Luna said. “It’s okay.” She tapped her ear. “I can hear them. We need to pretend we’re sleeping.”

  I nodded as my brain caught up with the situation. The others were already where they had been sleeping. No one had moved anything so after some adjustments, they managed to look like they’d never moved from where they were placed. I wasn’t even sure how they managed.

  Trying to remember where I was placed, I moved the IV line to my arm, pinning the cord between my arm and the floor. I closed my eyes and waited.

  Silence filled the air, and the sound of my erratic heartbeat was loud in my ears. I took in a deep breath and pushed it out slowly. Just as I finished doing it the second time, the door creaked open. Through my eyelashes, I watched three men walk into the room.

  “See, still sleeping. They aren’t going to wake up anytime soon.” The three of them stayed at the entrance, and I hoped they didn’t bother getting up close to anyone. It’d be easy to see that we were no longer hooked up to the IV if that were the case.

  “Something happened,” the burly one said, voice deep.

  “You’re paranoid. We know how to keep a shifter under.”

  “Just grab one. We need to make an example of them so that those bastards will believe us. Anyone but the Luna. I have special plans for her.”

  “I still think we need to use her. The Alpha will do anything for her.”

  “If we kill her outright, the Alpha will murder us all. We don’t want that. We aren’t there yet.”

  The man he was talking to snorted. “We’ve been there for a while now.”

  “Just grab someone.”

&nb
sp; Shit. I couldn’t let them take one of the shifters. Before I could overthink it, I moaned.

  The room went deadly silent. “What the fuck was that?”

  I moaned again and shifted, hoping to get their attention. I pressed my eyes closed tightly.

  “She’s waking.”

  “How is that possible?” their leader asked.

  “That’s Laila. She’s not a shifter. Could be the reason why.” Footsteps approached and I could feel them coming closer. The leader had more energy to him than I expected. Maybe half. “Oh, that’s why. She must have fought against the drugs and tore out her IV.” Disapproval dripped in the man’s voice. “Jed, help me grab her.”

  Hands grabbed my biceps and pulled me to my feet. I moaned again and blinked open my eyes, feeling confused. “What’s going on?” I mumbled out, trying to fill my voice with confusion. No one responded, but a sharp prick in my arm sent me into a panic. The wall between my power and me went up right away. I whimpered and slumped in frustration.

  “She’s Venni’s. She’ll make a good example.”

  They dragged me out of the room, not struggling to move me.

  It was hard to pay attention to where we went. We went down a long hallway, their heavy footsteps echoing off the concrete floors. We went into another room, and hoping enough time passed that I didn’t need to pretend to be so groggy, I looked around.

  “What are you doing?” I asked in a small voice.

  “Tie her up,” the guy who seemed to be their leader said.

  Before I knew it, I was dangling with my arms above my head and my feet barely touching the ground. My shoulders ached from holding my weight and my wrists felt like they were going to be torn off.

  “She’s pretty,” the man with the happy voice said. I glared at him, and his smile widened. He was on the sadistic side and that worried me. I was the one strung up.

  “Not what we are here for,” their leader said. “Is everything set up?”

  “Yes,” the man they called Jed said. He walked and stood behind a massive video camera on a stand.

  “Ready to be the main character of a show?” the creepy happy man said.

  “I’m more behind the scenes,” I said, doing the best I could to hide my fear. “How about we switch? You dangle here, and I’ll record you?”

  “Funny.” He moved away from me and to a laptop.

  Their leader stepped up next to me. He reached over and trailed a hand down my cheek. “Such a shame. I would have liked you in my bed. Start it.”

  “Mr. Merivitz,” a familiar voice said through the speakers. My eyes widened as the happy creep turned the laptop so the boss man could see the screen.

  Shanton? What was he doing? Why were they calling him?

  “Where is Sunder?” Merivitz asked.

  “He’s with me.”

  “Let me see him,” he snapped.

  I narrowed my eyes, boosting my eyesight to see the screen more clearly. Shanton disappeared and the Alpha showed up on the screen, expression dark with fury.

  “Return the mates before we burn you and your friends into ash. We’ll make sure no one remains.”

  “Not even a hello?” Merivitz asked. “Especially when I have your Luna. She’s a pretty thing. Maybe I should make use of her body, see how long it takes her to break before I return her to you.”

  “Touch her and not only will I go after your friends, but I’ll also go after your family too. I’ll wipe your entire bloodline out. I’ll make sure anyone in the city connected to you isn’t safe.”

  “I’d be dead. I wouldn’t care.”

  That drew a growl from the Alpha. “What do you want?”

  “You know what I want,” Merivitz snapped. “For too long, you and your kind have treated us like second class citizens. That needs to change.”

  “No.”

  Merivitz shook his head and exchanged a glance with the man behind the camera. Buttons were hit and I could see the expressions change on the screen. Sunder disappeared from the screen and Shanton showed back up. I was guessing they turned on the camera on our end so that they could see us.

  “Do you understand what you are doing?” Shanton asked.

  I did not want to be in the room with Shanton right now. Even through the screen he looked murderous.

