by May Dawson
His seat was still warm, and I regretted the decision immediately.
Chapter Four
Jensen
I suddenly found myself with two equally important tasks: one, preparing to kill our way out of here if we needed to, and two, preventing Rafe from killing our way out of here prematurely. I could feel tension radiating from his posture, no matter how calm his face.
When Maddie held her hand over the bowl, Silas reached out and gripped her hand, squeezing her fingers. She winced, and something twitched inside me. I loved Silas, but when he hurt her there was a part of me that wanted to go over the table at him, no matter how necessary it was.
But I’d let it ride when Rafe hurt her too, after Clearborn trapped him into it. I’d been focused on the end game then, and I was now too. I crossed my arms and forced myself to watch calmly. She was my girl, but she was tough.
Her blood trickled down her fingertips and dripped steadily into the pool. Rafe glanced away, a muscle ticking in his cheek.
“So she’s a complete novice,” the woman said, her voice delighted.
Silas didn’t dignify that with an answer. “You know my name. Who are you?”
“Catarina,” she said.
“Lovely name,” Silas said. “It makes me think of cataracts.”
“You’re a charmer.”
Silas squeezed her fingers again, and Maddie drew her hands into her lap, as if she were rubbing them under the table to get rid of the bleeding sensation. She picked up the dice a second later, the look on her face resolute.
“My sister and I used to play a game like this when I was a child so I could memorize math facts,” she said. “I’m surprised you big scary wizards all find it so amusing.”
They began to shake the dice and roll them. I wanted to look at the dice themselves, but watching her beautiful face fixed in concentration was enough. I could see the disappointment wash over her face and knew she’d had a bad roll even before she called the number.
She kept on going.
“Fifty-four,” Silas said, his face more intense than before when it wasn’t just his own power on line.
“Fifty-four,” Catarina said, just a beat behind.
“Forty-nine,” Maddie said.
They rolled again.
Rafe shifted impatiently beside me. I was impressed he’d managed to let Maddie go up there, even though she was stronger of the two of them.
“I’m shit at math,” he admitted under his breath to me.
They rolled again and again, Silas and Catarina staying locked together. They both missed occasional rolls—as if they were interfering with each other’s dice—and the game seemed to grow only more intense. Maddie chased them both, her numbers rising steadily. She was adding eighteens every time now.
Maddie rolled again, a beat behind Catarina. Maddie’s dice were still rolling across the velvet tablecloth as she glanced up at Catarina.
Catarina started to say, “One hundred ninety—” and then abruptly broke off, stopping herself to correct, “One hundred ninety-eight.”
“Two hundred,” Maddie said.
Silas’s lips flickered at the corner.
The three of them raced steadily up. The numbers flying around the room gave me a headache. “Who knew wizards would be such nerds?” I whispered to Rafe.
“Magic’s not that glamorous.”
Maddie won the game, and she beamed at the two of them.
“Fine,” Catarina said, waving her hand dismissively. “Cash out.”
She smiled at Silas. “I’d hurry if I were you.”
Silas said, “You’re not going to have much of a business left if your shady dealings get around.”
She gave him a cool smile that made me think she had no intention of us surviving long enough to leave her a bad Yelp review.
We headed quickly up the stairs. When the robot handed Silas the money, Silas tucked it away carefully in his wallet. “Thank you.”
Then he suddenly lunged over the counter. The robot tipped back, trying to get away from him, and suddenly blades sprouted from the heels of its hands. But it was too late.
Silas locked the robot against his body. Then magic flared around his arms, giving him supernatural strength, and he ripped the robot’s head off. We all still shared at him in shock.
He turned as Catarina rose up the stairs and threw the head at her. She ducked to one side. The head slammed into the wall, where it regarded us with reproachful metal eyes.
Then suddenly her wand was in her hand and she was coming at him.
Silas muttered a word in Latin as he threw out his hands. She flew against the wall and stuck there, encased in what looked like spider webbing. She was screaming after us as we ran out the door, but the second Jensen slammed the door behind us, the sound cut off. Her institution was completely soundproofed.
We were on the quiet, quaint street.
Silas had been running with us, but now he slowed to a saunter, his hands in his pockets. “Time for us to catch that train.”
Rafe checked his watch. “You’re lucky we have a time crunch, because right now, I’m this close to kicking your ass for putting Maddie in danger.”
“I told you to stay upstairs and eat some cake. You didn’t listen,” Silas said.
Rafe eyeballed him hard, as if he was debating how quickly he could kick Silas’s ass, and Silas added, “What do you have against cake?”
Rafe crossed his arms impatiently. “I’m not letting you go into danger on your own.”
“I’m in danger when you don’t listen to me,” Silas said. His voice was mild, but confident.
“We don’t even need the money. There was no reason for that.”
“We will,” Silas said. “The robot knew all our faces, but I pulverized his memory banks. No one will know you were with me except Catarina, and she can’t exactly go to the police.”
“Why did the robot know your face?” Rafe demanded.
Maddie and I exchanged a glance, and then I rested my arm around her shoulders. She leaned into me.
