Page 21 of Silver (Shunned Mages #2)

Wilston

I was so grateful we’d picked this location. The motel lay on the outskirts of town and since it was later in the day, the parking lot was basically empty. That was, except for the car Julie exited from and then the five cars following behind her, all carrying mages.

“Fuck,” Xarius muttered in disbelief.

“Protective ward around Julie, now!” I whispered harshly so they heard. We all held hands and felt the ward click into place as Julie looked behind her to see all the mages spilling out of the abandoned cars. The greeting smile she had quickly vanished as she ran for her life towards us.

“Shamus and King, attack the mages!” I ordered at the same time Niam said, “Snowflake, Leon, attack! Mages only!” They were still invisible, but we felt them as they powered through, attacking the unsuspecting mages.

Julie reached us unharmed. All magic thrown at her was pinged away easily, our magic too strong for theirs to penetrate.

We’d added the same protection to ourselves, now that we knew it worked.

How we hadn’t thought about protective wards against attacks on us was truly a joke. But all of this was new to us.

While still holding hands we warded the area, making us invisible and silent to all people outside the ward, protecting them from entering the battle zone. We felt the ward snap into place, and breathed easier knowing no innocents would be harmed or be able to watch us do magic.

“Xar,” Julie panted next to us. “What the fuck?!”

I winced. Yeah, we hadn’t exactly planned this well.

“Stay behind us,” Xarius ordered, not bothering with an explanation yet. She listened and seemed to understand that now wasn’t the best time for questions and answers.

“Wind!” Xarius said, alerting me we needed to strangle them. There were around twenty to thirty mages, so I started on the far left and took five out at first, Xarius targeting the ones to the right.

“Water!” Niam said, taking Silver’s hand in his, building their power even further as they drowned ten in one go, somehow working in perfect harmony. They were our best proof we’d known each other in an earlier life, their dynamic so easy and instinctual.

Twenty were dead because of us, and the rest our familiars had dealt with while we fought the others. We stood there in silence, catching our breath as we observed the carnage in front of us. I was so glad the ward was still in place. We had much to clean up here.

“Shamus, King, you can eat,” I said, glad they were still invisible so I wouldn’t have to see them eat the mages.

“Snowflake, Leon, you can eat, too,” Xarius said, following my lead in offering our familiars more power.

“I can move their clothes to the middle once our familiars are done, then we can burn it on the asphalt,” Silver said, reminding us he could move objects easily. “The leftover bodies, too.”

“Sounds great!” Niam exclaimed, patting him on the shoulder. “Then afterward, we can power wash the ground for blood and ashes, making it seem like we weren’t even here.”

We shared a smile, all of us high on adrenaline after the fight.

I felt so invincible having used so much magic freely.

It sounded bad, but you couldn’t truly let go and just use your powers carelessly unless you wanted to kill.

At all other times I had to have a certain control over my magic, but in fights I was truly free to feel just how powerful I was.

It was an addictive feeling. No wonder the leaders became so power hungry in the end.

The difference between us and them was that I wouldn’t seek out more power or punish those who were more powerful than me.

“I hate that we have to kill mages like this,” I admitted, somehow feeling like an awful future leader.

“We all do,” Niam assured me. “But we also know they’ve been fed lies by the leaders, who they have to obey no matter what. If they stopped and listened, they would return and be killed for disobeying orders.”

“And we did talk to that one mage. She was full of hatred towards us too far gone to listen to reason,” Xarius reminded me.

“Um, hi!” Julie yelled from behind us, waving her hand like, “bitches, I’m still here!”

“Oh, right,” Xarius muttered awkwardly, then chuckled and hugged her tight. “I missed you, Jules.”

She seemed like she wanted to fight him and demand answers, but soon melted into the hug, tightening her hold on him. “I missed you, too, Xar, but you have a lot of fucking explaining to do.”

Xarius winced, then nodded.

“While you get her up to date, we’ll clean up the mess,” Silver said, taking me and Niam and leading us over to the bloodbath our familiars had left us.

