Page 36 of Light Magic

A vine lengthened from the big tree, wrapped around my leg, and slipped its tip inside my pocket, right where my phone was.

I gasped and grabbed my phone.

The vine retreated.

My hands shook as I unlocked my phone. I almost dropped it as a huge bang came from the door and one hinge flew out.

I opened the contact app, found his name easily, and pressed it.

The phone rang three times.

“Now is not a suitable time, sweetheart. I?—”

“There are two lion shifters here,” I said as fast as I could. “They sedated everyone?—”

“WHAT?”

“—but me. I’m locked in the library, but the door won’t hold.”

I shouted as a bang louder than the previous ones echoed from the door and another hinge shot toward the tree.

“Ariella, listen to me.” There was a bite to his word. “First, take a deep breath.” I did as he said. “Second, go into the bookshelves, hide there. The hall will help you.”

“And then what?”

“Then pray I get there before they lay a hand on you. Otherwise, I won’t just kill them. I’ll skin them alive, feed them to piranhas, pull them out when they are an inch from death, and rip their hearts out with my bare hands.”

I shuddered. From the hard tone of his voice, I knew he was serious.

“Levi—”

The loudest bang yet made me jump. The doors went down. In their lion forms, Eugene and Elias ran at me.

I suppressed a scream and ran toward the bookshelves to my right.

The vines shot out from the tree, wrapping around one of the shifters, while a bookshelf extended across the floor until it reached the table, blocking the path of another.

I stepped between two bookshelves and stopped.

Why would I hide in the dark, when I could get out of reach another way?

I called my wings, felt the familiar course of the magic as they came forward. They ripped the back of my shirt and spread wide. I pushed with my feet, flapped them, and went up to the glass dome.

The lions jumped on the long table, walking over the books, pushing them out, ripping pages, making a huge mess.

I was away from their reach now, and safe.

Eugene transformed back into his human form, and stood several feet under me, naked. He placed a hand on his waist. “Do you think that will be enough to escape us?”

“It has worked so far.” Even if so far was only a minute or two.

I could stay here and flap my wings until Levi arrived, or I could do something. I might be magicless, but I wasn’t helpless. I could fight them, especially now that I had the advantage of being in the air.

Besides, I had no idea how long it would take Levi to get here, and my wings were like any other limb: it could get to a point when I couldn’t fly anymore.

“Silly angel,” Eugene said.

I aimed the kitchen knife at him—and realized I had dropped my phone somewhere. No time to worry about that. I threw the knife as Eugene shifted back. The blade scratched his back as he pounced off the table.

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