The Last Warrior (Shifters Unbound #13) - Jennifer Ashley Page 0,97
famous for their archery. Walther le Madhug was a legend even other hoch alfar admired. He’d won many honors with his ability, and he’d boasted to Rhianne about the number of animals he’d slaughtered with his skill.
Rhianne dove as soon as she spotted Walther, and so wasn’t where his arrow had been aimed, but her feathers ruffled in the breeze of its passing.
Her rage honed to one thought, as sharp as her eagle’s vision. Walther, who’d kidnapped her from her mostly peaceful existence and thrust her in a dungeon to await his evil intentions—Walther, she could kill.
She streaked toward him, turning at the last minute to drive her talons at his face. Walther smacked at her in panic with his bow, and in the next instant, Ivor blasted Rhianne with another word of power.
Rhianne dodged but the power dealt her a glancing blow. She tumbled end over end down the green, only saving herself from crashing as a mess of bones and feathers by hurriedly thrusting out her wings and gliding to the ground. She wished she’d had more time for flying lessons before this.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, a roll that went on for some time. The clouds on the horizon had drawn closer, the sky blue-black in all directions.
Rhianne righted herself. She’d been flung a long way from the ring of trees, almost to the end of the houses that lined the common. One of the houses bore a picture window, through which she spied the white-haired boy, Olaf, watching her with wide black eyes.
As Rhianne shook out her wings and regained her equilibrium, Olaf waved.
Behind him was Tiger-girl, her wildness barely contained, her golden gaze meeting Rhianne’s.
Find him.
Rhianne understood the growl that she couldn’t truly hear. Another rumble of thunder sounded, as though Tiger-girl’s demand had triggered it.
Rhianne acknowledged them both with her eagle’s cry, then shot into the air with renewed strength, winging back to the battle.
Fear and fury rose in Ben as he watched Ivor’s magic hurl Rhianne away. His heart beat again when he saw her catch herself and land without mishap, and his anger roiled anew.
Fuck this crap. It was time a Tuil Erdannan found out what happened when he enraged a goblin.
Ben didn’t bother, like Shifters, to undress. When Ben took on a new form, he didn’t actually shift, he simply became it.
One of his forms resembled a redoubtable ancient tree. The other was a monster from hell.
Ben’s clothes simply vanished. His body changed in an instant from that of the affable Ben with cool ink to a giant, massively muscled, hard-faced, hard-skinned, hideous nightmare.
Goblins were creatures of the forests, rising from the bones of the earth and the roots of trees. Dokk alfar often claimed they were the oldest race in Faerie, but goblins had been there to watch dokk alfar—the dark Fae, the iron workers, the thorn in the hoch alfar’s flesh—emerge from their caves.
Goblins were born of the earth itself, creatures from the dawn of time, guardians of the forests. They’d grown into immensely magical beings who lived for centuries and hid their true natures.
They’d become complacent, Ben had witnessed, certain they were too strong for the hoch alfar to throw down.
Ben himself had been flattered when the dokk alfar had asked him to create the karmsyern, which he, drawing on the magics of rocks and trees, plus the iron flowing in a molten river far beneath the surface, could easily create. Why not build a talisman that could stop the hoch alfar from destroying the dokk alfar? Why not enjoy being a total pain in the hoch alfar’s ass?
The humans had a saying: Pride goeth before a fall. And fall the goblins had done.
Not entirely, though. Ben had survived. As had Millie, and with her, her sons.
Millie had removed her glasses once more and set down her purse. Darren and Cyril were already changing.
Ben didn’t wait for them. He sprinted for Ivor, liking the surprise on the Tuil Erdannan’s face to see a wall of dark-muscled fury barreling straight at him.
Ivor tried another word of power. Ben broke the flash of it with his fist.
A roll of thunder boomed across the land. Maybe they’d get lucky and Ivor would be struck by lightning.
Ben immediately thought of a way to make the annoying Tuil Erdannan a lightning rod. It would hurt Ben too, but what the hell?
Conditions had to be right, though. For now, Ben would settle for simply beating the shit out of the guy.