Page 32 of Shadowed Spirits (Haunted Magic #2)
IZZY
By the time Levi puts up a shield, there are three throwing knives embedded in the ground, with one between my feet and the other two on either side. I look back at Lua with wide eyes, and she cackles, the sound unhinged. “Hysterical,” I agree dryly when I get over the fact that I was almost a shish kabab.
Lua tsks at Levi and his shield. “Oh, don’t be like that, boy. Don’t you want your mommy to be bestest friends forever and ever with your human mate? I did always tell you as a wee, annoying babe that if you disappointed me, you would be cursed. And what do you know? The fates agreed and cursed you with a human mate.”
Levi was unphased until Lua mentioned me. He snarls, “You’re no mother of mine, and Isabel is not a curse. She’s the best thing to ever happen to me, so watch your mouth, Lua Mater .”
She makes an exaggerated gagging sound. “Ugh. You’re so adorable, I’m going to puke.” She bends over like she’s throwing up over the side of the ledge and tumbles forward. I gasp as she plummets head over feet toward the ground, wondering if it’ll really be that easy to take her out. Unfortunately, she lands on her sandal-clad feet with a crazed giggle.
Wandering over to our group, Lua pokes Levi’s shield curiously. He clenches his jaw, and the tendons in his neck stand out as he struggles to keep it up under her prodding.
Well, that doesn’t bode well for our ability to stop her. If Levi can barely maintain a shield when all she does is poke at it, how in the hell are we supposed to overpower her?
She slowly circles the six of us, tapping her chin thoughtfully. I look around at my mates and see all of them warily watching her like I am.
When she’s finished her inspection, Lua claps her hands excitedly. “So, here’s how it’s gonna go, sport. You’re going to hand yourself over, and I’ll kill you, with only a little light torture first. Then I’ll kill your mates and absorb all your powers. It’s a win-win for everyone. I save time because I have people to kill, things to destroy, worlds to take over, and you get to contribute to a cause bigger than anything your pathetic mortal self could ever hope to be.”
I roll my eyes. Like Doyle, she’s horrible at persuading me to do what she wants. “Hmm, how ’bout you go fuck yourself instead? How did you even know we were going to be here?”
Lua lets out a long-suffering sigh. “How did I know? Because I know everything!” she screams, the shrieking sound hurting my eardrums. Her chest heaves as her bloodred eyes dart around before she closes her lids and composes herself. “I knew the moment you killed the mage and shattered my protection charms that you had finally womaned up and decided to meet your destiny. It was adorable watching you scour the six caves. I thought for sure the pesky jaguar shifters were going to kill you, but alas, they took you to their cave to, what, drink tea? Hunt rodents? Play charades?”
My eyebrows raise as I realize she couldn’t see what we did in the cave, so she doesn’t know that we talked with Angerona. I wonder why she couldn’t watch us in La Esperanza . I don’t know what advantage it could possibly give us, but I feel a tiny bit smug that she doesn’t know quite as much as she thinks she does. “Why were you working with Doyle, anyway?”
She stares at me blankly. “Who?”
I snort. Doyle wasn’t nearly as important to his “partner” as he thought he was if she doesn’t even know his name. “The mage you were working with.”
“Oh, yes, him. Nasty little critter, wasn’t he? And why? Power, of course.”
“What did he do that gave you more power?” I ask.
“Really? You’re the best the fates could send against me? Fine. I’ll hold your tiny, useless mortal hand, since you’re incapable of putting the pieces together.” I would be offended if Lua weren’t an awful person and completely off her rocker. As it stands, her insults don’t rile me the way she hoped they would, if her frown is any indication.
Huffing, Lua continues. “The previous mage head councilor used cura tools I managed to pilfer when I escaped Tartarus to figure out how to siphon magic from other mages. The only side effect is death for the drained, but we were both fine with that. The mage you killed took it a step further and found a way to steal the innate magic of other species. Shifters, vampires, fae, anyone he could get his hands on was fair game. Thanks to those two, I’ve nearly doubled my power in the last couple hundred years.”
