Page 47 of Last Gift: Supernatural Battle

The woman strode toward me, her hand outstretched, and the male growled, matching her strides to hover over us as I shook her hand.

Strong grip. Cold skin.

The Vissimo male lifted his gaze from our clasped hands to the person who’d suddenly appeared on my other side. A low growl vibrated from Wild.

Uh.

“Oh,” Princess Basilia said, glancing at Wild. “You’ve got a growly man too. I’m Princess Basilia of Clan Sundulus. My mate, Crown Prince Kyros, and I are here representing the king and queen.”

I sent Wild a pulse of warning. “Princess Basilia, I am High Esteemed Tempest. Welcome to the Buried Knolls coven.” I shifted my focus to the giant casting a shadow over us.

Where Wild was lean power, the prince was far more the body type of Corentin and Sven—hulking power. But the Vissimo was of a height that simply wasn’t seen in magus—and not ideal to walk through our cave system either. “Crown Prince Kyros.” I dipped my head instead of offering my hand.

Basilia was an anomaly. I’d never met a Vissimo who shook hands. That was a human thing. Which meant, she’d either grown up around humans or had been one herself.

“They don’t see many helicopters around?” Princess Basilia asked, jerking her head at the watching magus.

I smiled. “Try any. Human technologies do not exist within the coven.”

“Not even Snake?”

It took me a while to fathom what she meant. “The game on old cell phones? No. Nothing. We have magic for everything we need.” I waggled my fingers. “Including making it easy to walk on grass in high heels.”

Kyros’s growling ramped up, but Basilia’s eyes sparkled. “I accept.”

I sent a bolt of magic to her shoes, and the princess grinned, taking a few steps to test them.

“If you could bottle that and sell it, you’d be a billionaire.” She winked. “Trust me, I’d know.”

She was a billionaire? Fuck me. I couldn’t imagine that amount of money. Not that a magus living in the human world didn’t have other means to get by, but man. The princess was filthy rich.

“Yes, I have a golf cart even though I don’t play golf,” she added.

I was beginning to understand what Rhona had meant about Basilia pulling off the princess vibe. She was disarming, and I could only be grateful that two Vissimo like Kyros hadn’t shown up on the coven doorstep. She made him seem more approachable.

I peered over her shoulder at the helicopter. “I expected the pack leaders to be with you.”

“They decided to run,” Basilia answered.

Her mate hadn’t stopped his stare off with Wild, and I could feel Wild’s ire mounting by the second. I had no idea what to do about that. Wild hadn’t acted in a possessive way in so long, and never to this degree.

The Vissimo prince grunted, “They’re close.”

No sooner had he said the words than two Luthers loped into the meadow below. If the magus there hadn’t been so fixated on this conversation, there would have been more screaming. As it was, the magus just startled away as the huge wolves trotted toward us.

There was a ripple in the air, and a series of sickening cracks, and then a stunning red-haired woman and a huge man were straightening in their human form. I heard Opal’s gasp at my back.

Because they’d just changed forms? Or because they were buck-naked?

I’d guess the former as nudity wasn’t a biggie to magus. In fact, Kyros appeared to be the only one bothered, though I noticed Basilia fixed her sights on Andie. Probably because her mate was growling again.

Basilia hugged the woman and smiled at the pack alpha who was crowding his mate and surveying the scene in much the same way Kyros had.

“Kyros,” the male Luther grunted at the male Vissimo.

“Sascha,” the male Vissimo grunted at the male Luther.

Sascha’s gaze snapped to Wild, and then he growled.

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