  “We’ll start with this one. I hear she belongs to Venni.”

  “She is mine.” His words were a deep hiss. The bones in Shanton’s face shifted around underneath his skin and the beginnings of scales began forming along his cheekbones. A fire blazed in his eyes. “Laila, are you okay?” he asked.

  “We’re in a basement. They have everyone hooked to drugs to keep them out. They’re blocking my power.”

  “Shut up!” Merivitz hit me. Hard.

  I cried out as pain flared up my stomach. I nearly threw up. The only thing stopping me from embarrassing myself was that there was nothing in my stomach to throw up anymore.

  “Do that again, and I will eat you,” Shanton said.

  “No. You’ll get indigestion, and I’m not taking care of your big baby ass.” I tried to joke, but the thunderous look on Shanton’s face said I failed miserably.

  “We want a spelled agreement between us for our safety and to gain more rights,” Merivitz said, not caring that he was pissing off the one creature in this city he didn’t want to. “We will start with this one.” He wrapped his arm around my stomach and cuddled me to his body. I wanted to throw up again. And burn my dress. I felt way too exposed to him like this. He could gut me in seconds if he wanted.

  “Then we will move on to each mate. The pregnant ones will be fun.” He sounded all too eager to follow through with his threat. “We’ll rip out their babies and kill them on screen for you to watch. The Luna will be the last one. She’ll be forced to know she’s failing her people, and by the time we get to her, she will be begging us to kill her sorry ass.”

  “Basement with concrete all around,” I yelled out.

  “I said shut up!” Merivitz hit me again and my body swung as I had no choice but to dangle there. Pain stretched through my arms and wrists and I tasted warm blood from biting my tongue. Drawing in a breath was nearly impossible and I wheezed. Someone roared, words were exchanged, and I was sure threats were tossed in there too.

  Blinking past the tears, I made sure to have Shanton’s attention. The scales on his face had spread down his neck. His eyes were slitted. I got his attention, though it wasn’t hard. He was tracking all my movements, committing every twitch of my body to memory. “Tim is helping them. The other is Jed.”

  Merivitz growled. Pain erupted through my head, and then I was gone.

  Out cold.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A cool hand pressed against my forehead and I opened my eyes. The girl hovered over me with a concerned expression. Noticing that I was awake, she tried to smile, though it was weak.

  “What happened?” I croaked out.

  “They dragged you in here about an hour and a half ago,” she said with a sad smile. “Hooked you back up to the IV, strengthened the dose. They haven’t come back.”

  I glanced at my arm. The line had been removed.

  “While they were here, they said that they’d try again in a few more hours with someone else,” the Luna said. She glanced around at everyone. Her eyes went dazed for a second before she shook her head. “It feels like it should be Sunday. The moon is too close.”

  “With how tired I am, probably Sunday morning,” one of them grumbled.

  I sighed and leaned my head back. “You guys aren’t going to be forced to shift and eat me, right?”

  “Tomorrow night is the full moon. If we are still here, we will shift,” the Luna said. “And well, we will be hungry. We haven’t eaten since dinner and shifters eat every few hours. If they don’t feed us, we’ll be starving when we shift.”

  The young one spoke up. “I doubt they’re going to feed us if they expect us to be drugged unconscious still.”

&n
bsp; The Luna’s smile was feral. “Then we get to work up an appetite for when it’s time to attack.”

  “Great. Happy fucking birthday to me.” This was not how I expected my birthday to go. Or any day of my life really.

  A couple of pitying looks were sent my way.

  “So we have a few hours until they come back?” One of the older looking females spoke up.

  “Hopefully.” The Luna glanced at the door as if expecting them to burst through and realize no one was still unconscious. “We need a plan. We can’t just sit here and wait,” the Luna said.

  “Should I become a beacon again?” I asked. “I don’t think they noticed the first time, and Shanton knows where I am now.”

  “How does he know?” the young girl asked

  “He was with your Alpha when they called and made an example of me.” I spent the next few minutes filling them in on everything that happened. The Luna looked furious and began pacing. She muttered to herself and I could only catch snippets of it. Something along the lines of the pregnant mates and pulling out Merivitz’s intestine through his mouth.

  I kind of wanted to see that played out.

  “I thought you were dating Venni?” one of them asked. “Why was the dragon upset?”

  “I’m dating him too.” I refused to look away from the woman, challenging her to question my life choices.

  She frowned and opened her mouth. A woman who hadn’t said much of anything rested a hand on her shoulder, effectively shutting her up.

  “No,” I said. “Go ahead. What did you want to say?”

  “Aren’t you being greedy?” she blurted out. She looked surprised by herself. “I mean…” She glanced at the Luna and winced. The Luna stared at her with a raised eyebrow, a challenge in her eyes. Weakly, she asked, “Why both of them? Why Venni?”

  “You care about him.” I thought about that and looked her over more slowly. She had big honey brown eyes, rounded cheeks, and soft brown hair cut short to her chin.

  “I love him. If he wasn’t so caught up with you, we’d be mating. I wouldn’t have had to settle.”

  “Really?” I tried not to smile at that. She looked adorably serious.