Bears came running at us. I could tell they weren’t Liam’s bears. They were shifters. I didn’t know the first thing about bears and I could just sense that if Lucian tried to fight them, they’d hurt him enough to get us both kicked off the trials.
His speed healing probably had limits, and those limits were blood related. He’d have to feed off me to heal, and he’d probably need too much. Lucian was prickly, but he was a good guy. He’d get me back to the healers with his speed and we’d both be out.
We couldn’t run because we were almost finished. I had an idea, and it was probably really stupid. I jumped in front of Lucian as the biggest bear reared back and roared. I thrust the magical trap I hadn’t disarmed yet at the bear.
“You know what this does more than we do. I have a theory if it breaks, whatever gets out is going to do something nasty to whomever it’s touching. I’ll bet I could throw it at you before you could get us.”
The bear shifted back and there was an enormous, dark-skinned man standing there completely naked. He looked amused.
“Touché, little one, and very smart,” he said, winking. Lucian let out a little growl because I was pretty sure he was flirting…naked. “There’s something nasty out here with us. If I had no training and was just getting used to having magic, I’d find a way to use what a mostly trained supernatural made for a weapon. I hope to see you at the academy. A redhead who will throw down with a shifted bear is every bear’s dream.”
He shifted, and the bears left. What I felt earlier and whoever beat Lola probably had the seniors more worried than stopping us from getting crystals.
We’d probably be getting more help from them than hindrances once they realized we weren’t the ones giving people bad feelings.
The bear gave us a huge hint. With most of the traps disabled, we just needed to remove the two we were working on and the crystal finally appeared. One down, three to go. And we now had at least two magical weapons. Unless the wink from the naked bear was just that he got turned on I faced him head on instead of running and not that I was right.
Boys were stupid when their dicks took over.
Khalid and Liam joined us. I expected ingredients from Khalid and information from Liam, but it was the exact opposite.
“Listen, I still don’t know who or what your familiar is and I’m not opposed to stealing in some cases. Your familiarpinching someone’s takeout is a beautiful thing. Also, your familiar might have a fucked up sense of right and wrong since they are stealing people’s takeout, but they are also fair because they picked someone who ordered enough for all of us. It’s a curry, so they have good taste,” Liam moaned.
“I’m not well versed in magical familiars, but if it’s escalated from fruit from a garden to full meals someone paid for and they got enough for all of us, then I’m pretty sure they liked the food you left for them,” Khalid said.
“I mean, why, when they can steal a bag of takeout that big?” I asked.
I didn’t really get any of this. Especially not Liam cackling like a madman.
“You’re an asshole,” Lucian said.
“No thumbs,” Liam gasped. “It wasn’t one of the bears because it’s not safe for them. Might have been a badger, but that would be out of place, too. Most animals aren’t going to steal food unless it’s out in the open to take or easy to get into. This was all foryoubut I doubt they’d be upset if you left a little of the meat out.”
“What happened after we separated?” Khalid asked.
Lucian and I filled them in on the bears and that we had two magical weapons for just in case. They all agreed with me that the other supernaturals here were trained enough to realize that the game had changed and they needed to adapt. Getting the crystals were going to have fewer obstacles from the seniors on the supernatural side, but a lot of unknown shit from reincarnated gods we wouldn’t know much about.
“What did the animals say?” I asked.
“Oh, lots, but they don’t communicate how you think. They have to see you to communicate and they can talk tomein my head through images, but they talk to each other through smells and noises. They can smell and sense someone is dangerous,but nature ishonestand the animals don’t really understand deception and lies. They saw something they didn’t understand and they can’t really explain it.
“They show me their thoughts in pictures, but they can’t broadcast what they’ve seen and I can’t mind meld with them. There are two people here with us that we should avoid and they felt very badly they couldn’t show me exactly who they were. All they could tell me was that we should avoid everyone unless they are supernaturals.”
Which should have been easy, but three guys were crashing our meal and I was guessing they were reincarnations like us. If I had to describe them, they were justgolden.All golden.
“How’d you get takeout here?” the biggest one moaned. “Those rations aren’t enough calories or protein and I’m not even doing HIIT training today.”
“Piss off,” Liam said.
The massive blond looked shocked Liam was so rude to him. Like, it had literally never happened to him before in his life.
“I wasn’t asking for your food. Just where you got it. We’re also looking for someone.”
“Magic. And we never saw them. Stop eyeing my curry. I can make a shiv out of a carrot and a sock,” Liam grumped, shoveling food in his mouth.
The food was good, but Liam, apparently, took his curry very seriously. If the big guy asked for a bite, I had a feeling we were going to find out if Liam was just talking out his ass about all the random objects he could make something to stab someone with.
“No, seriously, our teammate is missing and we’re worried. Have you seen a tiny girl with blonde hair?”
