Page 72 of Solar Shadows

“Ollie?”

Shock killed the spell.

“Ollie Lovell?” Ben said.

Crap. Crap. Crap. He picked the best moment to recognize me, didn’t he?

“Yep,” I answered, getting back to business.

Isaac groaned, lips on the blue side. “I’m so cold…”

Dread brought its own chilly touch to my insides. But he’d be alright. His blood wouldn’t allow the poison to hurt him. It expelled Jonathon Aurora’s attempts to infect him with magic from the Rainbow Stones, and the same would happen here.

He was blessed by the goddess, too tough to crack.

“Everything will be alright,” I said with added reassurance.

He wasn’t going anywhere. He had to stick around because, well, I wanted him to. He needed to keep on being in my life even if… Damn. He just couldn’t leave, end of story.

I summoned Hide again.

A shadow witch kicked the table away.

Ben screamed and the spell fizzled away.

I drew my gun, almost pulling the trigger in time.

“Propel!” the witch yelled.

I went flying across the floor, slamming into a wall. My head cracked the concrete, my vision blurring. I slumped forward, blacking out seconds later as a useless failure.

Yeah, the man who failed The Sun.

Damn.

Chapter 23

ISAAC

“Imight have known you’d be involved,” I snapped at the fae woman when I arrived in the snowy dump she called home.

I sat opposite her, shivering in the biting cold of this place. She wasn’t a pile of bones anymore, laying in her rags with her arms and legs spread out, her breathing slow and raspy.

Snow fell lightly from the night sky, none of the flakes landing on me. A half-moon cast its lunar light over everything, the clouds appearing to circumvent it rather than pass over it.

Weird.

I had to get back. Shake off this darn poison and bring painful sunshine to those shadow fuckers in the restaurant.

Did I hear Ollie get hit? Oh, shit. I shouldn’t be here, wasting time with this hag.

I rolled my shoulders, fury bubbling away inside me.

“Is this you?” I said with plenty of bite. “Are you fed up with this crystal shade thing now and decided to play with the shadow witches instead?”

“I did not cause this,” she replied, her voice hoarse.

“Right, and I’m the Queen of France.”