Falling for Angels - Hazel Hunter Page 0,50

turned my head to see Master Gowan and Reggie riding Velvet in his stallion form around the frozen wave. As they went Kendric and Reggie kept flinging fireballs behind them, setting fire to the ground. They must have doused it with oil, because the fireballs shot up and merged into a solid wall of flames.

“They’re trapping them inside?” It didn’t make any sense to me. “Why don’t they just burn them up?”

She exchanged a funny look with the laird. “Kendric knows,” she said, and he nodded.

“Kendric knows what?” I demanded.

Deb smiled a little. “That I’m still alive.”

As the sound of magic blasting through the ice screeched through the air I heard clansman moving back to their secondary defensive positions, leaving the way to the courtyard clear.

“We’re on,” I told the squad as I dropped to the back of the formation.

The boulders that Roxanne and I had lined along one back wall of the courtyard looked like huge, pitted cannonballs, but they were really our last line of defense. I couldn’t risk using my strength inside the castle unless I absolutely had to, because I might bring the whole place down on top of us.

I could hear the clan fighting the calpa Ruith had freed from the ice out in the great hall. They would keep as many shifters back as they could for as long as possible, but we were running out of time.

As Ruith stalked into the courtyard I got into kicking position. “Angels, go proud.”

“Come on, girls,” Tory said as Gayla doused her with a bucket of water, making huge spines shoot out all over her body. “Let’s show this evil bitch just what it means to be sisters.”

She did a front flip to slam into the dark druidess, but a moment before she crashed into her Ruith knocked her away with a glowing sweep of her hand.

“’Tis the best you have, slut?” the druidess said, sneering at me. “You’re going to die slowly.”

“You’re not,” Val called down to her.

From above the courtyard our base used the power she’d borrowed from Roxanne to drop the huge rock she’d been holding over the druidess, but it bounced off her as if it were made of rubber and smashed into the cat walk, knocking our borrower over the side.

“Stop it,” Gayla shrieked, throwing the empty water bucket at Ruith. “We never did anything to you, you horrible witch. Why don’t you just go back to whatever icky slimy place you crawled out of, and–”

As a huge arc of power flung Gayla at me, I rushed forward, grabbed her and pushed her behind me. She screamed with fury and tried to go around me, but I caught her hand. “No, sweetie. She’ll kill you if you go at her again.”

She looked out at Ruith. “She’s killing us anyway. I just want to claw her eyes out before I die.”

Shifters covered with chunks of ice began trotting into the courtyard. One huge stallion came in but suddenly reared up over Ruith, ready to trample her, but she saw through Olivia’s disguise and blasted her across the courtyard.

“Get everyone out of here,” I told Gayla, and then shouted the same thing to the other girls as I got ready to start kicking.

“I think it’s my turn now, Bae,” a familiar voice said.

I jerked around to see Deb walking into the courtyard. I thought for sure it was another shape-shifter trick, but then I saw her aura. It had become a beautiful, soft white light like nothing I’d ever seen, but it was still Deb, too.

“I shallnae be rid of you until I burn you to ash,” the dark druidess said, and held up her hand as it burst into green flames.

“Not a problem,” Deb told her in a very weird, calm voice. “You can set fire to me, or kill me any way you’d like. I won’t fight back. All you have to do is promise to end this war, right now.”

Seeing the mad hatred in my sister’s eyes made me understand something I never had about Ruith: it wasn’t all about her. It was all about me. Every choice she had ever made, she’d done because of me. From the day I was born she had recognized me as the opposite side of herself. She had been feared as a child, while I had been loved. Our parents had never accepted her, and yet treasured me. I played in the light as she schemed in the darkness.

I also knew how easily I