by Leia Stone
Before I could say any more, Rage walked right up to me, stealing the breath from my lungs, and Nolan walked away.
“Nai, I need to talk to you.” His voice was rough, and his eyes reflected remorse, but I shook my head. I couldn’t do this right now.
“Go plan with your brothers.” He had sixty seconds to plan with his brothers, and he was going to waste them on me? My voice held barely-contained fury as I met his gaze. “I’m not doing this right now.”
The horn sounded, and before he could say anything, I took off after Nolan, running away from Rage, away from my mate problems, away from the marks.
Guilt twisted my stomach, and I glanced over my shoulder. I’d expected to see him tearing after me, but instead, he stood where I’d left him, head hanging low.
Pushing it from my mind, I hit the thick tree line. The second I dipped into the woods, Rage’s scent washed over me. Less strong, I picked up the smell of other males: Honor, Noble, Justice. I noticed little strips of their bedsheets tied to trees. We were in Midnight territory.
A black Midnight wolf blasted past us, probably to make it to the center of the territory and protect their flag.
I couldn’t tell them apart, except it wasn’t Rage.
I veered right, and Nolan went left. Running to the edge of Midnight territory, I inhaled as I scented new fragrances.
Harvest.
Fiona’s scent washed over me, and then Nell, Rue, and finally Kaja, the forest permeated with my bestie’s vanilla and sage scent.
I pumped my legs hard, desperate to find our flag. I curved to the left, assuming the four territories were set up in a circle. My heart thundered against my ribs as I plowed through the woods. Relief washed over me as my own scent filtered past.
Crescent.
But I wasn’t alone. Footsteps pounded behind me. I considered shifting, but it could take too long, and my elemental powers were more reliable, at least for me. And wasn’t that the point of the game anyway? To show our elemental powers?
Where is that flag?!
I ran deeper into our territory, picking up both Nolan’s and my scents. Twigs snapped behind me, but I didn’t take the time to look. As much as I wanted it to be Nolan, I doubted it, especially considering his declaration to go on the offense and get other flags first. I wasn’t going to stop until I found our flag.
My goal was to defend our flag the entire time, alone if necessary, just as I would defend my pack. I’d never leave my territory in a war, never abandon my people. Never be like the slimy alpha king.
The second I spied the lime green cloth whipping in the cold night air, I squealed in triumph. I crossed the last ten yards and, planting my feet at the base of the tree, spun to face my oncoming attacker.
Mallory.
Of course.
Heat rolled down my arms, but I pushed away my fire power. Mallory was a fire elemental too, so I’d fight her with water.
As the semester had progressed, I’d discovered my two forms of magic were like a tangled mass of yarn filling me. I needed to only tease what I needed from the bulk of energy. The power of cool water trickled down my arms like spring rain, and I grinned when Mallory launched a fireball.
The orange sphere sailed through the air in a clean arc, and I shot a stream of water to meet it.
The flame extinguished with a hiss of steam.
“Going to have to do better than that,” I growled.
A twig snapped behind me, and my heart plummeted.
Mallory was the distraction.
Her brother and elder sister leapt out from the woods behind me and started climbing the tree, heading right for my flag.
Oh, hell no.
Spinning, I raised both hands and pushed fire through one and water through the other so the tree and flag wouldn’t burn. The flames hit Sean, Mallory’s brother, first, and he dropped to the ground with a thud, screaming as he rolled on the damp leaf litter. Heather fell next, coughing and sputtering like a drowned rat.
Roars from the crowd, distant but detectable, filtered through the trees, and I wondered if it was for me or in protest of Daybreak’s failure.
My victory grin slid from my face as Mallory’s hands clamped around my neck from behind, and I felt heat simmering under my skin as she squeezed off my air supply.
Dammit.
Sean and Heather climbed to their feet, both wearing matching, vicious sneers.
“Boil her blood,” Sean snarled.
My skin prickled and blistered, and my mind raced.
