The second beast breaks off toward a student too slow to run.
“Nolan!” I shout.
He doesn’t hesitate, throwing a pulse of violet-blue magic that smashes into the creature and knocks it into a stone column.
More pour through the tear.
A snarl rips from Raiden’s throat as he hits the shadow-thing mid-leap and fully shifted. Lightning dances across his fur, his nine tails lashing like whips as he slams the creature into the ground. It screeches—high and jagged—and then dissolves into smoke.
I don’t have time to be impressed.
Another wraith hound barrels toward a second-year trying to climb a broken pillar. She’s screaming, hands slick with panic, and it’s not going to hold her weight much longer. I throw out my hand on instinct. Power rushes through me—hot, reckless—and explodes outward.
The ground splits beneath the hound.
It drops like a stone, snarling as it disappears into the sudden crater. The pillar cracks. The second-year drops to the ground, sobbing but alive.
“Lindsay!” Nolan shouts, flinging a ward over my head as something swoops from the breach.
Wings. Claws. Smoke from them dying.
It hits the barrier with a scream, slamming hard enough to send sparks flying. Nolan stumbles back from the impact, but the ward holds—barely.
Beside me, Kael’s blade is a blur. Shadows pour off of him in waves, thick and alive, snapping at the creatures as they near. One lunges for a first-year cowering near the steps. Kael’s there before it can touch her, sword cleaving through its midsection like it’s made of ash.
His shadows catch the girl and toss her gently toward the nearest professor, who pulls her inside.
“Behind you!” I call.
He pivots smoothly, slicing through a lunging shape without missing a beat. It dissolves before it hits the ground.
“Thanks,” he says without looking back.
A creature with too many limbs and not enough face skitters past me, fast as a blink. Raiden growls, bounding after it, lightning crackling through the courtyard in his wake. He leaps, teeth bared, then vanishes into the smoke after it.
More shadows follow.
And we’re not winning.
Not yet. Because for every one we take down, two more drag themselves out of the sky.
“Nolan!” I shout, breath ragged. “We need a barrier—something big. Can you do it?”
“Not alone,” he calls back. “I’d need a power source—or a tether.”
“I’m right here.” I grab his hand. “Use me.”
His eyes go wide. “That could?—”
“Do it.”
Kael moves to stand over us again, shadow-wrapped and ready, his back to ours like a wall of night. Raiden reappears beside me in a flash of light and heat, chest heaving, tails scorched at the edges. Blood and smoke streak his golden fur, but his eyes lock on mine.
You alright?
The voice isn’t spoken, but I can hear it like a ripple through my mind, warm and sparking, threaded with something that feels like him.
I blink, startled, but nod.You?
