But Jordan couldn’t afford to worry about any of that yet.
Jordan and Lilith had crossbows and they took position in the middle of the street and began to fire. Lilith, he noticed, had exceptional aim and she was completely focused; her mouth was a tight line, her eyes narrowed as she held the crossbow up, firing shot after shot. Goblins went plummeting to the street, half-demolishing buildings one chunk of stone and brick at a time, flying from one ledge to another. A giant fragment of brick went flying at Leif and Jordan shoved him out of the way in the nick of time. Lilith took off running, chasing down a dozen or so goblins toward a luxury hotel.
Jordan ran after her as the goblins flew up and latched onto the building and then Jordan stopped short, frozen to his spot in the middle of the street, dumbfounded. He had expected Lilith to stop and start shooting arrows but instead she was hitching her crossbow on her back and climbing the building. He thought he might be hallucinating and then just as quickly remembered that being a demon came with some powers. Apparently, she could skitter up walls like a spider. It looked like she was running on the tops of her fingers and the toes of her shoes.
This time he almost missed the half of a wall that came flying toward him and Leif was the one who pushed him out of the way, only for the debris to hit an innocent bystander instead. The man was dead, impaled by the sharp end of the wall that pinned him to the ground and Jordan stared at him in horror. It should have been him. How many more people had the goblins killed and...why? Goblins didn’t just do this for no reason.
“Jordan!”
Leif brought him back to himself and he pulled a sword from a sheath buckled to his belt loop as a demon flew at him. He neatly lopped off the creature’s head. He looked back at the hotel Lilith was battling. She had taken down about half of the marauding goblins there but she was up so high. It made him a little nervous. It was probably stupid of him but he couldn’t help chasing after her. He shifted into his wolf form and ran down the street dodging other guards and taking down a couple goblins along the way by ripping out their throat. There was a dangling fire escape and Jordan took a running start and leapt, hooking himself to the last rung with his paws before shifting again and pulling himself up. He climbed the ladder. Lilith was somewhere near the tenth floor and it wasn’t long before he caught up to her on a balcony. She was perched on the very edge of the railing, giving her a sniper’s view, and she took down goblins flying up and down the street one after the other.
She’s amazing, he thought.
“Nice of you to join me,” Lilith said. She winked at him for a split second and went back to shooting arrows.
I love this woman. The thought came and went and felt viscerally real.
Too bad for me.
Jordan heaved a sigh and climbed up another couple stories to take a perch himself. Lilith was clearly handling herself more than capably. But it was a good spot to shoot from. He took down a few goblins and then got distracted by a burst of smoke in the middle of the street.
Jordan lost all his concentration as the ground beneath the smoke began to swell. The smoke cleared and three creatures – which he had to think were demons much purer than Lilith – came bursting out of the ground. They were all dark red in color with skin as leathery as the goblins and spikes and warts along their limbs. They had long furry tails and monstrous faces. One of them had tentacles growing from his jaw.
The middle one threw his arms out and shouted, “Thank you, Kamthis!”
Jordan’s ears perked up. The second one said only, “KAMTHIS!” Then all three ran away down the street and disappeared down an alley and Jordan lost sight of them.
Kamthis?
He was wracking his brains, trying to think if he had heard that before, which was why he missed the goblin flying right at him. He heard Lilith shout just before it shoved him from his perch on the balcony and the world turned over and over as he plummeted to the ground and everything went dark.
9
Lilith
At the Brunswick Academy for Gifted Girls you could take electives for various specialties. Freya always took anything related to casting spells. Cara was more interested in investigative work. Lilith always went for the battle training. Any simulation of a battlefield was more fun to her than a night out dancing. Except at Brunswick, none of it had been real. It felt different fighting real enemies, leaping from building to building and running up walls, reloading arrow after arrow until her fingers blistered while using every bit of self-control to ignore the chaos all around her and hone in only on her targets. It was surreal...but it was also not overwhelming. It was exactly as much as she could handle, she surmised. Which she supposed meant she had been trained very well.
