Page 124 of Ascendant King

She heard something. I tilted my own head, letting my senses sharpen, letting the shift start to overtake me before I pulled back. Then, I heard it.

Screams. Human screams.

I looked around. We were at least a block from the beginning of the riverbed, meaning there should be businesses here. Lots of them. With lots of employees.

The sun was still high enough that it was the middle of the workday.

“Could Leon drain magic from humans?” I asked sharply.

When no one answered, I turned to look at the mages behind me. Their eyes were wide, and they turned to Cade.

“Maybe.” He tilted his head, as though trying to hear whatever Nia and I heard. “Petrona may know better.”

“She didn’t read his journals. You did.Could he drain humans?”

We were staring at an impossible forest, and too many impossible things had happened in the past few days.

“I don’t think so. Most humans don’t have enough magic for it to be worth it to him.” I could see Cade trying to answer the question tactfully, but he was as shaken as I was.

“Each of the individual fairies didn’t have that much magic. But when he drained the hive of them, it was plenty.” I turned to Gabe. “How long until reinforcements?”

We’d asked for more mages, more wolves. They should almost be here. Gabe was staring down at his phone.

“I don’t know, boss. We haven’t heard from anyone since we left the park.” He brought the phone up to his ear, but the ring cut off after one garbled note.

My mind put things together quickly. Of course he would have some way of jamming cell phones. Otherwise, the people he had trapped would have been calling for help.

“We need to go in. We’ll wait for Evelyn to come back, but after that, we’re going in.” I could see a shiver go through the crowd. Two fights in one day.

A normal pack would be nothing but a pile of loose-limbed success, eating food and drinking alcohol, celebrating their victory. But I was asking them to go again. To continue fighting with no end in sight.

“Wehaveto do this now. Leon is gaining power, and if he issuccessful, none of us will be free.” I raised my voice. “We have already done the impossible. We won against a mage at the height of his power.Wedid that. Now we have to do it again.We will have our win!”

For one perfect moment, I could feel my pack with me. We were ready. We could do this. I could feel my mother in my voice when I said, “We are Los Santos Pack! There is nothing we can’t do.”

The ground fractured open.

Chapter

Forty-One

Enormous trees grew out of nothing, splitting our group with their wide trunks. I grabbed Cade’s hand tightly, pulling him with me so we wouldn’t get separated as the forest grew around us.

The trees were battle scarred with long lines of burned bark and torn branches. Cade and I were trapped with a couple of members of Los Santos, only to have another tree grow between us. A face formed on the side, her graceful features delicate, a line of magic cutting across one of her eyes and down her nose.

She blinked, staring at us. “Help us.”

Then she choked, eyes going wide, sap pouring from her mouth as something stabbed through where her chest should be. A long line of gray-green magic extended from the wood. She looked down, coughing up more of the poison.

It smoked the asphalt where it landed. Cade moved first, pressing his hands up, creating a shield between us and the dryad. I shifted, raising my head in a howl.

I needed to know where the rest of my pack was. The answer came swiftly, first one voice, then another, then dozens as the Los Santos Pack got ready to meet whoever was attacking us.

I modulated my voice, communicating danger and magic. They answered back.

Cade turned in a circle. “Where are you?”

“Cade Bartlett,” a voice mocked. “Little boy playing with the crown he never deserved.”