IwatchGrantgodownand something in my chest shatters. It is not supposed to be this way. He has already been taken from me once in the past few days; it will not happen again.
The kelpie I have been fighting is not dead and when I get to my feet, she looks up at me with dark, baleful eyes. If I leave her here, she will flee to the ocean and escape, but that is of littleconcern to me right now. Neither Asher nor Quinn can break through Eirian’s wards. They will injure themselves first.
I call up every part of the Huntsman’s blessing that I possess. Grant will not be taken from me. Eirian crouches before him now, where he is lying on the sand, hardly able to raise his head. I am already angry that she dares to touch him, to hurt him, but that she would attempt totakehim?
He is mine. No one will take him but me.
The first strike of my blessing is powerful enough to send cracks spiderwebbing through her wards, and Eirian raises her head, baring pointed teeth. She only looks at me for a moment, then turns her attention back to Grant again, but a moment is enough.
It’s enough for me to rally my blessing again and have it squeeze through the cracks. The magic reaches for Grant instantly, of course. The Huntsman might have given it to me so that I can fight the fae, but that is no longer the main focus of me or the power I possess.
The blessing wraps around Grant, reaching for our bond and sinking in deep. Her magic is here, too, trying to snake its way through him and suppress all that he has. I hiss through my teeth. She will not have him. She will not!
I feel when my blessing reaches for our bond, and I do nothing to stop it. Quinn is hurling himself at Eirian’s wards. Asher pushes at them like I did, and the cracks are growing bigger, I think, but that is for them to deal with. My blessing wraps around the bond, reaching, reaching… And then I touch all the power Grant possesses, drawing it up and out, into him, into me—
Ithurts, scorching like the sun, but I do not stop, pulling as much as I can into me. Eirian gets to her feet.
“You cannot—”
I do not let her finish the sentence. Grant is unconscious already, lying still in the sand, and I cannot harness all the power I have borrowed from him, but I do not need to. It blasts out of me, uncontrollable as it flows forward, but it passes over Asher and Quinn painlessly and sends Eirian’s wards scattering with the faintest brush against them.
For a moment, Grant’s power is all that fills my mind and finally, I understand what he means when he says he cannot pinpoint precisely where it sits in his body. It iseverywhere. It is part of his very makeup, in much the same way as the death magic that makes us vampires.
Eirian pushes back when the power reaches her, but even she can only do so much. She adjusts her stance, tries to bear down, but this magic hardly requires my direction. Grant is its master, not me, but through me, it will defend him and keep this fae at bay.
“I’ll kill you!” she screams. She cannot. She cannot fight it, and I am still so wrapped up in Grant that I feel the moment her power withdraws and she readies herself to run.
Quinn gets close. He is a big wolf, but he tucks himself smaller, shaking off the magic that erupts from both of us as Eirian attempts to fight back. That slows him down, but only a little.
Eirian sees him coming. A flicker of fear crosses her face—and I wonder ifthatis truly why the Huntsman has never concerned himself with asking the wolves for help; perhaps he fears their power, too—and from one second to the next, she vanishes, taking all of her magic with her.
I sway on my feet. I would fall to my knees in the sand except that Grant is still unconscious, his magic rippling around him as though it seeks to soothe. Quinn pants, not shifting back.
“Vlad,” Asher murmurs.
I shake my head and stagger over to where Grant lies. One kelpie is dead, and we must get rid of him. The other hasescaped. I will worry about that later, I am certain, except I know I greatly injured her and there is every chance she is already dead, too.
I fall to my knees in the sand next to Grant. His chest does not rise and fall—no need for that reflex when he is not subconsciously driving it—but his magic leaps to meet me when I rest a hand on his chest. Unlike before, it does not burn. I still wince, gritting my teeth. What was in me is gone, but it has left wounds behind.
“We need to get out of here,” Asher says. He is far too close for my liking, but that thought comes and goes, replaced by the fact that he is right; we must leave before anyone notices what we have done.
“The kelpie?” I ask.
“I’ll come back and take care of him,” Asher replies. The puca, too. Quinn finished them quickly. “Can you walk back?”
I scoff, though I am actually uncertain. I cannot carry Grant myself. I know that. “Of course.”
Asher’s eyes narrow as I get to my feet. He crouches slowly, eyes on me the entire time, and Quinn whines when Asher lifts Grant into his arms. Asher’s gaze softens. “You need to shift back, pup. Can’t have us looking suspicious.”
I sway when Quinn shifts. I have seen wolves shift before and it is not a transformation I particularly enjoy watching. He snatches up his clothes with some haste.
“You already look suspicious,” he mutters, but when his gaze lands on Grant, it is concerned.
Asher does not reply to that, and Quinn remains close by my side as we leave the beach. Very close, in fact, as though he expects I will topple over at any moment.
His concern is not misguided. I keep my gaze fixed on Asher’s back, on what I can see of Grant’s face and legs. She would have taken him tonight. Shecouldhave, easily. We all let the enormityof Grant’s power get the better of us and forgot the fact that he has not truly trained for this. A few months is nothing in the grand scheme of things, not when most of us were fighters and warriors before the Huntsman ever chose us.
“He’ll be okay, won’t he?” Quinn asks. We are not far from the hotel now, and although we have passed a few people on the street, they have hardly spared us a second glance.
