AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Very bad.” I kissed the top of her head. “You can be my parrot, though.”
“I’m a captain, not a parrot.”
“A captain?” Dad’s interest perked. “What sort of captain?”
Ditching me, Colby leapt to Dad’s shoulder and began filling his head with stories of the Mystic Seas. The way his eyes lit up when she moved on to the original Mystic Realms, with battles and orcs and strategy, made me think I had lost another person to what I was fast beginning to think of as the Mystic Cult.
Then again, I could see the two of them bonding over virtual bloodshed. It might be good for them.
Content to let Dad watch over her, I trailed after Marita and Derry, absorbing the sights.
The ranch reminded me a bit of the farm outside Samford and sent a pang of homesickness through me that was quickly swallowed by dread. The brief memory of the farm put me in the frame of mind to think on the centuria. That, of course, forced me to acknowledge Asa was absent from his place beside me. He was in Hael. Where Calixta ruled with impunity. And I hadn’t heard from either of them.
A cool breeze stirred my hair, drawing me out of my thoughts. The bite of frost hit me next in a shivering wave, and dread punched me in the gut. Bjorn—freaking Bjorn—shimmered into existence barely a yard from where I stood, stinking like black magic. His power hammered at me, icing me to the spot, slowly freezing me in place.
We had been tracking him, sure, but it was out of character for him to engage rather than evade.
“Get her out of here,” I snapped at Dad, who had tensed to intervene.
Denial parted his lips, but one look at my determination to save her snapped his mouth shut.
Burdened with the favor I asked of him, he cradled Colby against his chest and flew with her to safety.
Marita slammed into Bjorn in the next breath, Derry right behind her. The frost giant stumbled back, but he caught his balance and swatted Marita’s next lunge. He landed a punishing blow to Derry’s ribs, but it didn’t keep him down. Not with Bjorn advancing on me, the snarl twisting his blue lips promising I would pay for locking him in that cell. Maybe even for daring to exist.
“You can’t know how long I’ve waited for this moment.” Bjorn zeroed in on me, which suited me fine. He would kill the Mayhews without blinking, but me… I might retain enough value to the director to survive. I was happy to take one for the team to keep them breathing. “Your days have been numbered since you arrived at the manor, and your ticket has finally been punched.”
I told myself I had a pithy comment ready to throw at him, but I couldn’t unclench my frozen jaw.
“Stop,” Marita slurred, blood running down her chin. “Or I’ll make you stop.”
Derry took his cue from her, the Mayhews forming a wall in front of me.
No, no, no.
I wanted to yell at them to go, to run, to save themselves, but I couldn’t get out the words.
“Just like your mother,” Bjorn sneered. “Cavorting with beasts.”
“Watch yourself, Frosty.” Marita, wobbly on her legs, tensed to strike. “That’s my best friend you’re talking about.”
“Tell yourfriendI don’t converse with animals.” Bjorn never broke eye contact with me as he flung out his hands to either side. First Derry and then Marita went stiff as he froze them, the same as me. “As loath as I am to touch you, abomination, it’s time for us to go.”
With careless shoves, he knocked them over, and they thumped onto the dirt. Paralyzed. Magic locking their muscles. But that wasn’t the worst of it. No. Icicles grew from his palms. He broke one with a snap, bent down, and thrust it through Marita’s chest, pinning her to the ground. He did the same with Derry. There was nothing they could do. NothingIcould do as twin crimson stains spread across the soil.
“Interesting.” Bjorn peered down at me. “You didn’t cast a single spell.”
I promised his death with my glare and vowed I would be the one who ended him.
“You’re planning something. I can see it. I would kill you and be done with it if it were up to me.”
Back at you, I thought, fury boiling within me.
And then the ice encasing me began to melt.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ithought it was Colby, channeling magic into me across the growing distance between us, thawing me from the inside out. But the burn was familiar. Magic—mymagic—ignited my veins, engulfing me as it fought the spell Dad had cast to contain my power.
