I was so angry I almost blew up at Titan, who wasn’t at fault. No one but another flier could’ve kept up with Beatrix.
Thankfully Mason had finally called us back. The gargoyle dropped everything and flew to us. Unlike Beatrix, he could carry me in my small snake form and a backpack slung across his chest. While I couldn’t track auras like Danzig could, I was able to track my twin once I was in the air.
Before we’d left, Mason linked his phone with Titan’s so the wolf shifter could follow us on the ground without needing to keep Mason in sight.
“Don’t jump into any fight,” Mason ordered Titan. The wolf shifter was notorious for being a horrible fighter. Despite his size, he was what some of the book club called a cinnamon roll.
“I can help,” Titan protested. “My Beatrix is with them!”
“You can help by staying out of the fight and only jumping in to pull someone to safety,” I said, stripping out of my clothes. Mason shoved them and Danzig’s clothes into his backpack.
“I’ll do that,” Titan said. “I’m big, I can carry several people at a time.”
“Good man,” I said, impatient to get going. “Are you ready, Mason?”
“Can you talk in your shifted form?” he asked.
I explained to Mason how I was going to guide him, then shifted into my serpent form. I made myself small and slid up Mason’s arm when he put his hand to the ground. I wrapped around his neck and waited.
“Hold on,” he grunted, then ran a few steps in the almost empty parking lot we were in and took off.
Because I was tracking my twin and not a path laid out on the ground, we went south in a mostly straight line. Soon we passed over an area so lit up with magic that Mason didn’t need me to tell him to descend.
Beatrix and Bec were sitting on the ground with Danzig standing between them and the casket druid. We were too high for me to see what the girls were doing, but they were huddled over something.
The druid was talking and gesturing wildly. Danzig had gotten him to rant about something. Of course he had, my twin was good at figuring people out.
The moment Mason was low enough, I let go of him and fell to the earth. I made myself as big as a mac truck and aimed for the druid.
He looked up in enough time to send a wave of magic at me, knocking me aside. Other than landing a little harder than I wanted, he didn't hurt me.
I recovered quickly and at the same time, Danzig shifted back into a serpent. Side by side, we were a wall of green scales between the druid and our mate.
“Damn you all!” the druid screamed and broke another tie to send a wash of powerful magic at us. I remembered this feeling, but it was easier to stand against it in this form.
It still hurt.
I felt Danzig’s pain. It was obvious he’d already stood against an attack and was now suffering badly as more of his aura was stripped away.
A dark gray figure swooped down at the druid. It was Mason, hoping to hit him from behind.
The druid must’ve had some kind of protection spell woven into his cloak because a bubble of magic formed just before the gargoyle would’ve hit him. Mason violently bounced off it, hitting the ground and leaving a furrow in the dirt. He was forced to dig his claws into the ground to stop his momentum.
He was quick to get to his feet and fold his wings tight against his body before charging at the druid again.
“Mason, no!” Bec screamed. Mason’s surprised expression might have made me laugh if everything wasn’t so dire.
Bec wasn’t done. She yelled again, this time at the druid. “Lomis, is this what you want?”
Danzig and I turned to see Bec standing behind a fire. She’d wrapped the void-tie around a rock and was holding it over the fire. She was holding it so close to the flames that if she didn’t have the rock to shield her hand her skin would be blistering.
She might not be burning her hand, but she didn’t look good. She was pale and leaning heavily on Beatrix.
“Give that to me!” Lomis screamed, lifting his arms to send magic out.
“Don’t,” Beatrix yelled. “Or I’ll drop it into the fire.”
“I could kill you,” Lomis threatened, dropping his arm.