She had been trained so well, drilled over and over in the art of ignoring upsetting things and relying on the strength of muscle memory and reflex that when she saw Jordan fall from the balcony, somewhere around the twelfth floor of the hotel where she had just taken down the last couple of attacking goblins, she didn’t quite register it.
What was even stranger was the way Jordan shifted mid-air into his impressive wolf form. Lilith had never seen anyone shift in mid-air before. She wondered if it was some kind of reflex since Jordan was doubtless stronger as a wolf. She supposed there was some shock in the moment. Her brain didn’t want to accept what she’d just seen, even as Jordan’s wolf slammed to the ground and did not get up again.
She thought, He’ll be fine.
Anything else would be unacceptable. Impossible even to think about.
She had only just found him.
Lilith stayed where she was, shock and disbelief motivating her to keep fighting, just keep fighting. Everything would be okay if she just kept fighting until there was nothing left to fight. That was how she had been trained.
Then suddenly, there was nothing left to fight. All the goblins were gone as quickly as they’d appeared. No building had completely collapsed and that was a mercy. There were just a couple of blocks on Fifth Avenue across from the park that looked like a giant had come along and gnawed on them a bit, taking bites out of them and shattering windows. Some goblins had ripped street lights and mail boxes out of the ground and thrown them. It was a huge mess and there had to be a dozen human fatalities, the sight of which put a lump in Lilith’s throat and she blinked back tears as she looked out at the street, seeing the few bodies strewn around.
Then she saw Jordan’s wolf still unmoving in the middle of the road just as Leif ran over to him and she gasped and climbed over the balcony railing. She ran down the side of the building on her fingertips and toes and leapt to the street, hearing only the puff of her own breath as she sped toward the wolf prone and limp on the ground.
“Jordan!” Lilith couldn’t breathe. She squeezed her eyes shut and bent over, grasping her knees, still looking around for any errant goblins just in case. But they were all gone now. The street was eerily quiet. “Jordan…”
Leif was kneeling beside him, cradling Jordan’s head in his hands. Just as Leif looked at Lilith, she saw Jordan’s chest rise gently. “He’s alive,” Leif said, “but we have to get him to a healer quickly. He’s very strong but he hit the ground hard.”
It seemed to take forever to get Jordan back to the Underground and into the care of a healer. Other guards kept coming to them with questions about the goblins or wanting to know if Jordan was okay. Jordan’s supervising guard, Laya, ran over to ask about the location of some witches who were supposed to cast spells of forgetting and then wanted to know about the demons someone said they’d seen. Lilith had seen them too; three demons had popped right out of the ground but she had been more concerned about the goblins causing damage. The demons hadn’t actually done anything. They’d just yelled and run off. She’d noted it. It was very suspicious. But she had no mental capacity to wonder about it as she and Leif rolled Jordan onto a wooden cart and pushed it down the road and then onto a sidewalk and into the park. When nobody was looking, Leif cast a lightning spel
l to make their work easier and Jordan floated along the grass all the way to The Ramble as Lilith and Leif walked beside him.
“Do you think he’ll be okay?” It was the first time Lilith had spoken since the end of the fight. She’d left it all to Leif since most of the questions fired at them had nothing to do with her. Leif was staring at Jordan’s wolf floating along the floor of the Underground tunnel as they jogged beside him, hurrying down to the guardians’ healer. Jordan hadn’t so much as opened an eye and his breath was very short. Lilith’s stomach was somewhere down around her feet but she focused on getting him to the healer, refusing to believe he was truly in danger.
“I don’t know,” Leif said. He looked much too serious. Even during the battle with the goblins she had seen him grinning and making cracks as he shot arrows or took swipes with a sword. But he was unsmiling now, his gaze unmoving from Jordan’s still form. “He’d better be. This asshole is my best friend.”
