Page 19 of Magic Betrayed (The Shifter of Sheridan Avenue #2)

NINETEEN

Which was how I ended up lying flat on the roof of a crumbling nineteenth century Victorian house, draped in fae magic, while an over-eager ghost hunter live-streamed his enthusiasm for what was likely to be his own impending demise.

If I ever got out of this…

I was getting my own dang phone.

Not that it would have changed my current dilemma. Even if I’d let Faris give me a second phone, my kidnappers would have taken it and I would still be stuck on this roof. But I was definitely coming around to the idea of being able to make calls or texts whenever I needed to. I could have warned Kes of danger the moment Shane told me about the bounty, instead of worrying about who might see the text and waiting until I got home. I could have called Faris for help after I was attacked, instead of wandering around Bricktown with a head injury.

And if I had a phone right now, I could send a silent message to the ridiculous Tanner twins, telling them to pack up their cameras and run for their lives.

But my stupid pride had gotten in the way, and the ensuing series of events had landed me here—trying to communicate in some other, much less subtle way.

If I could only get their attention…

But Tegan was busy setting up their equipment, and Trey, I discovered, was constitutionally incapable of not talking for more than a few seconds at a stretch. He was pacing back and forth in front of the house babbling into his phone, alternating between awed and excited and trying to sound just a little bit scared. He clearly was still under the impression that he was part of an attempt to distract the occupants of the house, and I had to admit that either this was just his normal personality or he was giving a genuinely inspiring performance.

There was nothing around me I could throw. No way to signal without making noise. Maybe I could use a bit of fae magic to blink an SOS, though Trey might misinterpret it as me needing his help. It could also just as easily be seen by the bounty hunters—wherever they were lurking as they set up their “plan”—but would they know what it meant? For that matter, would Trey ?

As I paused there, flailing for ideas, I heard a slight scuffing sound from behind me, and it was almost too late by the time my brain registered that there should be nothing and no one else up here to make any sounds at all…

I rolled to the right, caught a glimpse of a dark form looming over me, and instinctively jerked away. But I was too close to the edge. My legs went over and I barely caught myself by my fingertips as my assailant moved in.

Just in time, I recalled that the porch roof was only a few feet below me and dropped, hitting hard and rolling to the side.

Trey, of course, did not react, because my fae magic was suppressing the sound of my fall. I realized my mistake a little too late, as my pursuer—who appeared to be the goblin of the group—leaped down after me. He landed nimbly on his feet, bared his fangs in my direction, and then it was officially past the time for stealth. I dropped the sound dampening.

“Trey, Tegan, get out now! This isn’t fake, it’s for real, and you’re in danger! Go!”

But I hadn’t fully accounted for the instincts of a born live-streamer, who instead of running—as one might rationally assume under the circumstances—simply tilted his phone camera up towards the sound and gawked.

“Are you getting this?” he screeched over his shoulder.

If he was, we were all in a heap of trouble.

But I didn’t have time to explain, because my pursuer was still staring straight at me. As if the darkness I’d pulled around me like a shroud wasn’t affecting him at all.

Could goblins see through it? I made a mental note to ask Shane—if I survived—and dropped the shadows, too. They were splitting my concentration, and I needed all my energy for not dying.

“You’re meat, half-breed,” the goblin snarled at me, so I hit him with a wallop of fae magic, and literally leaped off the edge of the roof. It was a hard landing, but I rolled and came up with nothing worse than a slightly tweaked ankle.

Trey was staring at me with open-mouthed awe as I hobbled towards him at an awkward run, grabbed his arm, and tugged.

“Get out ,” I growled. “Go! I can’t protect you, and you could literally die here.”

I was pretty sure I’d finally gotten through to him, because his eyes went wide—with terror, I hoped.

“Dude, really? Who are these guys?”

Scratch that. This was going to require more than just words. After a quick glance over my shoulder, I snatched Trey’s phone out of his hand. There was no time to make a call, and Ari would have summoned reinforcements by now anyway, so I reached for my elemental magic. I had to pull from deep below the surface, but I found just enough water to yank it towards me, wrap it around the phone, and freeze it solid, before handing the resulting ice cube back to Trey.

He let out a sound like a wounded seal.

“Listen. To. Me,” I hissed. “You are in the wrong place at the wrong time and they will kill you . I don’t care about the plan. I don’t care about your streaming or your show. Get. Out.”

My speech was punctuated by the sound of a car engine and a sudden flare of headlights. Tegan, at least, had gotten the message. He threw the car into reverse, made a quick U-turn, and stopped directly beside us.

I opened the passenger door and shoved.

Trey tripped over his own feet, and half fell onto the floorboards, babbling wildly. Thankfully, his brother got a firm grip on his collar and helped him the rest of the way. I tucked his feet inside, shut the door, and they sped off, spraying me with dirt and rocks as the headlights receded quickly into the distance.

Score one for sanity.