Well, that’s… really not good. She was already almost impossible to stop before, and now she has twice as much power. I also had no idea mages had figured out how to drain other species of their magic. That partially explains all the people in cages at council HQ we found, but I think the mages were running additional experiments on the other species.
Even if we can defeat Lua, we still have the colossal problem of the mage council. I don’t believe for a single second that Doyle was acting alone. I’m guessing most of the council was in on it and will continue his experiments even with him gone. We have to stop the rest of the council from getting any more powerful and destroy the knowledge of how to siphon magic. I don’t trust anyone with that knowledge.
That’s not even mentioning the fact that, if any of the other species found out what was happening, we’d have an all-out supernatural war on our hands. While supernaturals aren’t as numerous as regular humans, all of us fighting each other would definitely destroy the planet, no help from Lua needed.
I can feel the panic trying to consume me at the thought of everything we have to fix, but I shove it down. I need all of my focus on Lua right now. “Why did the mages help you? They had to know you’d eventually double-cross them.”
“Hmm, so there is a brain behind that pretty face, after all. Why else? They thought they were getting the majority of the power, only giving the scraps to me at our meets. Unknown to them, I was siphoning the power as they collected it, taking nearly everything the pathetic mages, shifters, vampires, and others had to offer. While each individual’s magic was paltry compared to my innate magic, after four hundred years and tens of thousands of earthlings drained, my power has grown immensely. My sons and their father and the other curae can try to imprison me again, but they won’t be able to.” Her voice ends on a growl as I feel magic electrify the air.
Lua’s hair starts whipping around her and her eyes glow an eerie neon red as she starts floating. She hovers there, staring at us with her creepy, sightless gaze for a moment. Her back arches unnaturally as multicolored magic surrounds her until she straightens with an audible snap. I wince because there’s no way that was comfortable.
“I’m growing tired of the stalling, sport.” Lua’s voice vibrates with power and echoes around the cave, making shivers crawl up my spine. “You have until three to hand yourself over. After, I won’t be so nice. I’ll kill you after a lot of torture. It matters not to me which you choose, however. One… two… three.”
After she says one, Lua sends a punch of multicolored magic at our shield. I expect it to bounce off or leave a few cracks. What I don’t expect is for it to shatter the defensive dome and knock Levi unconscious. I don’t have time to focus on Levi on the floor, because Lua darts toward me with superhuman speed, so fast I can barely even see her.
I throw up a dome, hoping against hope it will go up before she grabs me. As much as I enjoy getting tortured by an insane cura, I really don’t. Squeezing my eyes shut, I brace for the collision. Instead of being hit straight on, I’m shoved to the side. I snap my eyes open right as my shield flickers into place.
I look around, trying to figure out what happened when I hear Lua cackling above.
“Archer!” I scream when I see him dangling from her grip. She’s holding him on the ledge she was first perched on. Her hands are now tipped with bloody claws that she digs into his throat. Crimson droplets run down his tanned skin to soak his teal shirt. He must’ve pushed me aside right as she came for me, saving me but sacrificing himself.
Without any thought, I’m lunging forward, trying to get to my sunny boy. Strong hands grab both of my arms, holding me back. I struggle against the iron grips until I’m breathless. “Let me go,” I growl.
“She’ll kill him as soon as she has you, wildcat,” Luca rasps in my ear.
As his words sink in, I stop struggling. He’s right. I’m the one she wants. She’ll just kill Archer as soon as she gets her hands on me. Luca and Cain reluctantly release me when it’s clear I’m not going to try to charge at Lua, but the two of them and Bishop huddle around me. Levi is still unconscious, so getting Archer free is really up to me. I’m the only one with cura magic that has any chance of going against Lua.
“Let him go,” I call. “I’m the one you want.”
“Too late, sport,” she sing-songs, her shrill voice sounding like nails on a chalkboard. “I’m going to make you watch as I kill your mate, one cut at a time. Then I’ll move on to your other ones before finally killing you.” She punctuates her statement by slashing a dagger-like nail over Archer’s chest.