“You knew I had that under control, right?” Maddie asked me. Rafe and Silas’ bickering faded into the background; the rest of the world always did when she turned those wide blue eyes up to me.
“Never doubted you.”
She smiled, that slow smile that made my heart stop in my chest even after all this time.
“I almost fucked up adding eighteen so many times,” she admitted.
“I am so proud of you,” I said. I pressed a kiss to her forehead as the four of us headed down the quiet road to the train station.
She rested her head on my shoulder, and I reached into my pocket and found the edge of the slender gift-wrapped package I carried.
I’d seen the anguish on her face the moment after we all stumbled through the portal. The rest of us went into asshole mode; it was the way we dealt with our feelings. I chewed my lower lip, wondering if a gift would make things worse or better now. Did a gift make it seem like I wasn’t worried as hell about our friends back home—even though I was—or would it remind her that we always made it to fight another day…together?
I made an impetuous decision. If I’d chosen wrong, Maddie would understand; I could always count on her to give me the benefit of the doubt. “Do you remember when I said I bought you something? On graduation day?”
“Yeah. So you didn’t hock it for Rafe’s Reliable Automobile Fund after all?” Her lips turned up at the edges.
I raised my eyebrows. “Can you believe he rides a motorcycle when he’s not driving that broken-down Grandma-mobile? It’s like the perfect representation of his two sides. The old stiff and the rebel.”
Rafe broke off from the middle of his argument with Silas to say, “I fucking heard that.”
I touched my fingers to my forehead in a salute. I didn’t care. I didn’t say anything behind anyone’s back I wouldn’t say to their face.
We reached the train station just as the train’s whistle blared
down the tracks. Silas swiveled on his heel and faced the two of us.
“I’ve got to change my face,” he said, but his gaze was on Maddie. “I’m wanted.”
“Why didn’t you do that when we first arrived?” Rafe asked.
“Magic detection in the gambling halls,” Silas explained. “They would have noticed I was using magic to shield my face.”
Rafe pointed out, “We could have just avoided the gambling hall.”
“But now we’re rich,” Silas said. “I like being rich.”
“I thought you didn’t care about money,” Maddie said.
Silas didn’t answer, instead running his hand over his face as he muttered in Latin.
When he dropped his hand, the man who faced us still wore Silas’s clothes and had his same tall, slender build. But now he had a mop of dark hair and cold gray eyes in a handsome, hard-edged face. He looked far more dangerous than the ‘innocent’ Silas Zip I knew.
“I hate this,” Rafe muttered. “I hate everything about this world.”
“Oh, just wait,” Silas said.
Maddie and I exchanged a glance as we followed them toward the train, which came to a stop, steam hissing. Silas led us toward a car near the front, and we climbed up to find our private car. There were four reclining seats.
As Maddie sunk into the window seat, Silas and I briefly jostled each other to sit beside her.
I won. I could be ruthless for the woman I loved—even if it was just playfully so.
Rafe raised his eyebrows at us both and took the opposite window seat. He was too grown to throw elbows, or so he liked to pretend. I had my doubts.
Silas threw himself down into the seat and put his feet up on the edge of my seat before I could sit down, and I pushed his boots away as I slid next to Maddie. I leaned close to see the world outside, but I was half-watching out the window and half-watching her. Her eyes were bright with curiosity, taking in this new world.
Silas moved his fingers lazily and muttered a word.
“Now what?” Rafe demanded.
“Just making sure we don’t have anyone listening to us,” he said. “Are we going to talk about Maddie’s power?”
She frowned. “You know I’m good with a spell.”
“That was more than good with a spell,” Silas scoffed. “You beat Catarina. Do things feel different for you? Maybe something changed from…”
He trailed off, and she prompted, “From what?”
He shook his head.
“He’s rebooting,” I said, knowing that dreamy Silas look, even when it came across a different face. “He’s got to mull things over.”
“I don’t actually need you to speak for me,” Silas said, sliding down in his seat. I eyed him skeptically, wondering if I’d hurt his feelings, and he added, “Though I don’t mind, either.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said. Silas and I had grown close over the past year.
For a moment, there was silence in the car. I could tell Maddie was troubled by what Silas had said, and I elbowed her.
When she turned to me, I admitted, “I didn’t actually hock your present. But maybe we should wait for a semi romantic moment.”
“Did you get me something romantic?” She was smiling, but the expression on her face was skeptical, too.
“I did,” I said. “What’s that look for? I can be romantic.”
“You are perfect,” she assured me, even though that was a blatant lie. “I just kind of assumed you’d get me a weapon of some kind…”
“What’s not romantic about a weapon?” I asked, giving her my most innocent face. She smiled and leaned into me, before brushing her soft lips across my cheek. It had meant a lot to me when I gave her Eliza’s knife; I was glad it meant something to her too.
“Things moved pretty fast right before we left,” Rafe said, breaking into our flirting. His voice was a harsh reminder to stay on task.
But life couldn’t be all swordfights and sex, books and bloodshed, all the time. Even we needed to take a pause now and then, didn’t we?
“Let’s review the plan,” Rafe said.
