Page 140 of Ascendant King

The thought brought me up short, and I shoved myself up, running as fast as I could to Cade. When I shifted, he blinked in surprise.

“The card.” I opened my hand, reaching for him. “From Summer. Heroceanof magic, ready to wash the world clean.”

His eyes lit before his face fell.

“You had it before we went into Leon’s twisted fantasy.” Cade looked me over, but I was naked, my pants discarded when I shifted.

I shook my head. “Summer’s smart. She sees things we don’t. He’s on fire from the magic he’s consuming. She brought the ocean back to him.”

I reached for Cade, checking his jacket pockets. He blinked, then reached into the inside pocket of his coat. He drew the small card out, and I shifted instantly, opening my mouth. Cade slid the card inside, and even without biting down, I could feel the magic crawling over it.

Leon was consuming magic from the ley lines, and he thought he was in control. You could drink from a river, even a massive one. But if you tried to drink from the ocean while swimming in the middle of it, that was called drowning.

I started forward, Leon’s magic burning my paws, sending shooting pain up my limbs, but I kept going forward until the heat and light from the geyser he had opened made even my bones hurt. Leon was so distracted by what he was doing he didn’t even notice me.

When I reached him, I thought about how I activated Cade’s magic, how I brought it to life with just a thought. I dropped the card next to his feet and pressed a paw to it, thinking of the ocean.

I felt it activate and turned, running as fast as I had ever run, running faster than I had when I was fleeing my siblings’ murder, running faster than I had fled House Bartlett, running like I was running toward the one person in the world I loved more than anything.

Skidding to a stop, I leaned against Cade’s legs, panting as I watched Summer’s magic break open.

Chapter

Forty-Six

The card had been simple, just one more of Summer’s oceans. But when her magic flowed out, it surrounded Leon, consuming him.

She had opened the end of the ouroboros, she’d opened it for Leon to drink from the end and the beginning of magic. A man as greedy as him couldn’t resist, and he swallowed, and swallowed, and it consumed him.

I saw him drink it in, gasping, going down to his knees, choking on it. Gold exploded, his flesh torn off, what was left dripping from his skin. His eyes were wide when he collapsed on the ground.

Silence.

No one spoke, harsh breathing muffled. For a brief second, I caught a flash of the world as Summer saw it.

Everything around us was magic. It pulsed off the wolves, dripped from the trees themselves. The dryads exuded magic, and now I could finally see how it flowed between them in the air but also under the ground, lines of color that linked the entire forest, some of it stretching out so far beyond my vision that I couldn’t even guess where it went.

In the air above us, the gargoyles circled, their magic flowing through the wind. If I inhaled, I was breathing it in. And the fairies, dancing from tree to tree, hiding, were a long, brilliant stream of colors.

Even the non-magical things in the world showed me what they were made of. The concrete, the buildings, the city itself flowed with power.

I wondered if anyone else could see the magic we were all swimming in every day and just completely unaware of.

Then Jesaiah made that soft moaning sound and shuffled forward. Larissa tried to keep him with her, but he shrugged her off, stumbling over broken concrete and torn branches, roots that cracked the ground. He dropped to his knees at Leon’s side.

Then he collapsed down, curled facing his master. With one last rattling breath, he stopped moving.

I was still tense, and I spun in a tight circle, searching for any more of Leon’s allies. When I didn’t see them, I howled, long and true.

Voices joined me, my pack calling their attendance, shouting that they were with me. We had won.

We had won.

Victory broke on my tongue, and I could still see some lingering traces of magic, the power that flowed from me to Nia, to Coral, to Theo, to all my betas, as though my power over them as an alpha gave them some of me. I wasn’t alone. I wouldneverbe alone, not with that flow of magic.

I howled again, and I heard human voices join in, mages shouting in joy. Cade dropped to his knees next to me, hands limp in his lap as he stared at Leon, and I let my howl fade. I nuzzled close to him, pressing my muzzle under his chin.

He wrapped his arms around me, fisting his fingers in my fur, and began to sob hysterically.