The image of strangers standing in the darkness, staring at the windows where my children slept, made my teal fire flare hot beneath my skin. I forced it down. Burning the forest wouldn't help anyone.
A twig snapped somewhere to the east, making everyone freeze. Layla's hackles rose, and her lips pulled back from teeth that could tear through steel. Murtagh went absolutely still with his ears pricked forward. Tseki moved closer to his mate and partially shifted so his skin was covered in green scales.
"There are three of them," Aidon whispered as his shadows began spreading across the snow. "Coming back for another look."
"Good," I said, teal flames igniting in my palms. "I'm tired of playing defense."
The first one emerged from the trees thirty yards out. It was a man in dark tactical gear. His movements were sure and smooth. Behind him, two more materialized from the shadows. One was clearly Fae. Her pointed ears were visible even from this distance. The third was harder to place, but the way magic crackled around his fingers marked him as a practitioner of some kind.
They saw us at the same moment we saw them. For a heartbeat, nobody moved. We stood there staring dumbly atone another. Then the Fae woman raised her hand, and the temperature dropped a second before ice shot toward us in jagged spears.
Instinctively, I threw up a wall of teal fire that vaporized the ice before it could reach us. Steam hissed into the air, creating a temporary fog bank between them and us. Aidon's shadows exploded outward, covering the distance in a second. The man in tactical gear didn't see them coming until they wrapped around his throat, cutting off his air supply.
The practitioner began chanting and pulling up his powers. Whatever spell he was building felt like Dark magic. It made my skin crawl, but I didn't give him time to finish it. My fire roared across the clearing, forcing him to abandon his spell and dive for cover. He rolled behind a tree, forcing me to extinguish my witch fire or burn down the forest.
I gathered my power and sent a concentrated blast of power that wrapped around the trunk and slammed into him. He stumbled backward, right into Murtagh's path. The wolf hit him like a freight train, taking him to the ground. The man screamed—once—before going silent.
The Fae woman was backing away as ice crystallized in the air around her. She was good, I'd give her that. Her shields were solid, layered, and probably capable of stopping most magical attacks. Too bad I wasn't an average witch. And I wasn’t alone.
Tseki moved fast, getting behind her while she focused on me. His clawed hand closed around her shoulder. She cried out as his claws cut through flesh and disrupted her shields.
I hit her with a binding spell while she was vulnerable. Teal flames wrapped around her wrists and ankles, solidifying into manacles that would hold until I released them. Aidon dropped the man in tactical gear to the snow. He was unconscious but breathing. Murtagh shifted back to human form, standing overthe practitioner's body. That one wasn't moving. The whole fight had taken maybe ninety seconds.
"Dead?" I asked.
Murtagh shook his head. "Unconscious. Though he's going to have a hell of a headache when he wakes up."
The Fae woman glared at me with undisguised hatred. "You have no idea what you're interfering with."
"Actually," I said, walking closer, "I have a pretty good idea. You work for the Thessmark. You've been scouting my property, testing my wards, and planning to steal my children. It’s you who has no idea what you’re dealing with."
Her expression didn't change, but fear flickered in her eyes as Aidon closed the distance to her. "Who sent you?" Aidon demanded, his shadows coiling around his arms.
She pressed her lips together. I let my fire burn a little hotter, making the manacles around her wrists heat up. Not enough to burn—yet—but enough to make my point. "I'm a mother protecting her children. How far do you think I'll go?"
"You wouldn't dare," she said, but her voice shook.
"Try me." I narrowed my gaze and resisted the urge to fry her. We had to try to get information.
Tarja's mental voice brushed my mind. "She's terrified. Not of us. Of whoever sent her. She fears her employers more than she fears you."
That told me everything I needed to know about the people we were dealing with. They had ties to the Underworld. She assumed they were more ruthless than Aidon would be.
"Fine," I said. "Don't talk. But you're going to deliver a message for me." Her eyes widened, and she tried backing away from us.
"Tell your employers that I know what they're doing. I know about the medical collective, the Scythe, and the children they've murdered. And I'm coming for them." I leaned in close. "Soon."
I released the binding spell. She stumbled, catching herself before she fell. For a moment, I thought she might attack. I tossed a magical bomb at the practitioner when she looked at the two unconscious men. He didn’t even scream as he went up in flames. It was when Aidon turned the second guy to ash that she ran.
My hand shot out when Aidon started after her. “Let her go.”
"Bold move," Aidon said as we watched her disappear into the trees. "Letting her warn them."
"They already know we're onto them," I said. "Dr. Reeves gave us that flash drive. They'll have figured out we know by now. All I did was make sure they know we're not waiting around to be victims."
"And pissed them off," Tseki added with something that might have been approval.
"Good," I said. "Angry people make mistakes. Keep looking for the other three. Call us if you find them."
