Suddenly, I dropped the inch he’d lifted me back onto the cobblestones. I hadn’t moved, but my attacker evaporated. I blinked stupidly at the empty spot he’d just been in. The heat of his hand on my neck still radiated on my skin. The sounds of battle swelled. Above us, heads poked out of windows, and bodies came out of shops. A pod of men dressed in the washed-out orange of the Abernathys joined the fray.
Adrenaline rushed through me, mixing with the liquor. I just made that man vanish.
I was power incarnate!
My best friend completed his symbols, and dark spiked gauntlets encased his hands. He turned just as another gray-camo-covered man tried to sprint past him to get to me. Cayden slammed his fist into theattacker’s face. Although the man fell, a second gray copy of him stood as if shocked Cayden actually hit him. The copy’s head snapped back, and he joined his body on the ground. A single terrified scream pierced the air, and the man didn’t move again.
A grunt, followed by a painful cry, came from Rowan, and I turned just in time to see him drop from my view with two arrows sticking out of his upper back. My heart stopped. Rowan… he had to be okay. I was still on the ground. Why hadn’t I stood up?
The man with the coal-black hair crouched down a few feet in front of me and held out his hand. The same single spot in my back burned painfully.
“I’m so glad I found you,” he said, voice disturbingly smooth. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. Come, it’s time to go home.”
Home. The word rolled off his tongue and wrapped around me. The smell of my dad’s coffee and the hum of my computer lulled me.
“Quinn, come to me,” he demanded again. “You are mine. I need you.”
I need you.The words echoed in my skull and made one of the tethers in my back vibrate. I lifted my right hand off the ground.
“Yes,” he purred. “You’re more than I imagined. A child of the past. Blood that can birth a god. I found you. I claimed you. You are mine, come. I’ll fix everything.”
I’ll fix everything.
Coal-black’s words echoed in my head, and whatever spell he’d been using broke. I jerked my hand back. I didn’t need anything fixed. I hadn’t in the past, and I definitely didn’t now.I lifted a finger, having no actual idea what I was going to do with it. Suddenly, two identical forest-green runes blasted the not-stranger’s sides. Smoke and rubble filled the air. My eyes went wide, and I looked at my finger in disbelief.
Cayden dove, shielding me with his body. Debris rained down on us. When I looked up, Coal-black stood in the middle of it with his gray camo in tatters. He looked at Cayden crouching over me, and then at the two copies of Cayden, dressed in matching bright-orange robes, who now stood on either side of him.
I frowned at my finger, which hadn’t done anything unless it made the copies.
Shit, drunk.
Coal-black snarled like a dog and bolted.
Suddenly, Rowan roared and charged into view. One arrow had gone through his shoulder, leaving his arm dangling at his side. The white fletching of the other one—and a third—poked out above his head, but he was alive. Relieved tears of joy and intoxication spilled down my face. A ball of swirling wind shot out of his still-functional hand, and he charged after Coal-black. The two melted into the all-out brawl now filling The Royal Mile.
Cayden rolled to one side and helped me stand. Movement caught my eye. Brody hovered in the bakery’s shadow, waiting, for what? To save me? To take me himself?
“What are you doing here, brother?” Cayden growled.
I whipped my head away from Brody and back to the men. Bright orange, yellows, and reds spiraled in a familiar tie-dye pattern, making it hard to look at Cayden’s clones for too long.
The two stepped into our personal space, making a perfect triangle with Cayden at their point. Although I thought they were perfect copies of my friend, their forest-green eyes were just a shade off. The one on the left had fine wrinkle lines, while the one on the right’s nose was just a bit too big.
“You didn’t respond to the Prophet’s call.” The one on the left lifted his hands before dropping one on my arm.
His touch didn’t feel good. It was nothing like Cayden’s. I tried to pull back, but despite not gripping me, my arm stuck to his palm like he’d superglued it. Forest-green runes glowed along the back of his hand, twisting around his fingers. My heart hammered in my chest.
Cayden looked down, and his eyes widened.
“I haven’t responded yet.” Cayden put up his palm, his fingers scrunched together. “This woman is no one. Leave her. She is not of our blood.”
Leave her, as in this asshole was going to take me. Even if I ran from him, Brody lurked, ready to do the same.
I hadn’t teleported when I wanted to. In fact, I hadn’t done anything but stand here, drunk and looking at my finger. I was better than this. Power surged through me.
No one was picking me up and taking me anywhere. I looked at the ground and sent a surge of energy into my feet. The tops of them squeezed painfully as I imagined bolting myself to the cobblestones, and bands of sparkles locked into place. I attempted to cross my arms over my chest. Only one of them was still trapped in the older Cayden’s grip. Rowan stepped into my view. Blood spilled down his body while jagged lines of lightning cracked in his glowing white gaze. Despite his dangling arm, water and earth rotated around him in sparkling waves. He looked like a god of vengeance, ready to destroy the world for me.
“Emil,” the older Cayden said. “The sun does not shine on us today.”
