by Sadie Moss
“We need to get out of here. Lana, you have the transport spell?” Jae turned worried eyes to me before glancing back at his father.
“Yeah.” I shook my head to clear it. “Yeah, here.”
I dug into my pocket for the small cylinder, dropping it on the ground at my feet.
“Lana! Watch out!”
Corin pulled me out of the way of a blast of ice that had gone wide of its target as two Gifted men traded blows nearby. My heart pounded in my chest as he righted me. Between the Gifted civilians around us and the posse of Representatives headed toward us, we were sitting ducks.
“Thanks,” I breathed, giving his arm a squeeze before turning back to where the transport charm lay.
Shit. Where was it?
My eyes scanned the ground, panic rising in my chest as I searched for a glimpse of the small object.
Jonas gestured, and a puff of purple smoke exploded several yards away. The transport spell. He’d levitated it away when I dropped it.
And now we had no way out of here.
As Jonas and the guards reached the palace’s front lawn, they fanned out into a curved line with the Minister of Justice front and center. Without breaking stride, he raised both hands, and two massive fireballs appeared above his palms. He made a slicing gesture, and an arc of fire flew toward us.
“Fuck!”
I dove out of the way, but not fast enough. The fire caught my shoulder, seeming to cut and burn at the same time. Pain flared, but I shook it off as I rolled and regained my feet.
Jae threw a ball of blue flame at his father, his beautiful face a mask as he attacked his own flesh and blood.
The blazing orange flame flashed again as Jonas hurled a blast to deflect the blue fire. As he did, the guards at his side splintered off, charging for us. Two shifted as they ran, leaping toward us as a tiger and a wolf.
Fen shifted in a burst of light. I followed suit, meeting the snapping jaws of the attacking wolf with my own sharp fangs. We broke away and circled each other, and a thought occurred to me. Could I still do magic while I was in wolf form?
Summoning the power inside me, I called up a huge gust of wind, striking the wolf in the side. He staggered, and I pounced, my teeth ripping into vulnerable exposed fur. Blood flooded my mouth, the coppery taste urging on my animal instinct to fight. I tore my mouth away and leapt over the wolf’s still body, growling at a warlock who advanced on me.
But before I could attack him, a blade flew past me and sank into the man’s chest. Shock registered on his face even as he pitched sideways.
“Well done, kitten. You distract them with your fierce growl and I’ll kill them,” Akio drawled behind me, another knife already in his hand as he faced off with a red-skinned demon.
I huffed, licking blood from my muzzle. He shouldn’t be allowed to call me ‘kitten’ while I’m literally a wolf.
Ha! Fenris’s bark of laughter echoed in my head as he and the tiger circled each other. I’ll be sure to tell him that.
Before I could respond, the tiger leapt.
Fenris!
The two shifters rolled in a blur of orange and gray, powerful jaws snapping and claws bared.
I’ve got this, killer. Help Jae!
Shit. I swung my head around wildly. Corin and Akio were fighting the demon together, but Jonas kept throwing scorching arcs of fire their way, making them dive for cover. Jae tried to stop him, flinging blast after blast of blue flame. His father was good though. He blocked each attack, seeming to predict Jae’s movements almost before they came.
Of course he did. He was probably the one who’d taught Jae how to fight.
Not announcing my entrance into the melee, I threw my own fireball at the older mage. The smooth motion of his hands was interrupted as he jerked one arm up to block the attack, barely defending himself in time.
Jae shot me a grateful look, and the two of us pressed our advantage, driving Jonas back a few feet.
A sharp call rang out behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder.
My blood chilled.
The guards and Peacekeepers who’d been stationed at the edges of the palace grounds had finally reached us. Dozens of them now raced our way through the rapidly thinning crowd.
How had this many of them sided with Jonas? With Rain?
“Shit! Jae! We’ve gotta get out of here!”