Lilith nodded and ran a little faster. She didn’t know the floating spell Leif was using so adding her own strength was impossible. It would have taken even longer to help him. Instead, she tried to remain patient as they finally reached the stairs into the Underground and hurried down into town.
“This way,” Leif said, and crowds cleared for them, eyes widening at the sight of the floating injured wolf. Many of the passers-by recognized Jordan and peppered the two of them with questions but Lilith ignored them and Leif only said they were on their way to the healer and would give out news as soon as they had it.
The rest of the guardians were mercifully uninjured from the battle, outside of some bad bruises and the occasional gash. But Jordan had taken the worst of it. Lilith wanted to hold him and pet his fur but she resisted the urge, swallowing her tears as they finally reached the healer’s house.
The Healer lived in a little stone hut in the middle of the metropolis and she seemed to know they were coming, throwing open her door before Leif and Lilith had even reached it.
The healer waved them in and nodded a hello at Lilith without introducing herself, which Lilith sort of appreciated. This was no time for pleasantries. The healer was a woman who did not look much older than Lilith but she had a no-nonsense way about her that made her seem older somehow. She had pastel pink hair in a neat braid down her back and the high pointed ears of a fae. Her house was much bigger than it looked from the outside and there were shelves upon shelves of herbs, potions and ingredients in a big room mostly lit by lanterns as well as several elevated cots for patients that looked like old gurneys repurposed from an old hospital.
“Right here, put him right here,” the healer said. She stood by one of the cots as Leif floated him over and let him settle onto it before letting out a breath and almost stumbling into a wall. He looked suddenly exhausted and Lilith realized he wasn’t a heavy magic user. To keep the floating spell up so long must have taken a lot out of him and it touched her to know he had gone to a lot of trouble for his friend. “Please stand back. Just give me some room. I’ll do everything I can. He fell from a great height, didn’t he?”
They hadn’t said anything about his injuries yet and Leif just nodded dumbly. The healer nodded to herself and Lilith stood back from the cot, clenching her fists at her side. She leaned on a shelf next to Leif and merely watched as the healer bustled about collecting ingredients and throwing them into a cauldron.
“You guys have been friends a long time, haven’t you?” Lilith said. She shoved her hands in her pockets. Now that she’d finally stopped moving, all her muscles ached and the few scrapes and bruises she’d incurred stung. But even that distraction was almost comforting.
“Yeah,” Leif said quietly. He pushed back his blonde hair, his eyes wide and fixed on Jordan still unmoving on the cot. “Since we were teenagers.”
“I assume you know about...you know.” She spoke in low tones as if it was a huge secret. But as much as Jordan seemed mysterious when she’d first met him, he was kind of an open book. “The curse?”
“Oh yeah.” Leif nodded. “Yeah, I know about the curse. I never quite know how to act about it, to be honest. I try to tease him and keep it light. Not act like it’s this huge awful thing? Because it makes him so sad sometimes and I just want to make him feel better but…I don’t know.” He looked mournful and Lilith felt a little guilty for even bringing it up.
“So, it’s definitely real?” Lilith tilted her head, staring at Jordan’s wolf in wonder as the healer applied a poultice of herbs.
“Of course, it’s real,” Leif said with a snort. “I used to think Jordan just liked to make himself miserable and that’s what it was about. But he really tries, you know? He tries to be happy with his friends and all that. But then sometimes he just gets so sad. Took me a while to get it. The thing is, it’s not just that no one can fall in love with him, it’s that the curse makes him want someone. It makes him lonely and he can’t help that.”
“But it doesn’t make any sense,” Lilith whispered. She swallowed the lump in her throat that was grief for what Jordan suffered. Tears welled up in her eyes and she blinked them back. Yet at the same time, she was genuinely confused. “It’s impossible.”
