then shot back at the mage who’d fired it off, smacking him in the middle moments before the silverback was on him, knocking him to the ground and clubbing him.
Cyra took a hit and then turned. The spell shot off to the side rather than rebounding directly like the others. Sebastian had never seen that happen. The meaning became clear when she turned back and grabbed her attacker and another mage, hugging them to her strange armor. She hadn’t wanted the return fire of the spell to spoil her fun. From their screams, it sounded like they were being tortured. And honestly…they were. Sebastian remembered what that phoenix could do.
“Sebastian,” Nessa said, reaching out. “If you want them to live, you should stop this.”
The pink-blue gargoyle rose into the sky, able to just barely navigate within the available space. The other gargoyles couldn’t do much, their wing spans too mighty for them to take off. They tucked in their wings and crowded in around Jessie, on protective detail.
Noah got a spell off at Austin, only for it to hit his defenses and rebound, but it missed the mage.
“She changed the protection spell I taught her. Her creation is damn good, but it needs some tweaks,” Sebastian said, wondering how it worked so efficiently. “Is it siphoning energy or power from Jessie?”
“How can you worry about magic right now?” Nessa stood. “What the hell am I doing?” She sat back down. “I feel like I should…run…or fight, maybe.”
Austin ignored another bolt of magic coming for him, taking out two mages with a hard swing of his huge paw.
Jessie didn’t ignore it, though.
A huge swell of power made Sebastian’s eyes water, even from this distance. She put out her hands and readied a blistering spell that would kill Noah where he stood, Sebastian just knew it. She was reacting instinctively to seeing her intended mate in harm’s way. She’d lost control.
“No, no, no!” Hollace dove into her, and her spell went wide, glancing off Noah’s right shoulder.
The air concussed and Noah flew sideways, landing on the side of his face, his legs flying into the air over him. He crumpled and lay still. Even though the impact had been blunted by whatever defenses he’d erected, plus the fact that it had barely glanced off him, he still wasn’t even close to a match for her.
Sebastian and Nessa stood. “Oh!”
“Yield, yield, yield, yield,” a mage said as he sprinted away from the rampaging gorilla.
Another ran toward the stands, a woman who was pretty quick on her feet. The basajaun was faster, though. He swiped her from behind and sent her up into the air, over the first barrier and into someone’s lap.
“The fight is done,” Kiki called, not entering the field. “The fight is done!”
Jessie’s people stopped moving, and Noah’s people—those still standing—kept running, their flight reflex taking over.
Austin turned toward the crowd, toward Sebastian, and reared up again, releasing a roar full of rage and dominance and challenge. Sebastian could feel it in every fiber of his being. He reached for the back of his chair with a shaking hand and sat down slowly. Nessa took one step away, then another.
Austin lowered back down to all fours before changing back into his human form. He’d just issued a promise, and while Sebastian didn’t know exactly how it translated, the effect had rattled his bones and made him rethink this whole endeavor.
“Okay, yeah,” Nessa said, out of breath. “Sure, yeah, okay. You win. You were right. That is…”
“Terrifying, yes.”
“It’s not even a normal kind of terrifying. It’s like it…” She touched her chest. “It’s not rational, that fear.”
“They’re predators. It’s primal.”
“Yeah. Wow. Why am I more attracted to Broken Sue because of it?”
“I do not know. You’re crazy.”
“No argument there.”
Jessie walked her people off the berm, and though Sebastian’s attendant should’ve accompanied them, no one stepped forward to do it. Sebastian didn’t blame them. He wouldn’t want to, either.
“That is why I want the shifters on my side,” Sebastian said.
“And the basajaun. Don’t forget that crazy basajaun. Now I get why that guy froze in the hallway.”
“And the basajaun. Jessie and her team of shifters are worth more than any other crew at this meeting. If the others can’t see that yet, wait until I let her fly and remove the restriction against killing.”
“Those shifters wouldn’t have been so effective without Jessie’s magical defense,” Nessa said thoughtfully. “They still would’ve won, definitely, but they would’ve felt the hits. It wouldn’t have been such