A burst of light in my periphery called my attention back to Jae’s father. I didn’t turn in time to block his attack, but Jae threw a ball of fire to intercept it. The two magical flames collided so close to me I was blown off my feet. I landed flat on my back, the impact jarring my already shaky body.
Jae rushed over and grabbed my hand, pulling me to my feet. My muscles and bones protested the quick movement, but I ignored them.
“I need you to hold off my father. Can you do it?” Jae was breathing heavily, his green eyes wide.
Unable to speak yet, I nodded.
“Good. Don’t try to take him down. Just keep him distracted for a few minutes. And be ready to run when I tell you.”
Jae’s words barely made sense to me. Run? Run where? We were surrounded by palace guards.
But I didn’t bother to question him further. Instead, I stepped forward and flung a dagger at Jonas. The sudden switch to a nonmagical attack caught him by surprise, and he was late with his block. The dagger struck him in the shoulder, making him howl in pain. The two balls of fire burning above his hands flickered out.
Unfortunately, even without the flames, he was far from helpless. He raised his good arm, and I was lifted off my feet, my body suddenly moving toward him.
Godsdamn it! The fucker stole my move!
I twisted and writhed, trying to slow my forward progress, but I had nothing to push against. I couldn’t resist the magic pulling me.
So I did the opposite. Conjuring a huge gust of wind behind me, I drew my dagger as I was propelled forward like a shot. I caught sight of Jonas’s wide eyes before I slammed into him, my blade sinking into his side.
Blood welled over my hand, and I felt his body jerk. He shoved me away, but I didn't fall backward. Instead, his levitation spell lifted me higher into the air before slamming me back down to the ground with a painful thud. Jonas repeated the action a few more times, lifting my body and beating it against the ground like a child taking out his aggression on his least favorite toy.
I tried to use my forearms to absorb the worst of the impact, but on the third rough landing, my cheek smacked painfully against the ground. Stars exploded in front of my eyes, and my brain felt like it was rattling around in my skull.
Finally, he let my body drop and didn’t pick me up again. There was no time to recover though. A half second later, a flash of light flew toward me. I rolled out of the way, and a fireball hit the earth where my prone form had just been, leaving a scorched black trail across the grass.
With one hand pressed to his bloody side, Jonas advanced on me. He threw another blast of fire. This time, I countered with my own, but the flame was weak, barely holding his at bay.
“Jae! Whatever you’re doing, do it faster!” My voice betrayed my panic, but I was beyond caring. This fight was about to end, and I wasn’t going to be the winner.
“Almost there….” Jae’s voice was strained.
Yellow light flared under the hand Jonas held to his abdomen. He was already healing himself.
Fucking great.
Jonas gestured with his other hand. My body slid toward him, dragging across the rough ground.
“Jae!” I scrabbled for purchase, uprooting chunks of grass as I slid by. But there was nothing solid to grab hold of.
“Now!”
At Jae’s shout, strong hands wrapped around my ankle, tugging me back. The spell still pulled me forward, but another set of hands joined the first, and my forward motion stopped. A potion sailed over my head, striking Jonas in the chest. He snarled as it began to eat through his once-pristine suit, sending up a trail of smoke as it devour
ed the fabric. When it reached his skin, his snarl turned into a roar of pain.
Corin pulled me backward, half dragging, half carrying me. I looked over my shoulder. Jae was crouched on the ground, his head bent low as he hovered his hands over a shimmering blue portal.
“Hurry… I can’t keep it open long,” he ground out.
Not hesitating, Corin and I leapt into the portal. The world spun in a stomach-wrenching way as we passed through the blue glow and “down” suddenly became “sideways.” We emerged from a portal in the wall of a house, landing roughly on our backs as our initial downward momentum shifted.
Corin rolled me out of the way in time to avoid getting crushed by Akio as the incubus came through after us. He somehow made the strange perspective shift look like nothing, landing gracefully on the floor in a crouch. Fenris sailed past him in wolf form and skidded to a stop on the beat-up hardwood. He shook out his gray fur as Akio crawled away from the portal and hauled me to my knees, patting me down roughly for injuries.