Where the hell was Nolan? Didn’t he want us to win? But I already knew the answer even if I’d hoped otherwise. Nolan would never help me.
Gasping, I reached for water and let the moisture in the air soothe my searing hot skin. I pushed against Mallory’s magic with my own. I could take Mallory, but could I take her and protect our flag from her siblings?
The heat in my blood intensified as I started to panic.
Dig deeper, Nai.
Reaching up, I fumbled until I felt her pinkies. Taking them into my grasp, I yanked them away from her other fingers, snapping them backward.
Hard.
Lesson #1 from my father: Where the pinky goes, so does the body.
I felt her skin tear and the bone crunch as she released me with a sharp scream that rivaled a dying cat’s.
A searing pain pulsed at my lower back. I’d just gained another mark.
Earth. It had to be. I now had all four elemental marks, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it.
Sean leapt from halfway up the tree and landed before me. “I’m going to kill you for that!” Mallory bellowed with fury. They both advanced.
Crap.
I swallowed back my fear. One hundred percent I’d fight them as best I could. 99.9% certain their sister Heather would take our flag. Ten to one odds I’d get my alpha heir ass jumped by all three of them after they won.
But I was one hundred percent not prepared for the blur of black fur that arced through the air…
My jaw dropped as the Midnight wolf landed on Sean’s back, knocking him to the ground. Snapping his jaws, the wolf tore into Sean’s shoulder, and the young heir screamed.
Why was a Midnight wolf here?
A wolf who was not my mate—which meant this was one of his three brothers.
I spun as Rage, in human form, barreled down on Mallory, fire shooting from his hands like flamethrowers.
“Justice, the tree!” Rage barked at the black wolf.
Mallory ran off into the woods, clothes smoking, screaming. Sean fled next, in the fraction of time when Justice in wolf form shifted, and then a very exposed Justice stood and yanked the third Daybreak Clan member out of the tree.
Heather squealed as she fell to the ground, her thud accompanied by the snap of bone.
“You haven’t won,” she snarled as she limped off.
Maybe not, but then neither had she. My flag still stood; I was still in the games.
Justice raised his eyebrows and looked to Rage, who nodded. He shifted back into his wolf form before trotting off to protect his flag.
But Rage stayed.
He stepped in front of me, his green eyes simmering with emotion as he studied me. “So what’s our plan?” he asked, his voice rough. “Defend until we show each clan they can’t take us and then go flag hunting?”
He knew me so well. My throat tightened with unshed emotion. “Rage,” I whispered, shaking my head, “this isn’t your fight. Just … go. Your brothers—”
“My brothers understand my mate is more important than a stupid school test,” he said, holding his hand up so that I could see the mate marks he clearly wore. “I’m not going anywhere.”
My stomach tightened. I wasn’t sure if the cameras in the woods had sound, or how clear the picture was, but Rage … with the king watching, Rage was showing off his mate marks. His courage shook me to the core. Now I understood how he carried his real name.
“I didn’t mean to say that last night
. To ask what you are…” He swallowed hard. “You’re my mate. I love you. That’s all that matters.”
My lips parted in shock. What could I say? My emotions were more tangled than my magic, but under it all… “I lo—”
Nolan stepped into the clearing, and my voice disappeared.
The wind swirled around my cousin, and a wolf kept pace at his side.
A wolf?
I stiffened with recognition. The dark patches of fur, the menace in its gaze. That was the wolf who’d attacked me on the beach.
Rage stepped in front of me, squaring his shoulders, blocking my view.
“Nolan,” Rage growled, “leave now, and I won’t kill you.”
Nolan barked a hard laugh, and the dappled golden wolf separated from my cousin, stalking the right perimeter as if to come up behind me. A twig snapped, and my attention jumped to the left.
Mallory and her siblings were back, and I was one hundred percent confident they weren’t here to apologize.
Frick.
The odds were not in our favor, but that didn’t mean they were working together. Right?
“Neutralize Rage, but don’t kill him. Nai is mine,” Nolan barked to Daybreak.
