Page 142 of Mage Massacres

“Not him, Kitten,” Stone corrected from the doorway. “At least, not according to what we saw.”

“You showed everyone?”

“No,” he sang, dragging the syllable out for a full four seconds. “Only the people in it.”

She hung her head, her shoulders shaking as she laughed. “If it happens, you can’t watch anymore.”

“Well, that’s not fair,” he complained. “If it happens, it’s because I helped.”

“I agree, Love.”

Palmer appeared from the side gate, sliding his cell phone into his pocket as he glared at Novak. “I was talking to my ma.”

“Did you tell her we said hey?”

“I told her the wolf ran you up a tree, and I needed to separate the two of you.”

“What did she have to say?” Stone questioned, sitting next to York. “And why are we in the grass? There are plenty of chairs at the table.”

Palmer squatted in front of Sloane, studying her before he asked, “Where are the other Pith tokens?”

She frowned as a linen cloth landed in her lap. “Right here. Why?”

“I called to see what Ma knew about them,” he began, settling on the ground. “She helped Rig create those, taking little pieces of our magic to infuse into them when we were young. She wanted to know if you had absorbed them all, and when I told her no, she became a bit frantic.”

Concern flowed through the bonds from every direction, making me slightly dizzy.

The mage grimaced. “She says they were formed as a set, so they need to be treated as such. One alone isn’t as valuable as the six together. The longer they’re apart, the more unstable they’ll make your magic. She didn’t clarify what that meant, though.”

“Okay.” Barbie hesitantly nodded. “So I need to finish what I started?”

She stared at her lap, the surface of the river rocks glinting in the moonlight. After moving them to the ground in front of her, she straightened the linen cloth out. Her gaze never strayed from the Pith tokens, but her mental essence brushed against mine, seeking uncertainty.

She would find none in me or the others.

Sloane pulled her t-shirt over her head and reached for a token, cradling it in her palms. A mark on her chest glowed as she stroked her thumb over the gray-ish exterior. Her mind revolved around the object, as if it had completely consumed her.

She cast a quick glance at each of us as she pressed the token to her chest, pushing until the entire surface was flat against her skin.

And then it was gone.

York jerked his head in her direction, but she didn’t look up as she grabbed the next. She repeated the process, her fluid motions making me think she was in some sort of trance.

Again, the token blinked out of existence once it was fully touching her chest. Novak climbed to his knees, leaning his upper body over my legs to observe her closer.

The third token was mine. The consumption knocked all the air from my lungs. Her emotions and thoughts rolled through me; a tsunami of layered questions and feelings before everything fell deathly silent.

She picked up the last one, and Vaughn shook his head.

“It won’t work yet.”

She didn’t stop to address him until we saw the sixth mark glow faintly on her chest.

“We talked about this, Vaughn. The bond between us has been growing, sealing itself the longer we were together but didn’t make the leap consciously. I’ve started to think the fae mating tradition has more to do with the magic of the land and less to do with actual people.”

The token touched her chest, disappearing from her grasp just like the others. The fae widened his eyes, then narrowed them, perplexed by her words.

“What now?” she asked, looking at Palmer for direction.