“Why?” Leif frowned at her. “Because you two...had sex? He’s been with women before. Although you guys do seem to get along better than-”
“It’s not just sex,” Lilith said, almost offended. “I...I’m…I’m in love with him. I’m falling in love with him.”
“Really?” Leif finally turned to look at her and she saw the growing smile on his face. “That’s great.”
10
Jordan
Jordan dreamed of nothing while he was unconscious. He just kept feeling himself falling and falling and somewhere in the darkness that encompassed him, he thought he heard both Lilith and Leif. He wanted to reach them, but couldn’t. He was his wolf and he couldn’t remember shifting, but he was glad to be his wolf. He wasn’t as scared as his wolf fell and fell. His wolf was stronger than him and he was already pretty strong. But his wolf could ignore all the human anxieties that plagued him. Its wants and fears were more primal. It didn’t like the falling, but it also didn’t worry about hitting the ground.
He heard whispering. At first, he thought it was Lilith but her voice was throaty and this voice was a little higher and also more serious.
“He’s coming around,” the voice said. It was familiar but nobody he was very close to… His human consciousness struggled to break through the wolf.
“Oh, he’s shifting…”
He felt his human self again. It was a strange feeling in the midst of the darkness. Immediately, he wanted to know where Lilith and Leif were. There had been a battle! Lilith had been perched on that balcony fighting bravely and Leif-
“Hey, guy.” That was Leif speaking and he felt a little calmer. He struggled to open his eyes and saw blurry lights. “Hey, you’re alright, man. Take it slow.”
“Jordan.” Lilith’s voice was a whisper and he felt her unmistakable hand find his. He squeezed it and felt calmer as consciousness began to fully return. “Oh my God, I’m so glad you’re okay.”
She sounded like she’d been crying and that surprised him. He frowned, frustrated as he fought to see clearly and sit up.
“Take it easy.” Leif sounded far away. Jordan squeezed Lilith’s hand again.
“Lil...Lilith.” He managed to clear his throat and blinked, the world finally revealing itself.
“There he is.” That higher voice spoke again and he turned his head.
Avy! Avy, the healer. She always took care of the Underground’s guards when they were injured. Of course they’d taken him to Avy after he’d...been pushed like a chump from his perch on the side of that building and plummeted to the ground like a stone.
He groaned. “Ugh. I fell,” he said thickly.
Some part of him was alert enough to wonder how long he’d been out and if it had been long enough for Lilith and Leif to realize they were probably supposed to be wi
th each other once the curse kicked his ass again.
“Your frown is funny,” Lilith said, giggling. “You look so cute. Like an angry puppy.”
Everyone tried to stop him but he sat up anyway and his head spun for a minute but then he felt alright and when Avy shoved a jar of something that smelled absolutely awful in his face, he drank it down as she demanded and felt better, almost one-hundred percent.
He took a deep breath. Avy was nearby but Lilith was practically on top of him, leaning on his cot and squeezing his hand in both of hers. Her eyes were red as if she’d been crying. She pushed his hair back and sighed and he opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by the soft kiss she pressed to his lips.
“That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” Leif said from across the room. He clapped his hands and whooped and Avy clucked her tongue but did not stop them.
Jordan was present enough to flip off his best friend, earning him a cackle and Lilith pulled away, her dark eyes with their demonic red twinkles fixed on him. “I was so scared.” She peppered his face with kisses. “You don’t even know.”
“Really?” He got to his feet, feeling much better and rolled his neck and stretched a little, but Lilith wouldn’t let go of his hand. He felt just a bit scattered. He wanted to be back at his place, and preferably alone with Lilith and also, he was starving. “I’m hungry.”
“He can go home,” Avy said. He turned to look at her and found her smiling approvingly. “I’ll give you a potion you should drink later and other than that you should be fine. Go have a big dinner, rest a while. Then you should be fine.”
The Wolf's Curse (Brunswick Academy for Gifted Girls Book 5) Page 6