by Ann Denton
The mages abandoned me in this brutal war.
They just made the biggest mistake of their lives.
As a rogue princess and ex-chief enforcer, I know all their magic tricks. And now that I’m mated not just to a wolf shifter, but his bear shifter best friend, I’ve got two good reasons to fight for the opposite side.
But the Mage Council is used to winning, and they’ll stop at nothing to ensure we lose. The more I try to help the shifters, the worse their lives seem to get. And now that things have reached the breaking point, I find myself facing a problem I never expected.
Someone from my past is out for revenge, and they’ll stop at nothing to get it.
But I’ll stop at nothing either. So let the games begin.
If you like Raven Kennedy, Ivy Asher, Tate James, A.K Koonce, or Laurell K. Hamilton then hold on! You’re in for a delicious read!
Read Fae Unchained TODAY and experience the thrilling romance for yourself!
Table of Contents
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1. Aubry
2. Aubry
3. Bodie
4. Aubry
5. Aubry
6. Drake
7. Aubry
8. Aubry
9. Easton
10. Aubry
11. Aubry
12. Bodie
13. Aubry
14. Aubry
15. Drake
16. Aubry
17. Aubry
18. Easton
19. Aubry
20. Aubry
21. Bodie
22. Aubry
23. Aubry
24. Drake
Epilogue
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Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Also by Ann Denton
Also by Elle Middaugh
Copyright © 2020 Ann Denton & Elle Middaugh
1st Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
Le Rue Publishing
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Tulsa, OK 74103
www.LeRuePublishing.com
ISBN: 978-1-951714-05-5
To all the men who know how to handle their weapons...
all three of them.
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1
Aubry
I stared down into Easton’s handsome face, mesmerized by the magic that flowed through my veins. I was falling, no parachute. I was an asteroid, drawn in by his gravity. Our eyes crashed together and obliterated all the promises and excuses I’d made before. They burned up in the fire of this new magic.
Mate bond magic...
Oh my god, this was... incredible. Impossible. This was... going to cause an epic fuck-ton of problems.
A potion whizzed by overhead and I had to duck. It smashed against the far wall, breaking me out of my trance.
Shit!
"Aubry..." Easton said again, with a hell of a lot more conviction this time. "Don't go."
I stumbled backward, immediately feeling the strain of our bond tugging like a rubber band. My heart didn't want to leave him—not while he was so wounded and weak—but my brain knew that if I wanted to save him and all of us, then I needed to get my ass moving and help end this fight.
Against my better judgement, I took his hand and squeezed. "Just stay down and stay safe. I'll be back for you as soon as I can."
Before he could respond, I scrambled away, rejoining the fight like I'd been portaled to another realm. The moment I'd shared with Easton was like a quiet pause in time, and now that it was over, reality had just come fast-forwarding back to a live-action cluster fuck.
Potions exploded, guns fired, fur flew through the air. Blood sprayed like water fountains and colored smoke swirled around all the fighting figures. Bullet casings rang like bells as they hit the floor, magazines snapped into place, glass bottles tinkled against each other before shattering onto the floor, and people shouted back and forth. It was a war scene; just like in all the movies I'd ever seen. I'd been in my fair share of fights and dangerous situations, but none as all-encompassing as this.
Drake and Triton were no longer fighting. In fact, Trite was nowhere to be found, which made panic rise up in my chest. Had he been struck down? Was he dying or dead? Was I going to just leave him there if he was?
A memory of the first time we’d met suddenly popped into my head. We were in a philosophy class together, where the professor had droned on and on about some idiot named Immanuel Kant who thought that it was okay to do anything so long as you got the result you wanted. When the lecture had finally finished, a younger Trite had walked up to me, all swagger and mage confidence and said, "I Kant resist. Want to be the means to my happy ending?"
My throat tightened as the memory faded. Fucker better not be dead.
I scanned the room before I sprinted and slid toward a dropped handgun like a baller sliding onto home plate. Drake flew around above me, scorching pockets and taking a heavy amount of gunfire as he went. I didn’t let myself think about the fact that his wings were starting to look like swiss cheese. He could heal.
I hid behind the mage’s body I’d snicked the gun from and scanned the room. Bodie was stalking through the station like a freaking ghost, his eyes intent as he stared down the barrel of his rifle, stepping over bodies and debris without missing a beat.
Bullets whizzed by him, either in front or behind but never touching him, and he didn’t ever flinch as they rocketed past. He just calmly reloaded and fired, hitting his target every single time. He was so fucking efficient it was almost scary. After my initial fear-factor calmed and I realized he was just hyper aware of his surroundings, and damn good at what he did, I felt an overwhelming sense of desire. Bodie was hot as hell. My mate was a fucking badass.
