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“If we don’t come up with an alternative, then I’m going to go with my plan, Neith would kill us herself if we died because we didn’t,” Raiden comments.

“Fine,” Van replies, clearly not liking it.

He is right though, it would be stupid to die to keep our secrets.

“Any ideas?” River asks, his eyes on the creatures around us.

We’re all silent. I’m stumped. I have no idea how the hell we’re going to get out of this situation without using all of us who can fly to do it.

River

J udging from the looks on the others’ faces, they are as stuck as I am for ideas.

We need to get out of here, and quickly.

We were given a time limit at the very beginning of the task, but instead of the timer sticking around so that we knew how much time we had left, it just disappeared.

Which is fucking unhelpful, because we’re just guessing how long we have left.

“River!” Evander shouts.

It brings me out of my thoughts, and my eyes widen in shock as I see a snake-like creature come barreling toward me.

It looks like our time to figure something out has quickly come to an end.

My sword is still in my hand, and I jump high, hoping that I’m going to be able to flip over the top of it.

Unfortunately, it’s a lot fucking bigger than I gave it credit for, and I end up landing on its red-hot scales.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I curse, as the heat starts to warm the soles of my feet.

“Keep your feet moving!” Ransom shouts.

I don’t question him; I just start to do a weird kind of tap dance on top of the damn snake as I pick my feet up as quickly as possible and run down the length of him trying to avoid him taking me into the lava with him as he dives.

“Evander, try to cool his feet down with your water,” Reed yells.

“On it!” Evander shouts back.

I immediately feel a cooling sensation around my boots, or at least what’s left of them. Thank fuck for that. I can’t slow down though because the damn snake is still diving and my only saving grace is that it’s so damn long that it’s taking a long time to dive.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Reed jump into the air to try to get me, but any time that he starts to fly in my direction, one of the other snakes dives for him and forces him away.

Griff immediately launches himself in the air to help Reed, and also try to get to me, but having someone else in the air seems just to piss them off more and the lava snakes double their attack.

Ransom starts to chant, throwing spells in order to help them and me, while Doc and Raiden call out directions to both Ransom and Evander so that they can switch quickly between those who need the most help.

I’m running out of snake, and there is no way that I’m going to make the jump back to the rock from here, and even if I do, it just means that we’re back where we started, stuck on a tiny rock island like sitting ducks.

Neith is also on a trial, and although I trust that Mabel was telling the truth, we have no real way of knowing if it’s going to bring up painful things from her past again.

The thought of her struggling and being alone pisses me off. We need to get this over and done with.

“Watch out!” Raiden yells, urgently, panic heavy in his voice.

I glance to the side to see a snake, mouth open wide heading straight for Reed, there is absolutely no way that he can move out of the way in time.

I’m done with this. I can see Raiden is about to shift and give away his power, and I am not going to let that happen.

I’m reasonably sure, thanks to some strange instinct that I have, that I may be able to stop this.

I just have to make sure that I aim the command at the snakes and not the guys.

The last thing I need is for them to be incapacitated as well.

That would also be a really big giveaway for everyone watching what I’m capable of. Although it’s going to be anyway. I shake my head, now is not the time to let my thoughts get away with me.

“Enough!” I say firmly, I don’t even raise my voice.

The alpha power in it snaps out around me, and the creature about to consume Reed freezes and then flops down into the lava, causing a giant wave.

The snake that I’m on stops diving and stays still so that I won’t fall off, and the scales beneath my feet cool so that I don’t have to keep moving on them like an idiot.

“What the fuck?” Griff is the first to exclaim.

I just shrug. We need to be really fucking careful what we say right now.

Most supes watching will be speculating on who has got the lava snakes under control.

Whoever they decide that it is, the supes watching will also know that they are stronger than they should be.

For some of us, that wouldn’t be a big deal, it would only be mildly surprising, but for others it could cause issues.

Ransom would probably be the most likely choice for them to assume has managed to get control over the lava snakes, since he’s a warlock.

However, if anyone realizes that I did it, and I used the alpha voice to do so, then that could cause issues with Ahren and his shifters at the least. But there’s nothing I can do about it now, and I’m going to need to use my alpha voice more in order to get us over to the bank and out of here.

My gaze moves to Ransom, and he winks, as he starts to wave his hands around dramatically and chant absolute bullshit.

It may not fool everyone, but it will definitely trick the majority, and that’s better than nothing.

The other guys quickly catch on to what he’s doing and start to add their own distractions in as well.

“Can we land?” Griff asks me.

I nod, “Yeah, I don’t know what’s happened, but the scales are cool here.”

The lava around us is as still as it was before the snakes appeared, and the one that I’m standing on won’t go anywhere unless I say so. Reed and Griff cautiously land next to me, and the cool scales expand so that they aren’t going to burn either.

“I need to get closer to the head so that it can hear me better if I speak quietly,” I mutter, hoping that they will be able to hear me.

“You could just start walking, maybe the cool scales will go with you?” Griff suggests. “Or actually run, or it’s going to take us forever.”