“What the hell were you thinking? You could’ve gotten yourself killed going after Jonas like that.”
I wasn’t badly injured, just bruised and exhausted, but I didn’t pull away from his touch. “Jae told me to distract him.”
Akio raised one perfect eyebrow, his hands still roaming my body. “Kitten, you and I need to have a serious discussion about what constitutes a distraction.”
Before I could respond, Jae appeared through the portal behind us. He hit the floor hard then twisted immediately, throwing a hand back toward the portal to close it.
Not a second too late.
A pair of legs in the blue and white uniform of a palace guard were halfway through the portal when it snapped shut. The two polished boots fell to the floor with a quick thud-thud. Bile rose in my throat, and I choked back my disgust. At least the wound looked like it’d been cauterized immediately, so there wasn’t a lot of blood. But still. Fucking gross.
“Holy shit! Jae, did you—?”
My voice cut off.
Jae lay limp on the floor, his eyes closed.
His chest unmoving.
Chapter 13
“Jae!”
I scrambled over to him, mirroring what Akio had just done to me as I ran my hands over his still body, searching for mortal wounds.
There were none.
Just a few scrapes, but no sign of a life-threatening injury.
I looked up, my eyes wild. “What the fuck happened to him?”
Akio's face was grim. “He opened the portal too fast. Portals aren’t like transport spells; they require opening a hole in the ether. It would normally take several hours to create the gap gently, without tearing anything. But we didn’t have time for that. Jae just ripped through the fabric of existence, and the blowback hit him hard.”
Oh fuck. I pressed my mouth over Jae’s and blew. Then I started doing chest compressions, falling back into old Blighted habits in my panic.
I exhaled into his mouth again, hating that this was the first time my lips had ever touched his. My heart thudded sluggishly in my chest like it was made of lead. Several people rushed into the room, but they weren’t attacking us, so I paid them no attention.
“What does that mean? Is he injured? Can I heal him?” I peppered Akio with questions as my joined hands pressed hard against Jae’s chest in a steady rhythm.
“I don't know, kitten. But… try. Please try.”
Desperately pretending not to hear the fear in his voice, I drew on the magic inside me, trying to clear my adrenaline so the power could flow through me unimpeded. I reached out with my magic, feeling for Jae’s life force.
It was there, but faint—barely stronger than Beatrice’s was after that bomb decimated her office. Pushing away my worry that I’d fail to save Jae just like I’d failed Beatrice, I let my magic flow into his body, piecing together the holes in his life force. It was much more difficult than any healing spell I’d done before, because there wasn’t an obvious physical injury to heal. His life had simply been nearly snuffed out.
I kept doing chest compressions while I worked, not caring if applying Blighted first aid made me a disgrace to mages everywhere. All I cared about was keeping Jae alive.
When I felt his heart start to beat on its own beneath my hands, my skin went numb with relief. I blew out a shaky breath and looked up at the men gathered around me. “I can heal him, I think. But it’s going to take a while.”
“Fen, help me.” Corin slipped an arm around Jae while Fen—back in human form—took his other side.
They carried him over to a bed in the corner and lay him down gently. I followed close on their heels, eager to resume my ministrations. Now that I could breathe again, I spared a glance at my surroundings. We were in a sparsely decorated bedroom in what looked like a rundown house. It reminded me of my apartment in the Outskirts, but older and bigger. A dusty smell hung in the air, and the room was empty except for the bed and several large boxes in the corner.
The sheets were clean though, and wherever we were, it seemed safe.
As I sat down on the bed and rested my hands on Jae’s chest again, I picked up whispered voices behind us. They were too low for me to hear everything they murmured, but I was certain I heard “The Crow” mentioned several times.