Then my stomach twisted, and apprehension once more struck me. He wasn't my only mate. Not anymore. He was going to be fucking livid. Would he even want to be my mate anymore?
"Aubry, down!" Bodie shouted without glancing my way. And without a second's hesitation, I ducked into a low squat. An orange potion bottle soared over my head and smashed into the benches behind me.
Oh fuck, that better not have hit Easton...
Bodie quickly and silently sniped the bastard who'd chucked the potion. I glanced over my shoulder and the fucker—now missing an eye and the back half of his head—went down.
The mages were running out of players. And potions.
As hope rose in my chest, I realized there were a number of shifters lying motionless on the floor as well. Shit, we were going down too.
Wait, we? Guess there really was no turning back now… I was officially one of them.
I popped the mag of my borrowed gun and counted the bullets—the silver bullets. Those bastards had come packing heat. There were five rounds left and hopefully one in the chamber.
I stood back up and aimed at a mage camping in a dark corner, away from the fight. I fired. The shot recoiled through my arm, rattling the
muscles and bones all the way up to my skull, and the man went down in a twitching heap. He probably had a stash of potions over there with him.
I bent down and grabbed a chunk of brick, hurtling it through the air in his direction. As soon as it touched down, the brick set off a domino effect of reactions—white, purple, orange, pink, and turquoise smoke filled the air. Wood chips splintered; explosions assaulted our ears—some of the nearby Mage Police passed out into deep sleep.
I felt like quoting Die Hard and cowboying it up, but mage fire suddenly sprang up and skated around the room like it was chasing gunpowder.
Everyone scattered to their own side of the station as the blaze spread between us.
Oh, shit, Easton! I mentally screamed his name as I rushed over to him, dragging him closer to us and away from the flames. Fucking shit, I wasn’t fast enough. Easton was so damn heavy.
Sweat started pouring down my brow as the fire crept closer.
"Just go," Easton muttered, bringing a filthy hand up to cover mine.
But I shook my head and yanked again, tugging him back another few inches. My heart spasmed, panicked. No way we’d made it this far just for him to go down now. "Heal faster, Goldilocks," I seethed, yanking him again.
"Trying, Spitfire," Easton grimaced and tried to use his legs to backpedal along the floor. But the flames crept closer, leaping to a broken bench nearby.
The smoke made me start to cough.
"Get out of here," Easton growled, his eyes shifting and turning a beautiful shade of gold. It contrasted with the red of his overheated skin. He yanked himself away from me.
"I can’t," I told him.
It was the truth. My soul was tethered to his. If he died, I might as well. My heart was already weeping, even as my eyes squinted through the smoke and scanned the station for some means of escape. Everyone still alive had cleared out.
Fuck.
Suddenly, Bodie appeared at my side. He hefted the bear shifter up over his shoulder, his free arm still manning the rifle. He didn’t say a single word, just looked at me.
I stood and followed him through the smoke and outside through a broken window.
Human alarms and sirens began wailing in the background, and that’s when the remaining mages and Mage Police on the street started to disappear. One by one, they each smashed Portal Potions on the ground at their feet, their bodies being devoured in colored smoke before they vanished. The final mage stared at me before withdrawing her potion bottle, and I realized she wasn’t a mage at all. She was a fae using glamour to hide her wings. She was... my mother.
"Murderer!" she spat at me, the word stinging my cheek like a backhand. "I will never forgive you for betraying us. Never!"
Betrayal? Excuse you, you royal fucking bitch, but I was kidnapped—against my will—and abandoned by you, my friends, and all the damn magic users. If anyone deserved to hold a grudge, it was fucking me.
I sneered at her, full of hurt and rage, as she threw her Portal Potion and disappeared. "Batwings!" I screeched at her, an insult I knew stung since she was self-conscious about how thick her wings were. The Kardashians couldn’t hold a candle up to the drama within my family.
I couldn’t believe her. It. This. Anything anymore.
Vehicles swerved into Union Station parking lot—police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks. Oh, shit! Time to go! We couldn’t allow the humans to find out about us; we needed to get the fuck out of there just like the mages had.
A silver tour bus pulled in around back and hesitantly eased into park a number of yards away from the building. I glanced wearily up at the clock tower on the outside of the building, which was still ticking away as if nothing had happened. Had this entire battle only taken a half hour? It felt like an eternity.
"Everybody on the bus! Now!" Drake shouted.
Larry grabbed Tee’s cat carrier—how had it even survived? —and Bodie readjusted Easton on his shoulder. We all scrambled from the edge of the building up the steps of the bus as quickly as we could. It was still dark, but we couldn’t take any chances being seen.