Unfortunately, their precipitate exit meant the twins had left at least some of their probably heinously expensive camera equipment behind. I would have to try to get it back to them, but for now…

I needed to focus on stalling for time.

Because I might have saved the twins, but my yelling had attracted the attention of all five of our enemies.

Between me and the house, the goblin had dropped down from the roof and was regarding me with glowing golden eyes filled with rage. Apparently, my wallop hadn’t hit hard enough.

To my left was the tall, gangly form of the drus, and to my right were two more human-shaped figures—probably the fae and the fire elemental. How did I know?

Because the rumbling growl from behind me definitely hadn’t come from any human-shaped chest. If I wasn’t mistaken, there was a very angry bear-shifter breathing down my neck, which meant I was surrounded by extremely motivated and unhappy enemies looking for revenge.

Enemies who had no real reason to keep me alive.

First, I felt something grab my ankles. I looked down and discovered roots criss-crossing their way over my feet before rising up my legs. I flinched when the fire elemental released a jet of flame, but it streaked past my face to impact with a whoosh on a pile of wood and dried brush placed about halfway between the house and the treeline. Then he turned the other way and fired off two more blasts—lighting up two more makeshift bonfires.

So that’s what they’d been doing out here. Now the entire front half of the house was lit up, so there would be no sneaking out—or in. No clandestine rescues under the cover of darkness. These bounty hunters had no intention of taking anyone quietly. They were here to threaten and destroy, if that was what it took to get what they wanted.

As I took in the scene—and the anger on their faces—I realized there was a very good chance I wasn’t going to make it out of this. But if I could stall long enough?

Callum would find us. Faris, Kira, Rath, and Shane would be right behind him. And even if it was too late for me, they would save Kes and Logan. Even if I could never repay them, even if the scales would never be balanced, my family would be safe, and they would still have a home for as long as they needed it.

And to my shock, even as I silently repeated those words to myself, I discovered that… I actually believed them.

No matter how it had begun, no matter how little sense it made, we were no longer on our own against the world . That was what Faris had been trying to tell me. What Callum had been trying to show me. And now that I was here, now that I was facing a fight for my life, I realized that I’d finally accepted it as truth.

I didn’t understand why—had no idea how we’d gotten so lucky—but I trusted my friends to fight for us, believe the best, and never, ever give up.

All I had to do was hold out until they showed up.

“If you’re going to spin us another story, you can save your breath.” The fae woman regarded me with a smirk as she strolled forward with more than a hint of swagger in her stride—at ease and in command of the situation. “We know you’re alone. And we know you lied to us.”

“What do you think I lied about?” I countered. “Because I don’t care about the bounty. And the target does have something I want.”

I just didn’t plan on telling them that something was my kid.

“Nice try, but we asked around. We know you and the target are roommates. And this time, you don’t have a dragon to back you up.”

That much, the bear shifter would know by smell. And as for our living situation? Any one of my neighbors could have revealed the truth in total innocence. What my neighbors wouldn’t have known was where to find us, and that was something I was going to have to investigate in the very near future.

“I’m just here as a scout,” I replied coolly. “The rest of the team will be showing up shortly.”

“Right. Of course.” The fire elemental let out a huff of scorn. “A scout with no phone.”

“How do you know I…” Oops. Way to confirm his suspicion, Raine.

His smirk told me that was exactly what he’d intended.

“Here’s how we’re going to play this,” the fae woman announced, looking almost bored. “You’re going to stand here where everyone can see you. We’re going to make our demands, and then if they don’t give us what we want, we’re going to try making you scream. And if screaming doesn’t work, we’ll kill you in front of them. And if that still doesn’t do the trick, we’ll take that house apart, board by board, and kill everyone except the bounty we’re here to collect on.” She gave me a bright, vicious smile. “Great plan, right?”

I bared my teeth right back. “Perfect. Super well thought out, really. I commend you. I’d give you a high five, but you’re too far away and it seems I can’t move my feet.”

“Cute.” Her smile died. “You know, I think I might actually enjoy this.”

I shrugged. “You might. For a few minutes.”

The woman rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you go ahead and get it out of your system. What’s going to happen after that?”

“Well, there’s one teeny tiny little flaw in your plan. It’s not your fault,” I assured her soothingly. “You did the best you could with what you had. See, the problem is, whoever sold you information about us didn’t give you the whole story. Probably because they didn’t know either.”

“And what’s the whole story?”

I leaned closer. Looked her dead in the eye and smiled. “You have no idea what’s in that house,” I said softly.

She just laughed. “Poor calculation on your part. Because obviously you think you do, and I can just make you tell me.”

Awfully fond of torture, this one. Or at least fond of talking about it. Maybe it was time to see if she’d make good on her threats. Because the more tangents I could distract her with, the better.

“Okay.” I shrugged again. “If you think you’re better at this than the last people who tried, go ahead.”