“We reach Quorum,” Silas rattled off quickly, “We walk into the museum, figure out how to get Cain’s shield, and come back and steal it. We should be home twenty-four-hours from now.”
If our mission were that quick and simple, it would be a huge relief.
I kicked him in the shin. “Don’t jinx us. Twenty-four-hours. Christ.”
Silas raised his eyebrows. “Did you just kick me?”
“Holy shit,” Rafe leaned forward suddenly. “I need everyone to shut up, right now. You two are children.”
“What are you going to do, pull the car over, Dad?” I asked. “I’ll turn this thing around and we won’t even go on a mission!”
Rafe gave me a look. I couldn’t hide my smile, but I did have some self-preservation instincts so I turned my face into Maddie’s hair. She rested her head on my shoulder, snuggling into me.
The train lurched into motion. Rafe leaned forward, watching out the window as we left the station behind and began to pick up speed.
Once the train had settled into a steady sway, Maddie wrapped her fingers around mine and squeezed, then stood.
Rafe demanded, “Where are you going?”
“To find a bathroom,” she said, “and I’m taking my bodyguard with me, of course.”
Before Rafe could say anything else, she added, “We’re not all going. We’re on a train—there is nowhere for us to go. No trouble for us to find. No place I’m going to get lost, or hurt, or attacked.”
Rafe raised his hands. “I wasn’t going to object.”
We all knew that was a lie.
Maddie tugged me out of the car behind her, then glanced over her shoulder at me mischievously.
The world might be going to shit all around us—hell, the universe was going to shit—but when I was with Maddie, every world felt bright and every mission felt like an adventure.
Chapter Five
Lex
“Chase says there are eight shifters at the gate,” I told Clearborn. “It looks like they’re trying to take down the gate, but Chase’s magic held them back so far.”
He nodded. “Okay, we need to get down there.”
He tried to rise from the floor, one hand gripping what was left of the hole in his chest; his golden magic wove between his fingers as he tried to heal himself. He was going to kill himself trying to fight; I wasn’t sure the man should even walk.
“Penn and I’ve got it, sir,” I told him.
He raised his gaze to mine. “When you’re trying to order me around, Lex, it doesn’t matter if you add a sir at the end.”
He curled to a sit-up position, straining upward. Fine. Stubborn seemed to be a shifter personality trait. I knelt, offering him help up. After a second, he leaned on me as he struggled up to his feet.
“I’m not losing this academy when I’ve finally got you all more-or-less straightened out,” he grouched as he limped toward the door, his hand still gripping the wound.
“Well, there are new first-years coming in just a few months.”
“Yeah, but I’m about to get you and your patrol off campus, and that will be very, very good for my mental health,” Clearborn told me. “I might actually sleep at night without waking up wondering where the hell the eight of you are now.”
“We’re almost always right where you left us.”
“Mm, it’s the almost that really makes my life so exciting.” Even though his breath was coming short, his healing magic still flaring under his palm, he could banter, apparently.
Stubbornness seemed to be one necessary attribute to be a wolf shifter, and sarcasm seemed to be another.
Penn, Clearborn and I made our way down toward the gates.
Gunfire crackled as whoever was down at the gates sprayed bullets inside. There was an answering, more controlled tat-tat of returning fire. Chase.
His shooting bought us enough cover to rea
ch Chase and Blake.
“They keep ramming the gates,” Chase’s voice was short, flat. “I don’t think I can hold the shield much longer.”
His magic shimmered across the gate, protecting it, but as I watched, it was beginning to fade around the edges. Sweat beaded across his forehead, but his face was stoic and determined.
“You don’t have to,” I promised, clapping his shoulder.
Without my wolf, at least my magic seemed stronger than it used to be. I wove the spell to reinforce the gate and blasted it out. My magic rippled across Chase’s fortifying his and taking the pressure off him to hold the spell.
But we didn’t just need to stop the rebel packs from breaking down the gates. We needed to get rid of them entirely.
“Give me the rifle,” I told Chase, reaching for it.
Clearborn and Silas had their trick of guiding bullets. I’d been practicing it when our patrol was on the range.
“Buy me some time, sir?” I asked, as I put the rifle into my shoulder.
He nodded and used his magic to raise the gravel in the driveway into a storm that attacked the pack outside the gates.
Now that they were distracted and not firing back at us, I could stick my head up from behind the barricades and look for targets. I picked them off one by one until they left the bodies behind and scrambled for the vehicles.
The last survivors peeled out in their trucks.
“We’ve got to wait for reinforcements to get here,” Clearborn said. “Don’t celebrate yet.”
He glanced at Penn, Chase and me. “Reinforcements are on the way, but there’s only a handful of us to hold the line for now.”
“And my brother,” Chase said, glancing at Blake.
Clearborn nodded. “You shouldn’t have been dragged into this, Blake, but now that you are, I’m glad we’ve got you on your side.”
Blake looked extremely doubtful about that. Maybe Clearborn was just being nice for once. I didn’t see a lot of that nice side of his; apparently he saved it for people who weren’t part of our team. I’d just tell myself that was because Clearborn had the highest expectations for our merry little band of degenerates, as he called us.