What. The. Hell? Daybreak and Nolan were working together? And how did Nolan hire a rogue to take me out? Who the hell was this wolf?
Wrath boiled under my skin. The commotion from the crowd rumbled through the trees.
No way was this legal! To bring a rogue wolf in to assassinate students? Where the hell was the king to protect his heir?
My mind spun, trying to make sense of all the implications of this betrayal.
“Stay human.” Rage’s advice barely registered before he shifted blindingly fast, the tatters of his clothing falling to the ground in his panic. As if I had a choice. My wolf was so far away at this moment I couldn’t feel her, just the low buzzing of magic under my skin. He stepped in front of me, hackles raised as he faced our enemies. Tipping his head back, he howled a long deep call for his brothers.
Nolan threw his arm out and shot a burst of wind at a tree.
My initial gloat at his terrible aim turned to dread as a camera fell to the earth with a crash. He’d not been aiming for me. Whatever his plans were, he didn’t want it televised.
“Nolan, you coward,” I shouted. “You want to be alpha, fight me fairly!”
This was not how alpha status fights were done.
He just grinned.
Still tracking the rogue wolf, I spun and shot a fireball at the animal, but it splashed into the forest as he deftly rolled away.
“What’s in this for you?” I yelled at Nolan. “Seems like a lot of risk just for alpha status.”
The ground rolled beneath our feet, and my gaze darted to Sean, an earth elemental. Rage licked my hand and then broke away from me to take on Mallory and her siblings.
I understood. There were too many of them; we needed to keep them busy until Justice, Noble, and Honor got here.
Okay. I could do this.
New plan: keep my cousin talking while taking out the rogue wolf.
“You can’t believe the pack will follow you after they know of your betrayal,” I shouted across the clearing.
Nolan barked another laugh, this one closer than the last.
“After I kill you, then I’ll fight your dad. Once I win and your family is eliminated, Crescent gets to come back to Alpha Island with me as their alpha.”
My shock turned to sickening understanding.
The alpha king was in on this. He was the only one who could lift the banishment.
All of this: the attacks, Nolan’s ferocity toward me, it was all driven by the king. It had to be. Nolan couldn’t afford an assassin. I had no idea when he’d seen the mate mark or if this was something more, but—
“Nai! Look out!” Kaja screamed, her voice deep in the trees.
I spun as the rogue charged. I had no time to think, not even to act, only react.
Raising my hands, I produced fire in my left and water in my right, and then I shot a torrent of steam at his face; so hot his fur, and then skin, and finally his muscles melted … right off the bone.
Oh mage.
Bile rose in my throat as the wolf dropped to the ground, thrashing and writhing in pain.
I…
I forced a swallow and pulled. I couldn’t even say what I pulled at, only that I felt a surge of power course through me. I grabbed hold of it and doused the rogue with a final burst of steam, and then he stilled.
Horrified, I gulped and turned, facing Nolan once again.
The wind picked up; the trees creaked with the force of his power, and branches snapped. The gale-force slammed into me, lifting me up into the air. I lurched from the ground with a scream on my lips as Nolan’s wind power took hold of me. Up, up I went—and then the wind disappeared.
Gravity hurled me toward the earth, past a blur of trees, and pain seared through my right side as a branch sliced into me. I flailed, arms and legs waving as I pummeled toward the ground.
Suddenly, a soft force of magic slowed my fall, cushioning me. I landed hard enough to have the air knocked out of me. But gulping with relief, I tasted ash in the air as I climbed to my feet—
To the tortured cry of Rage’s wolf.
My attention shot to the sound.
Mallory and Heather were shooting fire at my mate, and Sean was staring at the dirt where a gaping hole was inching closed around the lower half of Rage’s wolf. My mate scratched and tried to climb out, but it was too late. He was trapped, being buried alive.
Something deep down inside of me, something dark and wild snapped. The tangled mess of my magic swelled, coursing through me so quickly I gasped.
My mate was in danger.
My mate.
