Kade frowns at him. “What?”
“I can feel it—the magic’s lifted off this whole realm, and the teleportation guardrails with it.” He turns toward an empty stretch of floor. “Thanks to you, Aaron.” He glances back at me, the grin easy and bright and maddening. “Tell Layla I’ll be home late for dinner.”
“What—“
Josiah snaps a portal open in the air, its edges swirling. “I’ll be right back,” he tells me, and steps through.
Kade lunges after him, but the portal closes before her fingers reach it, and she stumbles through empty air. “Motherfucker!” She spins, both hands in her hair. “AHHH!” The scream tears out of her. She rounds on Ellie. “So what in the actual fuck!”
“I’ll come back,” I tell Ellie. “But right now, I have to go.”
Ellie nods, holding the cloak. “I’ll promise them you will,” she says. “But don’t let us fall into despair again.” She looks around at the bodies on the floor. “We need a leader.”
I don’t answer. I turn to Mara, and she throws herself into my arms—then pulls back, frowning up at me. “Aaron...”
“What?”
She keeps staring up, past my face, higher.
“You’re fucking levitating,” Kade says.
She scrubs a hand over her face. “We are in so much fucking trouble right now.”
I look down. The floor’s a foot below my feet, and my whole body’s lit up again, blue-gold sparking off my skin and pooling in the air under me. Mara stares up at me, her lips parted, her eyes wide, and under all that fear there’s something else—wonder.
“Okay.” I turn my hands over and watch the light move across my palms. “This is cool.” I look back down at her. “But how do I get down?”
39
Mara
Iwatch my mate hang in the air as we figure out how to get him back down. The light pours off his skin in slow waves of blue and gold, pooling under his feet where they don’t quite touch the floor. He turns his hands over and studies the glow. He shifts his weight and drops a few inches. Then he catches himself and floats right back up. My lion sits forward inside me, every bit as surprised as I am. For once I don’t bother to settle her. I let my mouth fall open and stare right along with her while all that power runs loose under his hands.
His feet finally touch down.
I’m already pouncing him. My arms go around his neck and my legs lock at his waist. My tail wraps his thigh and holds tight. He grunts and rocks back a step under my weight, his hands flying up on instinct. One splays wide at the small of my back while the other presses flat between my shoulders. Then it sinks in that I just pounced him.
“Oh.” I loosen my arms. “Sorry. I didn’t?—“
I get one leg unhooked before his grip tightens, both arms banding around me and pulling me right back in. He drops his face into the curve of my neck and breathes me in.
His voice comes muffled against my skin. “Please, baby. Don’t let go.”
The fight drains out of me. My arms slide back around his neck, my body loosening against his, my cheek dropping to the top of his head. He turns a slow half circle with me still wrapped around him. His heart pounds against me.
Behind us, Kade moves through the bodies. There are so many of them. Witches and warlocks lie where they dropped, sprawled over broken glass and spilled books. Their faces are slack and ordinary now. The gray skin is gone. So are the wings and the split-open chests. They’re just people now, scattered where they fell. Kade rolls one onto his back with her foot and crouches over him.
“So.” She tips her head and looks down the long stretch of them. “When do they wake up? And are they powerless now?”
Aaron lifts his head out of my neck and looks too. He keeps one arm hooked under me and reaches the other out over the room.
“No.” He turns his hand slow above them. “I can still feel magic in them. It’s weak, but it’s there.” His fingers curl closed.
“Huh.” Kade pushes up off her knees. “Small miracles.”
Ellie comes out of the corner with Hella’s cloak gathered against her, both hands buried in the gray wool. Her head stays bowed. She moves over a fallen man and stops a few feet off. She won’t look at any of us.
“I’ll stay with them.” Her grip goes tight in the wool. “Someone has to be here when they wake.”
