“She should not have been encouraged to perform such a powerful ritual unsupervised,” I said, glaring at the incubus. “Magic has consequences, and—”
“And Gray is perfectly capable of handling them,” he said. “With or without supervision. Or permission, for that matter.”
Gray lowered her eyes, blushing at his comments. “Thank you.”
“The natural order is not something to interfere with lightly.” I took a step closer to her. “She could’ve been seriously injured or killed. Would we still be standing here arguing about permissions if that had been the outcome?”
“Dude. She took out a pair of zombie coyotes with her bare feet and bludgeoned a wolf with a spellbook.” Asher wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. “Give the girl some credit.”
“Come again?” Ronan said, glaring at them both.
“Yes, clearly we’ve lost the plot somewhere along the way,” Darius said, looking from Asher’s bare chest to Gray’s still-bare legs with a mixture of confusion and unchecked desire.
Emilio, her wolf shifter, remained silent, eyes and ears scanning the woods for danger.
Obviously, he was the smart one of the operation.
“I didn’t mean to bring them back,” she said, her earlier confidence dimming a bit. “The magic was a lot more powerful than I expected, especially since my book seemed completely dead before tonight.”
“Not unlike the creatures who’d nearly killed you,” I said.
“Hey!” She broke away from the demon and jabbed a finger into my chest. “The book is part of my magical heritage. You’re the one who kept telling me to embrace it. So I did.”
“Yes, but my intention was for you to do such embracing under the proper supervision.”
“You mean underyoursupervision,” Asher said. “Why is that, Colebrook?”
“The answer to that question is more complicated and multifaceted than your mind could ever hope to comprehend, and so is she.”
I allowed him to interpret that as an insult, but the truth was, there was still so muchIdidn’t even comprehend.
I’d made many assumptions when I’d selected this particular Shadowborn for my plans, and ever since her birth, she’d unknowingly challenged every one of them, forcing me to revise and improvise, to keep my ideas as fluid and fleeting as smoke.
She was, quite simply, like nothing I had ever known.
“Try me,” Asher said now.
“Primarily,” I said, quickly losing patience, “to ensure something like this doesn’t happen.”
I nodded behind the group, where two raccoons approached, trailed by a family of woodchucks. All of their eyes were vacant, their bodies in various states of decomposition.
Gray gasped, taking a step back. “I must’ve missed a few stragglers.”
“Gray, what are you talking about?” Ronan asked.
Ignoring him, she grabbed her book of shadows and searched through the pages. “I’ll try the unraveling spell again.”
“That won’t be necessary.” I swept my hands across the expanse, instantly ending the last few resurrected lives she’d missed.
They dropped to the ground, animated no more.
“Show-off,” the incubus muttered.
“Yes, well… I don’t have a bludgeoning spellbook,” I said. “I had to improvise.”
No one made a sound.
“That was… a joke,” I explained.
