With both hands raised, their nemesis calls a wave of cold, black water from the sea behind him—the water roaring like a beast unleashed.
So deafening that Jay can hardly hear his mates’ shouts in the background, it covers the rampart in an ice-cold deluge. It parts like the Red Sea, flowing around Nix, and the altar where Jay has taken cover, leaving Nix unfazed, without so much as a drop touching his skin.
It’s as if Nix is protected by divine intervention.
With a feral roar of frustration, Withers gives up on his magical assault, gearing up for a physical one.
Nix recognizes it, too, bracing for impact, his magnificent claws out and fangs gleaming in the moonlight.
The air shivers with Withers’s first steps, his angry aura slithering out around him, but Nix doesn’t waver. Instead, he bares his teeth in a smile that promises the battle is far from over.
Stumbling through the side door and onto the rampart with Leo and Gideon hard on his heels, Luca’s voice tears through the air like a firework. “NIX!” It’s so desperate that even Withers falters.
Leo doesn’t slow down, sprinting to where Jay’s mates are huddled out of range of Withers’s magical storm.
“Your pack has done nothing but thwart me every step of the way. Can’t a guy enjoy his symbiotic relationship with a psychopathic narcissist in peace? Can’t he suck a few hundred souls dry to gain the power he needs to rule the world? Can’t he just catch a fucking break?”
Withers smooths his two remaining strands of hair before tucking his shirt into his jorts. He turns and points a bony finger at Jay.
“No, I can’t. Why? Because of you. You’re like a fucking cat—nine lives and counting. I thought for sure Carnell had you this last time. Why can’t you just die?”
Withers throws a small ball of fire right at Jay’s face.
Jay doesn’t have to dodge as it goes wide because he’s already focused on throwing another at Gideon, who pulls Luca out of its trajectory just in time.
“And you. You killed Carnell just now, didn’t you?” Withers shakes his finger at Gideon. “Fucking figures. All this time, and you choose today to finally grow a pair. Well, fuck you and your sassy little sidekick, too.”
“You wish, pencil-dick. I’m no sidekick; I am pure main character energy.”
Withers is beyond hearing as he turns, fixated on the others by the wall; they’ve all scrambled to their feet, with Leo in front, one arm out protectively in front of Finn and Rowan-wolf, the other holding a drained Grayson on his feet.
Grayson’s hands spark faintly, at the ready even through his fatigue.
“And you. Where did you come from? A Were magic-user that is so untrained, it’s laughable. But still…I gotta admit, in a few years you might just be able to kick my ass.” His macabre face contorts into a rictus of a grin. “But that day is not today.”
With both hands, he flings a large bolt of lightning. Grayson throws up a shield to protect them just in time, groaning as he diverts that much dark magic—it drops him to his knees, still poised for action and every muscle taut despite the hollow exhaustion in his eyes.
Nix’s growl is menacing and draws Withers’s attention back to him.
“And last but not least, Little Novice. Such an anomaly. No real power, but able to block some of my best party tricks.”
He squints, tapping his forehead as if his central processor just needs a shake to process what has him so confused by Nix’s immunity.
The act causes his eye to pop out. It’s really not like the movies, because instead of rolling away, it makes a sickening plop on the stone floor instead.
He stares at it for a moment before sighing. “Well. Fucking dammit all to hell. Time to end this so I can put my feet up; these dogs are barking.”
Raising his hands high above his head, he summons a churning vortex of darkness—the cyclone swirling with oily black tendrils, crackling with veins of lightning and streaks of searing fire as it rises into the sky like a vengeful storm.
The wind surges, tearing through the patio with a ferocity that shakes Jay on his feet and forces his mates backward into the wall.
“Nix!” Jay shouts, but there’s no way he can be heard over the howling winds and loud, booming thunder.
But Nix isn’t looking at him.
His gaze is locked on the swirling black mass above, his expression unreadable, as if he alone knows how to weather the storm.
The cyclone churns with Withers’s malice—a force so vile it seems to devour the very air—yet Nix remains untouched.