This must be a Resistance cell in the Outskirts, separate from the main base I’d visited every other time. Fen had said they were branching out as they gained new recruits, and Jae must’ve decided it was safer for us to come here than risk leading his father to the Resistance headquarters.
Fenris broke away from the small group and came to stand behind me, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of my head. He spoke into my hair. “We need to tell Noble what happened right away and find out what he knows. Will you be all right without us for a bit?”
I nodded mutely, never taking my eyes off Jae’s elegant, too-still features.
Fen drew in another long breath, the warmth of his lips making my scalp tingle, and murmured, “We’ll take care of this. You just take care of Jae. I know you can, killer."
Corin pressed a kiss to my temple, and Akio ran a finger lightly down my cheek, and then the three of them left with the Blighted resistance members who’d rushed in to meet us.
The door shut softly behind them, and silence swallowed the room. While I was glad for the chance to concentrate on healing Jae, the quiet also gave me too much space to think.
And I didn’t want to think.
Didn’t want to think about how Rain was one step closer to his goal.
Didn’t want to think every semi-decent member of the Representatives was likely dead by now.
Didn’t want to think that Jae’s own father had sided with Rain, and that he’d tried to kill not just me, but his only son.
I’d never considered myself naïve. In fact, the word I would’ve more likely used to describe my personality was “jaded.” So why did I keep finding myself surprised by the depths people would sink to in their pursuit of power?
I didn’t want to consider the odds we were up against, or how small a force fought on our side.
I didn’t want to contemplate our odds of success.
So I shut all those thoughts out. Instead, I poured my focus into healing Jae. His chest moved softly beneath my fingertips as I worked, rising and falling with deepening breaths. I gazed at his face, entranced by his fine features—the long nose and high cheekbones above a strong jaw and slightly pointed chin.
His thick eyelashes fanned over his cheeks, and even with the lids lowered, I could picture the exact emerald green shade of his irises.
Jae couldn’t fucking die. He was one of the best men I knew. Someone who hadn’t let his upbringing or the world he was born into define him. A man who had questioned everything he was told and shaped himself based on his own beliefs.
I loved him.
The realization calmed my heart, and the magic began to flow through me more easily, almost rushing from my body in
to his.
I love him.
I’d probably loved them all on some level since that first day I woke up and found myself tied to Akio’s bed. But this was more than that. I loved him. And it didn’t matter to me anymore whether my feelings originated from the bond or not, because in this moment, I knew beyond a doubt they belonged to me.
Running one hand along the side of his face, I gently brushed his hair back. A moment later, those green eyes I knew so well blinked open slowly, and a sigh fell from my lips like a prayer.
“Lana… are you all right?” he asked weakly.
I snorted. “Why do you always ask me that after your dad does something awful to you?” And then, because I didn't want him to feel bad for worrying about me, I added more softly, “Yes, I’m fine. Are you okay?”
Jae sat up gingerly, scooting up on the bed to lean against the headboard. “I will be.” He rubbed at his chest, as if still feeling the after-effects of his heart lurching back into motion. “I knew opening a portal that fast was dangerous. I haven’t done something that foolish in years.”
I moved up to sit beside him, clasping his hand and continuing to feed the healing spell into his body. I wasn’t sure if my sudden wave of emotion earlier was the cause, or if Jae was sending magic back into me, but I could feel my own injuries repairing themselves. The bruises from Jonas’s attack faded slowly from my body.
We sat in silence for a few moments while Jae regained his strength and I tried to think of what to say.
For some kinds of grief, there were no adequate words.
“It doesn't make any sense, but I’m almost relieved.”
Jae’s soft words brought me out of my reverie, and I glanced at him. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve always seen the kind of man my father was. From as early as I can remember. But still, despite every piece of evidence he gave me, I still held out some hope. That I was wrong—that he would change.”
“And now?”
He closed his eyes briefly. “And now I know. I wasn’t wrong. He’ll never change.”