"Where we goin’?" Bodie asked, as Easton bobbed behind him on the steps, growling in pain.
"Plan G," Drake replied, helping Larry get settled into a seat. "Get as deep into shifter territory as you can. Larry, your secret locale should work. Mages can’t portal to places they’ve never been. Now hurry! I have to blow this thing before we’re all fucked."
I swallowed hard but nodded. The station had to go. If Drake didn’t destroy it now, the humans would realize that something was not right as soon as they saw all the fur and claw marks, the potion bottles and the remnants of colored smoke. And if humans found out about magic again, all hell would break loose. Magical enslavement… unspeakable things. But also, if Drake didn’t destroy the building before the human rescue workers made it in, Mage Police might just destroy it right along with any humans inside.
The scene would be too big to contain. Too much for memory wiping spells. Protocol required containment no matter the cost. Drake’s way was better.
We piled onto the bus and Larry handed Drake a yellow Blast Potion. The dragon shifter ran past me down the aisle and jumped down the steps.
"Go!" Drake shouted at our terrified driver, a shifter with a faux hawk and golden eyes that I’d never seen before.
Pedal to the metal, our bus skidded out onto the road just as Drake shifted and took to the sky, this time his dragon was three times as large as I’d ever seen him, nearly the size of the building itself. We’d barely gotten up to speed when, behind us, Union Station exploded in a giant mushroom cloud of flame, bricks, and dust.
My heart sank as I watched the ruined sight with wide, glassy eyes. One of L.A.’s most beloved landmarks ceased to exist. The orange of the blaze lit the night sky like some ominous beacon, warning us that the worst was yet to come.
How long would the city survive if this feud kept getting worse? And it would keep getting worse.
Because one thing was certain.
Tonight, the mage-shifter conflict had gone from an insurgency to a full-fledged magical war.
2
Aubry
As the bus fled the scene of the crime, a very different battle raged inside my chest as I fought my own feelings and emotions.
Bodie stood behind me and rubbed my shoulder as I bent over Easton, who he’d laid on the aisle running down the center of the bus. Only the three of us, Larry and Tee, and one shifter had climbed onboard. No one else had made it.
And Drake was still out there.
I leaned forward over the huge blonde giant. "You okay?" I breathed, careful not to touch his wound, but checking to ensure that his magic was finally working and healing him. My fingers still shook as my mind replayed everything that had just happened. Too close. That had all been too fucking close.
"Yeah." Easton gave a grunt as we went over a pothole. "I'm good. Go sit before you fall on me."
I took the seat right beside him, leaning my forehead into the back of the seat in front of me so that my wings wouldn't get crushed. I was so bone tired. I closed my eyes and felt, rather than saw, Bodie slide in beside me, between me and Easton.
What a fucking metaphor for my life that was.
The wolf shifter ripped off what was left of his shirt, took a water bottle someone handed him, and started to clean my hands, which were covered in soot and Easton’s blood. "Are you hurt anywhere, love?"
Love? He’s calling me love? We’re already to that stage?
I blinked and shook my head, still coming out of the daze I was in. It felt like my mind was full of smoke.
Hadn't Bodie seen what had happened with Easton? Did he not care? Had Easton's near-death experience jolted Bodie enough that he didn't feel possessive?
Bodie helped me take a drink from the bottle, the water soothing my parched and scratchy throat. I wished it could have soothed the rest of me—namely, my ripped-in-half heart.
My thoughts rattled around, bouncing a
s much as the damn bus. My mother’s furious face kept popping up in my head, along with images of the fight. But no matter what, they kept coming back to Easton and Bodie.
I had a very bad feeling that Bodie was clueless. That he hadn’t seen the mate bond take hold of Easton and me. That he wouldn’t accept what had happened when he found out. That he wouldn’t accept... me. Or worse. What if they made me choose?
"Where's Drake?" I mumbled. I turned to stare out the back window as Bodie continued to wipe me down.
It was easier to think about him than the other two. Worrying about Drake was more concrete. It was a life and death thing, not some jumbled and tangled 'what do you feel, Aubry?' type of bullshit that would take multiple hours and countless bottles of tequila to unravel.
"He'll be fine," Bodie tried to soothe me.
But my foot wouldn't stop wiggling. My heart wouldn't stop its hurried pacing back and forth as it chewed its nails and glanced out the window eight million times. I wasn’t even worried about Drake, not really. I was worried about us. Me, Bodie, and Easton. What would happen when the truth finally emerged?
"Where are we going?" I turned to look at Bodie.
But he didn't answer me; Larry did.