He grunts as blood wells up from the wound, and I can’t help the whimper that makes its way out of my throat at the injury. His aquamarine eyes find my gaze, and he smiles softly. “I’m okay, sunshine,” he tries to reassure me. “It’s just a scratch. I’ve had way worse from horsing around with Luca as a pup.”
Before I can respond, Lua shoves three of her claws into Archer’s abdomen and rips them through his skin and muscle. I choke on a scream as my normally smiley mate’s face twists in a grimace as his stomach is flayed open.
“You’re gonna have to try harder than that,” he pants as blood pours down his front. With all the blood, I can’t see how deep she cut him or if any of his insides are spilling out. I’m hoping, for his sake, she didn’t get past the muscle. I know from firsthand experience that it’s excruciating to have your intestines yanked out of your body.
Lua pulls back her hand like she’s going to slash him somewhere else, and I lose it. I hear a high-pitched ringing noise as my vision narrows to a tunnel with Lua and Archer as the focus. I feel my magic bubble like acid in my chest and course through my veins as the pressure builds until I feel like I’m going to explode. Right when I think I’m going to pop like an overinflated balloon, a swirl of blue and purple magic pours out of me in a concentrated bolt that arrows directly for Lua’s chest.
Her eyes widen and she throws up a shield, which my magic tears through like it’s wet tissue paper. The stream of power hits her square in the chest. She lets out a banshee-like scream as it connects with her, and she stumbles back. Her hand flies up to her chest, and when she pulls it away, it’s covered in blood.
While she struggles to right herself, she’s still able to, and sends me a glare so hate-filled it chills me to my bones. “That wasn’t nice.” Lua grits her teeth as she tries to lift up her right arm, near where I hit her with my magic. She can’t do it and gives up after a moment. “It seems we will have to continue this another day.”
A tiny flicker of hope lights in my chest as I wonder if we might actually have a shot at defeating her. Archer gives me a crooked grin, and I smile back. Everything feels like it might actually be okay for the briefest heartbeat.
Then Lua punches her good arm through Archer’s chest. My breath catches in my throat as he lets out a pained gasp. His eyes go wide as he looks down in disbelief at where she’s squeezing his heart. Blood bubbles out of his open mouth and drips down his chin as he tries to give me a weak but reassuring smile.
“No!” I scream as I once again lunge toward Archer. I have to get to him. I have to save him. I have to fucking do something before my mate, who’s the embodiment of everything good in this world, leaves me, forever.
Destroying a shifter’s heart is one of the only ways to kill them, which Lua obviously knows. No healing potion or magic I know of can save a shifter if their heart is completely ripped out.
Strong arms band around me and secure me to a hard chest. I struggle, and when I can’t get free, I let out a scream full of anguish and heartbreak and grief so strong, it feels like I’m going to drown in it.
“There’s nothing you can do for him now.” Bishop holds me tight to keep me from running to Archer. He whispers over and over into my hair, “I’m so fucking sorry, baby.” Even though I know it’ll just get me killed, charging at Lua is doing something. Not just watching Archer die while doing absolutely fucking nothing like I am now. It’s my fault he’s even here, so I should be strong enough to save him.
But I’m not.
Luca’s not holding me back this time, because he’s kneeling on the ground. He’s staring at his little brother with anguish on his face, and his hands curled into fists, clenched so hard he’s bleeding. Not that he seems to notice, as all his focus is on Archer.
Lua gives me a vicious smile. “I hope you enjoy my parting gift. I’ll be seeing you later, sport.” She pulls back her hand and rips out Archer’s heart. She crushes it and lets it drop carelessly to the ground. Her cackle echoes around the cave as she disappears in a flash of bloodred light.
When the light disappears, I see Archer kneeling on the rock. His gaze sluggishly finds mine, and he gives me a weak, barely there smile. “I love you, sunshine,” he mouths as he crumples to the ground, his lifeless eyes open and staring sightlessly at the ceiling.
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