Midnight Truth (Shifter Island #4) - Leia Stone Page 0,65
coursed through me. “Hey, you dirty bloodsucking vamp assholes!”
They didn’t even turn, instead moving in on the innocent people in the hallway trying to flee, my family and mate included.
Someone screamed, either Sariah or Annette, and I lost it. Magic filled my body, in that moment, like a live wire and I threw it—all of it—directly at the blood mages’ backs. A blast of blue light seared through the hallway, blinding me. I blinked, and the blood mages were down. Legit … all of them on the floor—their inert pale bodies now unnaturally still.
Did I … do that?
Sariah and Donovan remained in the hallway, my aunt draped over her son in protection. I was happy to see Rage had gotten the rest of the people to safety in the Alpha Academy library.
‘What the hell was that?’ Rage asked as he peered into the hallway at me. ‘You okay?’
Seeing that he was coming for my aunt and Donovan, I nodded.
‘I’m totally fine.’ Well, maybe not totally, but … considering. ‘Get them out, Rage.’
‘On it, love,’ he responded. ‘You get out too.’
I raced back to Reyna and Grandpa and found them hiding in the little alcove.
The three remaining high mages, Heath, Orion, and Snade, were doing a decent job of holding the line so we could all escape, but that wasn’t going to last forever. Not with ratios of ten to one. We needed to get out. Pronto. And where the hell was Kian? That coward probably was the first one out.
A bludgeoning headache throbbed at the base of my neck. After forming portals all day and now whatever that death blast was—I was spent.
I ducked back under Gramps’ arm, and Reyna and I hauled him out from behind the plant and closer toward safety.
Gramps glanced at the three high mages holding a line of blood mages at the door with a spectacular combined fire-dirt tornado behind us and muttered something indecipherable under his breath. Then he gritted his teeth and clawed at Reyna’s wrist.
What the…? Gramps had lost his mind.
He drew blood, and she hissed.
“I hereby release you from your shield oath, Reyna Harvest,” Grandpa said, his voice strong and steady.
Reyna’s eyes widened, and she glanced down at the droplets of blood at her wrist. “No!” She gasped and then clutched her chest as if in physical pain.
What the hell? I looked at her and then at Gramps wild-eyed. Why would he? Unless…? Oh.
“Go,” I told Reyna. “Check on everyone. I’m right behind you.”
She clutched her wrist, tears streaking down her face. “Geoff Drudner, it’s been my honor to serve you,” she said to my grandfather.
“The honor was mine, dear.” He reached out and caught a tear falling from her cheek.
With a whimper, she spun and took off running. My heart shattered as I watched her dart away, faithful in all my grandfather had commanded.
“I’ll help you fight,” I told him, looking him firmly in the eye. Knowing he’d just released Reyna so that he could join Orion, Heath, and Snade.
“No. You must go, Nai,” Gramps said.
Why did he sound so weak?
I peered down the hall to see Reyna, Sariah, and Donovan all disappear with Rage into the portal door, and I exhaled with a measure of relief.
I shook my head, tears forming in my eyes. “I’m not leaving you here.”
I peered over my shoulder. Heath, Orion, and Snade had held the line for everyone else to escape, but now they were wobbly on their feet.
I dragged my grandfather down the corridor against his wishes, not ready for the goodbye I knew was coming. Why else would he have cut Reyna free?
My grandfather was slow, and I was exhausted. That blast of magic, just like at the midyear games, had cost me.
“Nai,” Gramps rasped beside me.
“No.”
Tears pricked my eyes, and my throat clogged with emotion. “Don’t you dare say it. I’m not ready!”
There was a collective shout, and then silence settled in the library behind us, and I glanced over my shoulder—immediately wishing I hadn’t.
Nearly a hundred blood mages stood at the head of the hallway leading to the portal, watching us. Three dead bodies lay at their feet. They’d killed the three high mages of earth, air, and fire.
My legs trembled as brown, orange, and white magic lifted off of the bodies of the fallen high mages and zoomed down the hall and through the portal.
Was that? Holy hell…
“Nai—” My grandfather shook me from my stupor. “This is where my journey ends.”