Page 32 of Resting Witch Face
Magic crackled in the air around us, lifting the hairs on my arms at attention. River raised his arms and started spinning flames above his head before throwing them at the closest wolf. His full lips never for a second stopped moving as he called on his element to come to his aid. The shifter howled in pain when his fur caught on fire, and then he rolled around in an attempt to extinguish it. If I didn’t have just as large of a shifter circling me in hopes to find the best way to snatch me, I would’ve loved to watch Blondie do magic.
He looked magnificent, like a Titian rising from a volcano with flames licking his arms and his shoulders.
Knees bent, I circled the shifter as well, making sure to keep my distance. It worked in my favor that they wanted me alive, so I had a little wiggle room to fight and not worry he would bite my head off. Some of them were not aware of how strong they were and were known to cause irreparable damage accidently, according to the lectures Alex the Alpha had given me. The wolf lowered his head, pinning his ears close to his head and forcing my heart to skip a beat. I stumbled when the ground shook and groaned under our feet.
Flashes of lightning blinked from my left where Sissily was literally frying the shifter on a low simmer. Electric magic crackled in long ropes, zapping him left and right and making him yelp. She was doing good too, until at the last moment, the shifter jerked his body left but jumped at her from the right. The electric magic flew wide in the empty space, and my friend shrieked in surprise when the wolf tackled her. I was so focused on her, my heart in my throat, I didn’t see my opponent coming. Rookie mistake, but this was Sissily were we talking about. I couldn’t just let her get hurt.
His heavy weight rammed me in the side, taking me down. My shoulder popped, bearing the brunt of the impact, and stars danced at the edges of my vision. Hot breath puffed on one side of my face, while my other cheek was being mushed in the damp soil. Counting on the jerk pinning me not to kill me since he needed me alive, I took a deep breath and flicked my fingers at the wolf snapping his jaws in Sissily’s face.
Nothing happened.
“What the fuck.” Gasping for air while my ribs were being crushed, I did it again.
Nothing.
How was it possible that I almost took Sissily’s foot off by accident in the car, but I couldn’t help her when her life was in danger? Had Hecate heard my plea and took the magic away? Seriously? She couldn’t wait until we were not about to die? What in the actual fuck?
Anger bubbled under my skin, heating it.
Lighting up like a box of firecrackers accidently set on fire, my sigils bloomed underneath my skin. The ground where I was pressed shook hard enough to push the wolf off me, yet my rage grew. I’d be damned if I gave it back after all the shit I’d been through from the day I was born. Dry earth crackled, chasms opening and spreading like cobwebs from where I was plastered on the dirt. A golden glow burst from my fingertips, reaching for the wolf who had his sharp teeth embedded in Sissily’s forearm while she struggled to keep them away from her neck and face. Internally, I was cursing everything Hecate held dear, including all her precious witches. If my best friend died from being poisoned by a shifter’s bite, I would make it my mission to fuck up everything that revered her name.
Halfway to the wolf, the golden glow of my insane magic billowed into a cloud instead of a wrist-sized rope, and the bright light dimmed. It paused in its movement like it was gathering strength, and I sucked in a breath when the yellow tones darkened from orange into bright red with veins of black through it. With one strong pulse like a heartbeat, it split in three and zapped each of the shifters. The main cloud rose higher, looming over my best friend and the feral wolf suspending itself there. A strange feeling that it was accessing the situation washed over me, but that couldn’t be right. Magic didn’t have a mind of its own; it only carried our intention with it.
Didn’t it?
Fully focused on the menacing cloud drifting in the air, I didn’t feel my lips move at first. When I did pay attention, I couldn’t stop it if my life depended on it. Language spilled from my mouth that I’d never heard before and I shouldn’t even be able to pronounce properly. Yet my tongue had no bones twisting and moving over the lilting foreign words like I’d spoken it my entire life. One second everything stood still.
Then the deep red magic dropped on the wolf, enveloping it completely without getting anywhere near my friend. Tortured howls ripped through the silent air, sending tremors through me. It felt like they lasted for an eternity, the shrieks from animals replaced by the screams of men. All that I watched unblinking, my lips moving and musical words spilling from them like a lullaby. When the tormented sounds stopped, so did the mutters coming from me. My body rolled twice when the magic returned like a bullet inside me, and the next thing I knew, River was lifting me off the ground.
“Hazel.” His strong fingers bit into my shoulders as he shook me. “Hazel, can you hear me.”
“Ya.” My groan was more a whimper than anything else.
“Can you stand?” There was something in his tone that snapped my eye open.
River was kneeling next to me, holding my upper body up with a firm grip on my shoulders. Sissily stood behind him cradling her bleeding forearm to her chest, her blue peepers wary. My gaze dropped to River’s brown eyes, which had the same emotion swirling in them. It was a hot poker in my chest. Knowing those I tried to protect feared me.
“I don’t know what happened.” Sounding weak and pathetic would’ve pissed me off any other time. “The shifters?”
But they didn’t need to tell me. My eyes shifted from Blondie’s face to over his shoulder where the wolf who attacked me stood. A neat pile of bones rose from the ground like a large anthill, their color dull like they belonged to something that’d been dead for a century. Twisting in River’s hold, I found two more piles the same, and no sign of our attackers.
“I will never hurt you.” My comment was aimed at Sissily. “You know that right?”
“What kind of a dumb question is that? Of course I do.” She didn’t, though.
My best friend would’ve been in my face if she didn’t fear me instead of using River like a barrier between us. Not that I could blame her. I would do the same in her shoes, but it sure smarted like a bitch knowing it. With a fist squeezing my throat, I wiggled out of River’s hold and stood. His hand on my elbow helped when I swayed, but the moment I felt okay, I stepped away from him, too.
“I don’t know why that happened.” Arms wrapped around my middle, I kept glancing between the bone piles. “It wasn’t working, you know.” Darting desperate eyes at both of them in turn, I shivered, although I wasn’t cold. Actually, I was burning up. “When I saw the shifter taking Sissily down, the magic was not working. I had nothing.” It took a couple of swallows to wet my mouth and loosen my throat. “Then I got angry thinking she’d die and all I could do was watch. Then … the cloud …” I trailed off, turning away from them.
Neither of them said anything.
We were all lost in our thoughts when the corn stalks swayed a few feet away. “What in the name of all gods happened here?” Danika appeared through the greenery.
“We discovered an archeological site.” My anger was misplaced, but I snapped at her anyway. “Do you like it?”
“She sure sounds like herself.” Alex Greywood popped up from behind her his murmured mocking, and his eyes danced on his face in humor.
“Oh, goody. Since your dogs couldn’t take me in, you came to do the job personally, huh?” My sneer took the Alpha back, and the smile slipped from his face. “You should try it, see if you make a better, more artistic pile.” My hand flopped wildly around, pointing at the bones while I struggled not to cry. My eyes burned with unshed tears.
