Page 69 of Beastkin
“You took him from me!” Karrick snarled, advancing on my parents with deadly intent. My father tried to raise another shield, but the vines tightened around his ankles, sending him crashing to the floor. “You stole mymate!”
The magical rope around my wrists suddenly felt looser, as if Karrick’s beastly magic was interfering with its binding properties. I twisted my hands, trying to work them free, desperate to help him. My heart soared with relief and love so intense it physically hurt. He’d found me. Somehow, impossibly, he’d found me.
My mother scrambled to her feet, her face twisted with fury and fear. “You abomination! You’ve corrupted my son with your filthy beast magic!”
“The only thing corrupted here is you,” Karrick growled, and I felt a surge of fierce pride at his words. The temperature in the room dropped several degrees as frost began forming on the windows.
Behind him, I glimpsed movement in the doorway, more figures rushing in. A werewolf with his golden eyes blazing. A red-haired man I didn’t recognize. Others I couldn’t make out in the chaos. Karrick had brought help, a tiny magical battalion made up of monsters and witches.
“Karrick,” I called out, my voice cracking with emotion. “The rope! I can almost?—”
He turned toward me for just a split second, and I saw the moment his eyes found mine. The raw relief and love in his expression made my chest flutter. But that moment of distraction was all my father needed.
From the floor he shouted something in old Welsh, his hand thrust toward Karrick. And I watched as the binding spell hit himsquare in the chest. Horror filled me as his massive frame suddenly locked up, frozen mid-step. His eyes went wide with shock and rage, but his body wouldn’t obey him anymore. He was like a living statue and no longer breathing.
“No!” I screamed, finally managing to slip one hand free of the loosened rope. But before I could do anything else, my mother was beside me, her hand pressed against my forehead.
“Sleep Phoenix!” she cried, pressing her spell against my skin. “And when you wake, this will all be nothing but a passing dream.”
“Not so fast,” the red-haired fae said, green magic forming around his hands as he suddenly appeared next to us.
Before my mother could even form a syllable, the fae touched a finger to her forehead, and she went limp, crumpling to the floor. Then, with a snap of his fingers, she disappeared completely.
“What did you do with her?” I gasped, watching my mother vanish before my eyes.
“Just a little relocation spell,” the fae replied with a wink. “She’s taking a nice nap in the garden shed. She’ll be quite confused when she wakes up.”
My father bellowed with rage, still tangled in the vines sprouting from the walls. The werewolf with golden eyes pounced on him immediately, pinning him to the ground with a growl that made the hair on my arms stand up.
“Phoenix,” the fae said, turning to me. His eyes glimmered with an otherworldly light. “I’m Wild. That’s Elias over there helping your boyfriend.” He gestured to a dark-haired witch who was already examining Karrick’s frozen form. “We need to get that binding rope off you completely.”
With nimble fingers, Wild helped me remove the magical rope from my other wrist. The moment it fell away, I felt my magic surge back through my veins like wildfire, hot and urgent and desperate to be released. The connection to Karrick flared back to life so suddenly it leftme dizzy.
“Karrick,” I whispered, stumbling toward his frozen form. His eyes followed my movement, the only part of him that could still move. The rage in them had been replaced by something softer, more vulnerable. Fear. Not for himself, but for me.
“What did my father do to him?” I asked, my voice breaking as I placed my hands on Karrick’s chest. He was cold to the touch, his skin like marble.
“Binding spell,” Elias replied with a scoff. “And a pathetic one at that. I was doing these at the age of twelve.”
Elias reached into his pocket and drew out a two-foot-long wand wound with gold and copper. With a few muttered words and a tap to Karrick’s forehead, I watched as the spell melted away, a breath finally filling Karrick’s lungs. Relief washed through our bond as I threw my arms around his neck.
The moment Karrick could move again, his arms came around me with crushing force, pulling me against his chest as if he could somehow absorb me into his very being. I buried my face in his neck, breathing in his familiar scent beneath the lingering smell of magic and adrenaline.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he whispered against my hair, his voice rough and broken. “I couldn’t feel you through our bond. I thought?—”
“I’m here,” I managed, my own voice thick with tears I’d been holding back for hours. “I’m okay. You found me.”
His massive hands cupped my face, tilting it up so he could look at me. His brown eyes searched mine desperately, as if checking to make sure I was really there, really whole. “Did they hurt you? Did they?—”
“No,” I said quickly, though my cheek still stung where Thomas had slapped me. “Not really. They were planning to, but you got here first.”
Relief flooded through our bond so intensely it made my knees weak. Karrick pressed his forehead against mine, and for a moment the chaos around us faded into nothing. There was just him andme and the overwhelming gratitude that we’d found each other again.
“Uh, guys?” Wild’s voice cut through our reunion. “Not to interrupt this touching moment, but we should probably get moving before?—”
The sound of footsteps thundering up the stairs made us all freeze. Heavy boots, multiple sets, moving with military precision.
“Backup,” Atlas growled from where he still had my father pinned. “Security must know we’re here.”