Page 24 of Silver
“Call her,” Wilston suggested, moving closer to my side to sneak an arm around my waist. I leaned into him, loving how affectionate he was with me, never able to keep his hands off of me for too long.I felt Shamus’s snout bump into my other side, so I petted his head. We had all our familiars out but they were invisible as we waited for Julie, not that it stopped Shamus from wanting more pets.
Xari called Julie but it went straight to voicemail. “Fuck,” he muttered, clearly thinking the worst had happened.
“Let’s go sit in the van for a bit,” Niam offered, taking Xari’s hand and leading him to the front. Since the trailer had to be detached for us to park here, we followed to sit in the back. We could be waiting for hours and since none of us wanted to part ways, we could only sit there and wait. I would’ve offered for Xari to get some sleep while he could, but I knew he wouldn’t be able to rest until Julie had arrived safely.
When we were all in the van, Niam took Xari’s phone and started searching for places that sold RVs, clearly trying to distract Xari while we waited. “This place is only thirty minutes away and they have two different ones.” He pointed to the screen and Xari nodded along as Niam read the description of both of the RVs and what they could and couldn’t do.
“I like the first one the best,” I said, adding my thoughts to the discussion.
“Me, too,” Xari replied, taking the phone from Niam and handing it through the window to us. I took it and looked over the pictures with Wilston. It had three separate closed off sleeping pods, allowing us all a place to sleep. The couch and seating area could be pulled out to one big bed for Julie, unless Altair wanted it. We wouldn’t find his soulmatch here anyway, and I truly doubted we could transport a RV through a portal.
I sighed, gaining all of their attention. “I just realized when we enter the portal to find Tino, we won’t have any car or anything. Nothing other than the things we can carry.”
Wilston side-hugged me and rubbed my arm in comfort. “We’ll plan ahead and carry some tents and other survival gear. Money probably won’t work so no need to save it. And when we leave, we can give everything to Julie, so it isn’t a waste.” We had no idea how much magic it would take to make the portal, so we couldn’t risk not being able to use elemental magic to create shelter. We simply had to buy what we could just to be safe.
“I just hate starting over,” I admitted, fearing we would have to survive in the forest or somewhere equally horrifying.
“We can decide where the portal leads us, remember the leaders had a way of doing that, so we can, too,” Niam said, his voice calm and sure. It helped a little bit. The ocean had almost killed me, and even though I tried to act like it hadn’t been that horrible, it had been. I hadn’t stepped onto a beach since then.
“Car!” Niam shouted out of the blue, alerting all of us.
Chapter 21
Wilston
I was so grateful we’d picked this location. The motel lay on the outskirts of town and since it was later in the day, the parking lot was basically empty. That was, except for the car Julie exited from and then the five cars following behind her, all carrying mages.
“Fuck,” Xarius muttered in disbelief.
“Protective ward around Julie, now!” I whispered harshly so they heard. We all held hands and felt the ward click into place as Julie looked behind her to see all the mages spilling out of the abandonedcars. The greeting smile she had quickly vanished as she ran for her life towards us.
“Shamus and King, attack the mages!” I ordered at the same time Niam said, “Snowflake, Leon, attack! Mages only!” They were still invisible, but we felt them as they powered through, attacking the unsuspecting mages.
Julie reached us unharmed. All magic thrown at her was pinged away easily, our magic too strong for theirs to penetrate. We’d added the same protection to ourselves, now that we knew it worked. How we hadn’t thought about protective wards against attacks on us was truly a joke. But all of this was new to us.
While still holding hands we warded the area, making us invisible and silent to all people outside the ward, protecting them from entering the battle zone. We felt the ward snap into place, and breathed easier knowing no innocents would be harmed or be able to watch us do magic.
“Xar,” Julie panted next to us. “What the fuck?!”
I winced. Yeah, we hadn’t exactly planned this well.
“Stay behind us,” Xarius ordered, not bothering with an explanation yet. She listened and seemed to understand that now wasn’t the best time for questions and answers.
“Wind!” Xarius said, alerting me we needed to strangle them. There were around twenty to thirty mages, so I started on the far left and took five out at first, Xarius targeting the ones to the right.
“Water!” Niam said, taking Silver’s hand in his, building their power even further as they drowned ten in one go, somehow working in perfect harmony. They were our best proof we’d known each other in an earlier life, their dynamic so easy and instinctual.
Twenty were dead because of us, and the rest our familiars had dealt with while we fought the others. We stood there in silence, catching our breath as we observed the carnage in front of us. I was so glad the ward was still in place. We had much to clean up here.
“Shamus, King, you can eat,” I said, glad they were still invisible so I wouldn’t have to see them eat the mages.
“Snowflake, Leon, you can eat, too,” Xarius said, following my lead in offering our familiars more power.
“I can move their clothes to the middle once our familiars are done, then we can burn it on the asphalt,” Silver said, reminding us he could move objects easily. “The leftover bodies, too.”
“Sounds great!” Niam exclaimed, patting him on the shoulder. “Then afterward, we can power wash the ground for blood and ashes, making it seem like we weren’t even here.”
We shared a smile, all of us high on adrenaline after the fight. I felt so invincible having used so much magic freely. It sounded bad, but you couldn’t truly let go and just use your powers carelessly unless you wanted to kill. At all other times I had to have a certain control over my magic, but in fights I was truly free to feel just how powerful I was. It was an addictive feeling. No wonder the leaders became so power hungry in the end. The difference between us and them was that I wouldn’t seek out more power or punish those who were more powerful than me.
