Page 18 of Magic Claimed
“Tell me again what you’re going to make me regret, little dragon. Or are the rumors I’ve heard actually true, and you can do nothing but bluster?”
The entire room let out a collective gasp, and I saw Seamus’s eyes nearly goggle out of his head. Faris’s jaw was beginning to take on the rough stone appearance of his elemental form, and all I could see was one more disaster. One more chaotic mess with my name on it. I had to stop this before it could even start, but how could I convince these two to…
“Outside!” Faris bellowed, the words echoing from a chest now even broader and harder than usual. I was pretty sure the entire building shook, which should have been the new guy’s first cue to shut up and leave.
He didn’t.
In fact, he actually began to shrink, collapsing inwards in a bizarre…
Oh. Oh no. He wasn’t shrinking—he wasshifting.
His arms and legs seemed to disappear, melting into his sides as his entire body lengthened, stretching on and on before crashing to the floor… in the form of the freakiest and most enormous snake I had ever seen in my life.
A naga shifter. Solitary, rare, and insanely dangerous, with deadly venom that was feared by most Idrians but was particularly toxic to other shifters.
Coils upon coils formed a circle in the center of the dance floor, and when he reared up, his head towered over everyone in the room, surveying us through slitted reptilian eyes. The center of his body was nearly as thick as my waist, and when his mouth opened, it displayed a pair of fangs the length of my forearm.
Then that freakishly huge head turned, looked straight at Tairen, and hissed.
The crowd lost its mind. Screaming chaos ensued as everyone scrambled for the nearest exit. Front door, back door, kitchen door… I wondered distantly whether Irene would ever recover from the invasion, but the thought vanished as my boss made a sound I’d never heard from him before.
It was almost a yelp, and coming from anyone else, I would have assumed it was a sign of abject terror. But Faris didn’t run. He moved forward, knocking aside a chair as he headed straight for the intruder.
The snake swiveled, saw him coming, and struck—lashing out with a speed that defied his enormous bulk.
He was trying to kill Faris.
The interloper had finally realized who was the most dangerous person in the room, and a part of me sort of sat backand smirked as I waited for Faris to end the fight. All he had to do was open up the floor and let the earth do the rest of the work. I’d seen him do it before, and it had never failed to be effective.
But for whatever reason, he just kept moving forward—closer to the enemy. The giant naga lashed out again, his fangs striking Faris’s arm before bouncing off the granite-hard surface of his elemental form.
My boss let out a bellow of rage and hammered a punch into the snake’s neck, but the naga barely seemed to notice, twisting out of the way in a writhing heap of powerful coils, knocking over tables and splintering chairs with every twist of his massive body.
Why wasn’t Faris using his elemental magic?
And why would a Shapeshifter Court emissary be stupid enough to attack the Shadow Court?
Not that I should be wasting time looking for answers when we were all now in mortal danger as a result.
“Raine, get out!” Faris growled, his eyes glowing so brightly they turned his entire face an unearthly green. “All of you, get out of here. If he bites you, you’re as good as dead.”
“Absolutely not,” I snapped. “I’m not leaving you to deal with this alone.
The snake hissed in anger and began to weave back and forth.
“He can’t hurt me,” Faris insisted, but his face told a different story. He almost looked scared, and I’d never seen Faris Lansgrave be afraid ofanything. “Now get out, and I will deal with it.”
Part of me wanted to obey his command and run, but I wasn’t as ignorant as I’d been only a few months before. No matter how much I wished I could deny it, this was a representative of the Shapeshifter Court—an official envoy—and his interactions with Faris would be interpreted as court business. Handing me a summons on Shadow Court territory without first consulting Faris was an enormous breach of etiquette, but the situation would only escalate further if Faris caused him significant harm in retaliation.
I knew Faris didn’t care about the consequences. He’d held power here for the last fifty years by refusing to bow to outside threats—backing up his authority with violence when necessary—and for that reason the courts tended to leave him alone. But with tensions between humans and Idrians being what they were, the last thing any of us wanted was infighting. Which meant I needed to keep my boss from killing the stupid snake-man.
Who was now circling the club, eyes on Faris, his scales making a dry rustling sound as they rasped over the floor.
He appeared to be ignoring the rest of us, but as he continued to circle, his head made the tiniest jerking motion, and my siren magic latched on with a vengeance.
The naga was a fool, and he’d been chosen for his foolishness. Who else would dare deliver such a summons behind their king’s back, on another court’s territory? And now he saw an opportunity. Sensed weakness. The dragons would not risk interference, not here, and the old queen was weak. If he could kill Faris, he would have power. Respect. No need to serve as apetty mercenary or messenger boy. He could take over this territory and…
Good grief, where did theyfindthis idiot? Who exactly had sent him?