“Julie is taking this well,” I told Silver and Niam, looking over at Xarius and Julie. After we’d cleaned the area, we had to leave the scene immediately, taking our van and trailer with us. Julie sat in the front with Xarius as we all did our best to help him explain everything.

“She is,” Niam agreed, yawning. I was sitting on the end of their bed with Silver’s feet in my lap, gently massaging them while Silver and Niam snuggled together, fighting to stay awake.

I loved seeing their relationship evolve and how easy they worked together.

There was no jealousy from either Xarius or me, both of us understanding they had a special bond, something we should all be grateful they shared.

I also had to admit to myself that knowing Xarius was okay with it helped.

Had there been any other feelings between them than friendship, he wouldn’t have been as supportive of it as he was.

“Okay, so you are all mages, and you got cool animal friends, too,” Julie stated, almost like she needed to say the things out loud for herself to really believe them.

“I mean, it does make sense since I literally saw you use magic, I just don’t get why they’re after you?

You said you were shunned from your world because you didn’t have magic, but you do? ”

We let Xarius answer that one, content to just leave them be for a while as we rested in the back.

“We got our magic while being here,” he began. “We didn’t unlock our magic like normal mages do when they’re kids or young teens, we got it by finding our soulmatch. My match is Niam.”

“Oh… kaay, so why are they after you because of that?” she questioned.

He sighed. “Because the leaders of our world knew we would be more powerful than them. They shunned us so we wouldn’t take their place as leaders.”

“Wow, that was a dick move,” she said, shaking her head in disgust.

“It really was,” he agreed. “As soon as Niam and I got our powers they knew and sent mages down to deal with us.”

I leaned back against the wall for comfort, no longer able to see Julie’s expression but it was clear from her voice she wasn’t liking our leaders.

“Please tell me you plan on taking over and kicking their asses?” she pleaded.

“We are,” Xarius laughed.

“So, what’s the plan now?” she asked, clearly including all of us in her question.

“Now, we need to buy an RV and then we’re headed towards the last mage here,” Xarius explained. “After that, we need to figure out how to do portals so we can reach the final mage, who’s being sent to another world.”

“Ah, they were afraid they would get their magic, too?” she asked, proving to be as smart as Xarius had claimed.

“Exactly. But that also means when we leave, you’re here on your own, but the mages shouldn’t be a problem then and if they ask where we went you can just tell them we went through a portal.” They would likely know as soon as we left this world, so I felt confident Julie would be safe then.

“Does that mean I won’t see you again?” she asked, sounding genuinely hurt by it.

“I hope we will. But we first have to deal with the leaders, after that I hope portals will be easy for us to make so I can visit you whenever I please.”

“I hope you will,” she said quietly.

We were all silent for a while, the three of us in the back half asleep as we moved closer to the next motel.

“Declan helped me pack,” Julie admitted with a whisper.

Xarius gasped loudly. “He what?!”

We straightened up and shook the sleepiness off as we tried to listen more closely, but neither of them seemed to notice they now had an audience.

“I texted him for help. I told him I was in danger and needed to get out of town and if he could run by my place and pack me a bag with essentials, and that it would really help me out if he could. I told him I was leaving in one hour and had to deal with the shop until then and if he couldn’t help then I would figure it out myself. ”

“And he helped?”

“He did. He came to the shop with my two bags and a lot of cash. He didn’t say a word before gesturing for me to get in his car.

” She stopped to breathe and then whispered, loud enough for us to hear, but still a whisper, “He drove me for five hours, not asking questions but still refusing to leave me to deal with it alone. Then we stopped at a car rental and he rented a car for me, sending me off from there so there would be no trace, or so he thought.”

They were silent for a beat, then Xarius said. “I’m glad he showed up when needed. But please don’t believe he’s changed or anything just because he did this one thing for you. I can’t stand the thought of him hurting you again.”

Julie sobbed quietly, then whispered, “He wore a wedding ring, Xar. You don’t need to worry about him hurting me again. He already did.”