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Two embers fell from Owen’s ears.
Persuasion, Pipes. Come on. You’re up.
“Owen! Stop!”
It barely worked. He was too angry, too panicked, to let himself be persuaded. And to be fair, I’d practically yelled the words—I was having a hard time suppressing my own adrenaline and panic. But it rattled Owen’s resolve just enough that his fist landed in the floor directly in front of Kai instead of putting Kai through the floor. Kingston blasted him with fire again, then Xero flew headlong into the rock demon’s chest, knocking him flat.
Owen’s damaged head cracked as it hit the stone. Xero threw another punch at his face, making the downed man’s head bounce. A thick black puddle was beginning to form beneath him, but he was still twitching. Kingston pushed Xero away with his tail and lit up the stone demon’s body. The flame roared like an inferno. Red-hot, then blue, then white. Hot enough to make Owen’s skin glow red, along with the stones around us. The red color grew lighter and lighter, shifting to a brilliant, yellow-white. Smoke filled the chamber but was sucked away through an opening somewhere behind us.
Kingston finally stopped with a choking cough. Owen’s body continued to burn. To melt. His bulky form took up the width of the hallway, cutting Kingston off from the rest of us. Nausea struck at the pit of my stomach, and my vision began to blacken. I realized just before I fell that I was still bleeding profusely from my wrists and ankles, that I probably had a concussion, and that I’d donated probably a lot more than I should have to Kai. Too much to be healed by our one quick kiss.
I fell, expecting to feel the rattle of stones against my wounded head—but I felt Kai’s arms wrap around me instead. He kissed me hard, giving me more than he had in the room. I opened my eyes in time to see Jayce shimmer back into his human form. He kissed me as well. Xero didn’t even bother to change. His eyes glittered black in his mottled blue-black skin, his reddish horns rose high above his head, but his kiss was like a fucking angel’s.
Kingston flew over the flaming heap and shifted as he landed, making it look like he poured a human-shaped drink from a dragon-sized pitcher. He smoothed away the blood on my wrists as the wounds knitted closed and kissed my wrists directly, then my mouth. I let myself sink into their touch, the combined power of their energy, which supported me on all sides.
Ever so slowly, I came back to myself, fully charged.
When I could stand on my own, the men stepped back a fraction—no longer holding me up, but not letting go of me either. Silently, the five of us looked over at the smoldering mass.
“We did it,” I said numbly.
I’d never been party to taking a life before. I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. But we hadn’t had a choice. Owen would’ve killed us if he’d gotten the chance. Besides, he’d been the mole, the one sabotaging the school since the very beginning. We’d done a public service, right?
“We survived,” Kai said firmly, still gripping my waist. “We did what we had to do.”
“Besides,” Jayce said a little breathlessly. His blond hair was almost black with soot and ash. “The guy was a douchebag.”
“He tried to kill you, Piper,” Xero rumbled, and even the fire demon, the gentlest of my men, had a spark of fury in his eyes as he spoke.
The others nodded, and I sank deeper into their embrace, letting go of the flames of guilt that tried to lick at my heart.
Owen had tried to kill me. He’d tried to take down the school. He’d tried to kill my men.
And I could never let that happen.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“What was he doing down here?” Kingston asked as we all began to shake ourselves out of the post-battle haze.
I shook my head, gazing down at the smoldering body. “I don’t know. He was behind all of it, though. The sprites, everything. He was sabotaging the school’s defenses, I think.”
“There’s no way he managed it,” Xero said. “There’s so much magic protecting this place. He couldn’t possibly have taken all of it down.”
“We stopped him before he could,” Jayce said confidently. “It’s finals, right? So this was his last shot. He didn’t finish before we got there—he was still working on it when we busted in, right, Xero?”
“He was definitely doing something,” Xero agreed.
“There you go, then.” I let out a relieved breath. “Holy shit. We saved the fucking school.”
“Hell yeah, we did!” Jayce high-fived me. Xero grinned, such a rare expression on him that it seemed to light up the whole corridor. Kingston tried to look blasé, but he was clearly proud of himself.
“Couldn’t have done that without you, Dragon Man,” I told him earnestly. Then my brow furrowed. “Now… does anybody remember how to get out of here?”
“This way,” Kai said quietly. He looked worried, but he was always less demonstrative than the others. The part he’d played in our success would hit him later, and he’d celebrate with the rest of us. I was sure of it.
Then, suddenly, I wasn’t.
As we climbed the stairs to the sub-basement, a feeling of indescribable dread fell over me. The others felt it too. Xero’s mouth flattened into a thin line. Jayce started walking faster, urging us all forward.
