“Among others.”
“You’re reaching out to Ryker Morgan?” The Guardian Movement hadn’t condoned the last Temperance attack, so they’d be all over this. They’d already arrested a bunch of them from that battle on campus grounds. Just how many were there?
“Attempting to. He’s juggling a lot.”
“What about Kai? You’re tight with him after working on that spell, right?”
“He’s grieving the loss of his closest friend.”
“Evira’s close with Vorzyr. Go through him. He can bring in Ariana for Celestial might.”
“I can use Taen’s.”
“No! We need that to help bring Win back, or even to put that motherfucker, Ruxnoth, down. Don’t use it for this battle.”
He nodded, taking my advice.
Him even thinking of using the Celestial power for this… it wasn’t a normal move for him. Not tactical or careful. He was reacting off emotion, desperate to protect us—because of what had happened to Win. No doubt a part of him was blaming himself for Win being taken, as he’d been ripped from his arms. I mean, what the fuck had Vax thought he could have done differently with a warped True Celestial hellbent on doing that?
That’s right—nothing.
A dragon roar from Evira startled us both.
As Vax dialed, I rushed through the bedroom to the wraparound balcony and took in the situation.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Carnage.
Fury.
Insanity.
Desperation.
There was all of that going on, running loose and fucking rampant.
Through all hundred or so of them.
That many had come for us.
From what Vax had whispered to me as he’d analyzed the scene rapid-fire, even in the heat of battle at that, about fifty of them were Temperance members.
They were the ones taking the lead, but they were being bolstered by the others filling out the immediate area in front of the house—vampire clans who feared uncontrolled Necromancy, werewolves who weren’t under the protection of the Shifter Stabilization Unit run by Jaxon Silver and Vorzyr Titanus because they’d wanted to roam free. There were also some Light Fae present who resided here and not in the Light Fae Realm, and then a bunch of sorcerers and sorceresses who weren’t bound to any covens, able to act freely—and insanely, like right now by coming at us.
Evira gave Vax and me another chin lift signal in her dragon form that she had earlier when we’d first come out here, and we took her cue—Vax grabbing me and bursting me back and out of the way.
Then in the next breath, she performed a Thunderstep, a flash-freeze lightning surge bursting out where her paws slammed into the ground, discharging a crack of thunder and frost rings that drove into the crowd of hostiles. It ripped many off their feet, knocked out magic in the process, and even delivered frost injuries that compromised some of the wolves and vampires. Clearing the way, basically, and causing controlled chaos in their ranks.
Vax had been sending his twin daggers out into the battlefield, where they’d stab two targets in unison, then shift with impossible physics-breaking maneuvers and hit others in the immediate vicinity, and then whoosh right back into Vax’s hands. But he hadn’t deployed the venom imbued in them. He was afraid of killing. There were so many different species here among the hostiles, some that could die from too high a dose ofhis Basilisk venom, and there wasn’t exactly time to calibrate for every single species and power set.
The no-killing thing wasn’t some arbitrary moral line, it was something the three of us had agreed on when we’d first hit the battlefield.
Because Temperance, despite the fucked-up way they were going about things, were really fucking scared. Of becoming victims. Of being overpowered so brutally. Of losing their lives and everything they held dear. And that had precedent in what Morien Morgrave had done, many of the members had loved ones who’d been Morien’s victims. And they saw Winter as the same. So us killing them for coming at us, even on a battlefield, wouldn’t exactly go over well in a larger sense. It would be kind of fueling their narrative, and that was the last thing needed.
In the midst of the chaos and force-back Evira had created, I conjured fuchsia shimmering binds and sent them spinning out onto the battlefield and confining a dozen vampires. Their speed was really biting us in the ass. The cuts over my face, chest, and thighs—healing, at least—had been sustained by them bursting at me. The same had happened to Vax. Even their talons had gone through our battle gear. The Requital gear I was wearing was imbued with protective enchantments from Charlie, which had deflected some nasty magical attacks from magic-wielders who had tens of years on me. The talons would’ve driven even deeper if not for it as well—like bleeding-out-wound territory.
Vax caught sight of two dozen magic-wielders conjuring leashes to throw over Evira to bring down her mammoth dragon form. He fired his citrine magic, invoking the petrification aspect, which turned the leashes to chalk in moments.Thank fuck.