The woman’s lip curled as she folded her arms and called up her magic. As if to say that I was so weak, she didn’t even need to lift a finger. Instead, she shaped the blue glow of her power into a long, narrow blade that hovered in the air directly in front of my face.

“You don’t need your eyes to talk,” she informed me in a sing-song voice. “And all we need from you is information.”

The blade moved closer—bright enough to make my eyelids slam shut.

But she was right. I didn’t need my eyes for what came next.

The last time we met, they’d seen me use my elemental power, but they’d been stuck in the sinkhole when I infused the ice with fae magic. It was a good bet that only the goblin actually realized I had it. So when the dagger darted for my face, I created a thin, glowing shield of fae power and slammed it between my eyes and the blade.

The blade shattered. The bounty hunter recoiled, slapped by the backlash.

“Oh, you are so going to regret that,” she muttered viciously, and gestured to the drus.

The pressure on my feet and ankles tightened like the coils of a snake—as if the roots were attempting to draw me straight down into the ground. I reached for water, but it was too deep, and I wasn’t fast enough.

I heard a sound—a faint, almost inaudible snap from my left ankle—followed by a stab of pain so sharp it took my breath away.

“Still feel like being a smart-ass?” A sneer twisted the fae woman’s lips, as the goblin laughed softly to himself and the elemental began juggling tiny balls of flame.

I won’t lie—the pain wasn’t awesome, and the roots held me so tightly that I couldn’t transfer my weight to my right leg.

“It’s not like I woke up and chose to be one,” I gasped out, fighting to keep my tone as breezy as possible. “The smart-assery chooses you.”

“So you’re a dual.”

The cool thing about being considered an abomination by most Idrians? The ones who knew what I was didn’t want any of the others to find out I existed. So the fact that I had four different magics wasn’t commonly known outside the highest echelons of Idrian government.

And these jokers? They were operating on incomplete information. Blake might have hired them, but he wasn’t going to throw his secrets around for free, and he clearly hadn’t told them everything about their target.

Which meant I still had two aces left to play—I just had to pick my moments carefully.

All while giving no hint to those watching from the house that I was in pain. Because if Kes knew I was being tortured? Nothing and no one would be able to stop her from giving herself up to save me, and I would never, ever risk that.

“Yup, I’m a dual,” I said matter-of-factly. “Just not your lucky day, I guess.”

“You think that was my only option?” The woman laughed in my face. “Oh sweetheart, I have so many other ways of making you scream.”

Sure she did. And I had so much practice with not screaming even when I wanted to. Wonder which of us would give up first?

This time, she didn’t bother with magic, but pulled an actual blade from her belt and tossed it into the air a few times before it brightened with a blue glow.

I could stop her magic—only because it turned out mine was stronger—but an actual metal blade was a different story. Maybe if I was fast enough with ice, but this soil was dry, and even if I could pull up enough water, I wasn’t sure my ice was sturdy enough to block a determined stab with some muscle behind it.

“I’m willing to give you a fair chance,” she said conversationally. “Tell me about their defenses, and I’ll only take one of your eyes.”

Somewhere behind me, I heard a grumbling sound from the bear, but she ignored it. The goblin was watching avidly, as if he couldn’t wait for the screaming to begin, and the drus was picking at his nails. While to my right, the fire elemental was still juggling, each time lofting the tiny orbs of flame higher and higher. Spinning them in competing orbits. Throwing them further and further from himself…

The trouble was, he was clearly not from this neck of the woods. Anyone who’d lived in Oklahoma for longer than a week could have told him that the wind really did come sweeping down the plain, and it could do so at pretty much any time—without any warning or any need for magic.

So he was caught completely unprepared when a freak gust slammed into us, at maybe thirty or forty miles per hour. Nothing scary or damaging… unless you happened to be juggling balls of fire during the dry season.

One of them flew off and hit a tree, which instantly began to crackle and burn. Another hit the ground, but it found a rocky spot and sputtered out. But two others flew as if guided by a malevolent hand and splashed onto the bone dry wood shingles that covered the roof of the Haversmith House.

“ No, ” I breathed, utterly unable to hide my horror at the sight.

“You moron,” the fae woman snarled. “She’s no good to us dead.”

“Kes, get out,” I screamed, as if that would help—as if it wasn’t nearly as dangerous out here. But unless I did something, that house was going to go up like dry kindling, and take everyone in there with it.

With terror sludging my veins like ice, I shut my eyes and reached deep. Deeper. Looking for water. It was there, but sluggish, and tried to slip from my grasp. My head hurt, and my hands were shaking, and then I felt the cold press of metal against my neck.

“Don’t,” the fae woman said coldly.

I ignored her.

She raised the blade, hilt first, as if preparing to knock me out…

But before the weapon could descend, the front door of the house burst off its hinges.

The fire in the trees died like a match being snuffed out, and a slight, trembling form stepped hesitantly out onto the porch.

Ethan.

Well, great. Now we were all dead.