Midnight Lies (Shifter Island #2) - Raye Wagner Page 0,71
fours and stared into my eyes. I could see it in his hazel eyes. I could see him.
“Honor?” I croaked.
Leaning forward, he licked my cheek and then sat back on his haunches with a wolfish grin.
I burst into laughter and tears, wrapping my arms around his neck. “It’s you. It’s really you.”
Rage stumbled forward, “I hear him. It’s him.”
Honor spun, looked Rage in the eyes, and then jumped up on his hind legs and licked his brother’s face.
Grandpa Geoff helped Noble sit up, and Justice held out the bottle of the healing elixir I’d made earlier.
“Noble,” Grandpa said. “You okay?”
Noble swallowed some of the healing elixir, his eyes wide and wild, but he nodded. “Honor?”
The black wolf bounded across the room, licking each of us before settling at Noble’s side. All of the brothers embraced the black wolf, and Grandpa Geoff looked at me and smiled.
“Thank you.” I squeezed his hand. “If there is anything I can ever do for you—”
Grandpa Geoff leaned forward. “There is one thing…”
Okay, he kind of jumped on that favor quickly. It must be urgent.
“Anything,” I assured him. This man had my back from day one, I wouldn’t deny him.
“Nai, I need you to—”
The cabin door burst open and Kaja came in panting. “The king and his men are here.”
Chapter 12
Even knowing King Declan would come eventually didn’t prevent my heart from thundering against my ribs at Kaja’s declaration.
“Now?” I muttered, grinding my teeth. I glanced at Rage, the muscles in his neck corded and taut as he rose. Why couldn’t we catch a break and have Declan get struck by lightning or something?
“Let him come,” Rage snarled, his voice more wolf than human. “He needs to pay for all he’s done.”
Speaking of that … I turned to my grandfather. “Declan had Surlama put a curse on Rage’s mother.”
The more I explained, the more the high mage shook his head.
“Is there any way you can help us break it?” I asked—begged, in fact.
“With Surlama dead, the only way…” He pursed his lips. “I’ll have to go back to the mage lands. I have plenty of spellbreaker root in my workroom. With Dark Row burned down … it’s the only place I know where to get some.” He gave Justice a withering glare.
Justice winced. “Sorry about that.”
I frowned. “About what?”
Justice ran a hand through his dark hair. “When Declan showed up at Surlama’s and it was clear they were in league together … I sort of flipped out … and burnt her tent down.”
A sly grin pulled across my face, and Rage clapped him on the back.
“But I didn’t mean for the entire place to catch fire!”
“Funny thing about fire, it’s hard to control,” Grandpa wisely stated before turning to me. “Nai, if I leave, I can’t help with the fight here.”
I nodded. “I know, but if we don’t break the curse, Rage can’t kill Declan.”
“True.” Geoff turned to Reyna. “We won’t have time to return through the mage portals. I’ll have to make one for us.”
Say what? I realized then that I didn’t even know the full extent of my grandfather’s powers.
She blanched but then nodded.
“Are you well enough to do that? I mean—”
“Where will you be?” he asked, completely ignoring my question. “Tell me, and I’ll meet you there once I have the root.”
“The main lodge, right next to my house where you met my dad,” I said, thinking it was a good meeting spot. If I met him all the way out here, I couldn’t help out with the fight either.
Grandpa pulled his redheaded shield to the side, and I turned to find Rage leaning into Kaja.
“Tell Crescent to hold Declan off as long as possible. We need to break the curse before I can kill him.”
Kaja nodded to him and then flashed me a wicked grin. “Never a dull moment.” She winked. “I’ll see you in the field!”
Then she raced from the porch, shifting back into her wolf midstride.
Justice stood with Honor’s black wolf at his side, and panic clawed through me as my gaze landed on the very human form of the third Midnight heir.
“Do you still have your magic?” I asked Noble, who gingerly climbed to his feet. Losing his wolf had definitely changed the slope of his shoulders, but to lose the power over his element too…?
It would be unthinkable.
“If you don’t, you can’t go out there. You could be killed…” Rage’s order became a shout of triumph as Noble pulled a sphere of water from the air.