“Stop!” I shouted, flinging my arms back to propel me forward. I flew up as if the wind were carrying me, skimming the ground as I sailed across the clearing like a freaking witch on a broomstick. I landed next to Rage, and the earth shook. Trees uprooted around Rage as he was propelled up from the packed soil and freed.
Mallory punched her brother in the arm.
“It’s not me,” he said, backing away from where Rage’s wolf now stood, whole, on solid ground.
No. Not Sean at all.
I didn’t know how… I didn’t know why… but I knew. This was one hundred percent me.
I could feel it.
I could feel … everything.
The line where the mulch met the soil as well as the soil content, how much iron it had, where the vein of quartz crystal ran through the shale, deep into the sedimentary rock. I could feel the tree roots snaking through the earth, and below the stone, all the way down to the magma at the core of the planet … I felt it all. The earth, the air, the moisture and humidity, and the heat. I was one with everything around me, even the ethers. I felt the stars, their burning hot gasses, and something blissful just beyond where this world ended. I floated over Rage, my feet skimming his fur, and all three Daybreak Clan took a step back, eyes wide with fear.
Inhaling through my nose and breathing through my mouth, I released a cooling mist to douse the fire still licking Rage’s wolf; his fur sizzled as the burns cooled.
Instead of bringing me relief, my anger spiked at the audacity of their clan—at the betrayal of my cousin and, most of all, at the treachery of the alpha king. Filled with power and indignation, I turned just as Nolan lunged for me.
Instead of modulating the power I held, I lashed out … with all of it.
Whip-like tendrils of blue light burst from my fingers, and at the same time, Nolan released the knife in his hand, sending it right for me.
Knife. When did he get that?
I exhaled a sharp breath and tilted my head, sending a gust of wind to throw the knife out of my way. The blue light from my fingertips wrapped around Nolan like bands of silk. The magic caught Sean as well, the little threads of energy twisting tight like magical string. When I felt the urg
e to tug, I yanked my hands apart, telling the power what it should do.
Because no one, ever, would harm my mate and live to tell about it. The entire realm needed to know what would happen if they dared try. The bands sliced through Nolan and Sean like a hot knife through butter. Their bodies fell to the ground in pieces of flesh and droplets of blood, and gasps rang throughout the entire forest.
“High crime!” the king’s voice came from somewhere far off in the woods, startling me.
Holy. Frickin’. Mage. My feet slammed to the ground as my power waned. He’d seen me rip Nolan apart through the opening in the trees, and now he came with a pack of guards, headed my way.
“High crime!” a dozen more voices took up his pronouncement, and the guards voiced their agreement, the thudding of their feet coming at us from the woods.
Was killing Nolan a high crime? Frick.
I dropped to the ground and buried my hands in Rage’s singed fur.
“Rage, they’re coming for us.” Fear and confusion stole my confidence, and the magic left me. I looked up. Kaja stared at me, her jaw unhinged. Mallory and Heather were gone.
The three remaining Midnight brothers stepped out from behind my best friend, in their human form, all of them wearing the same look of shock.
“It’s you,” Justice said, his voice hoarse. “You’re the high crime.”
What did that mean? I gulped, and tears burned my eyes. Blinking to clear them, I felt the tears drip onto Rage’s wolf as I looked down at him. “What am I?”
Rage’s yellow eyes pierced my soul, holding me captive. He bared his teeth, but without a growl or snarl, I didn’t understand. I frowned, but before I could ask why he looked like he wanted to rip my head off … he bit me.
As soon as his teeth broke my skin, his wolf’s voice filled my mind. ‘I am your shield. Any harm that comes to you will first pass through me.’
Gone was the short beast like speech of his wolf. This was … magic, a spell, a … shield spell. Dizziness rocked me, and I swayed.
Why would Rage be my shield unless…
The truth hit me like a ton of bricks.
The marks.
What Nolan said about pretending to be a high mage.
Was I … the high crime my clan was banished for?
That was impossible, right?