There was a banging on the other side of the door. I figured Jacob had rounded up his brothers and they were trying to get in. I'd gone on ahead, hoping to stop whatever mass murder was taking place. The screams before had been enough for me to assume murder, but apparently it had simply been the fact that Louis was flashing around one of the most powerful and dangerous magical tomes known to supes.
Which was understandable, because there was almost no limit to what he could do using those ancient spells.
All the lights in the room flared to life again, and the sudden brightness forced my eyes closed for a moment. Louis was back on the dais now, the book open again, and he appeared to be reading. Sucking in a deep breath, I swung around and reached out for the magically sealed door.
“Come on,” I growled, trying to get it open. I used multiple different magical spells, but Louis had it sealed tight. Finally, deciding subtlety wasn’t working, I just placed both hands against it and blasted the hinges. With a loud crack, it split enough that Braxton could smash his way through.
Louis lifted his head, a casual and unconcerned expression on his face. “About time you made it to the party,” he said, waving a hand magnanimously. I had to swallow hard when a smile lit up his face. If it wasn’t for the dark glint in his eyes, and the actual darkness misting around his body, that smile was almost like the old Louis.
My body clenched as I recalled the moment he had pressed his hard length so intimately against me. It had been too long since I had been satisfied by a man, and Louis was absolutely the most attractive specimen of male.
Except for the whole “king of darkness” thing he had going on.
“Louis, what the fuck are you doing, dude?” Jessa said as she tried to storm down the aisle. A dragon shifter kept blocking her way though. “You don’t get to come in here and start controlling the town. That’s a solid fuck no.”
Louis chuckled. “I’ve missed you, Jess. And since I owe you all for freeing me from the land between”—gasps from the crowd again. Thousands of supes were squished in here, and it seemed that most of them were both scared and entertained by what was going on—“I won’t reprimand you for choosing to speak to me with a little less respect than I deserve.”
Jessa laughed, her hands flying to her hips. “I’m giving you the exact amount of respect you deserve. While you’re acting like Larky and Kristoff, evil as fuck darkness dickheads, you’ll be getting exactlyzerorespect from me.”
Louis’s smile faded, and I knew he was drawing on his power. Braxton stepped in front of Jessa then, or at least tried to while she continued to edge him out of the way. “Don’t do this, Louis,” the dragon shifter said, his voice guttural. “We owe you a lot. I do not want to have to fight you. We should be on the same side, brother.”
The word “brother” had a flicker of something in Louis’s eyes. I could see that it affected him more than he’d probably like to admit. Just like when I thought I was reaching him, there was a moment Braxton almost got him too.
But then that moment ended.
Louis flicked out his wrist, a spell flying from one hand while the book zoomed into the other. Braxton shifted, almost changing completely into a dragon, knocking the chairs over in the immediate vicinity. Whatever Louis had sent toward them, I knew it wasn’t a deadly spell. It bounced harmlessly off the toughened skin of the partially shifted dragon.
It had only been a distraction. Louis needed us to look away long enough for him to find his spell and start reciting it without interruption.
“No!” I screamed, because I recognized the ancient words leaving his lips. I knew right then exactly what Louis was planning on doing, and it could destroy the world we had built. It could destroy the entire supernatural community.
The Compasses and Lebrons swung in my direction, and only Mischa looked terrified, but I could see the worry hidden deep inside the others. Most of them were not magic users, and there was only so much they could do to combat a spell. Especially one coming from a sorcerer of Louis’s level.
“Magic users,” I shouted again, projecting my voice. “On your feet now.” I was going to need their energy if I wanted a hope in hell of stopping Louis. “NOW!”
Chairs scraped as supes pushed their way to standing, moving toward the center of the room. “What’s happening, Lizzie?” Jessa asked. “What’s he doing?”
Louis waved his hand then and tried to halt those moving, but I had expected that and my counterspell hit him in the chest, knocking him back a few feet. Bastard didn’t lose his grip on the book though, and he never faltered as he continued to weave his magic—his eyes locked tightly on me, the purple turning into something molten.
“Lizzie!” Jessa said again with more force.
Pulling my gaze from Louis, I focused on her for a second, because that was all the time I had to spare. “He’s exposing us to the humans. This spell is going to broadcast supernaturals to the world. Our locations. The prisons. Our powers and abilities. He is going to expose us in a way that means we would never be able to hide in the human world again. And if they react badly—”
“Which they always do,” Maximus bit out.
I nodded. “Yes, then we’ll be at war.”
Again. I was so fucking done with war.
“Why is he doing this?” a magic user nearby asked. Her eyes were very green against her dark skin, her face perfect and angular like a model’s.
“Because he wants to control them,” I guessed, having missed a lot of his speech. “He wants to have all the power and all of the control. He probably believes that it makes us weak to hide like we do.”
Which was partly true. One on one, even the weakest supe could take down a human, no worries. But en masse, humans were easily panicked and dangerous.
“He did say something about control,” another magic user said. “About an army of slaves.”
Louis was not in his right mind; the darkness liked power and would constantly strive for more. We had to stop him. “I’m going to need to contain Louis,” I told them all. “Stop him before he finishes the spell.”
