a hairy nympho? Is this some kind of fetish you’re into?”
Charity pulled her sword, sparkly and new and probably worth a pretty penny. Light flickered in the sky and a little thread of lightning zinged up the blade.
“You able to do hellfire yet?” I asked, taking in their loose formation. I knew they’d tighten up as soon as I ran at them. One or two would probably peel away and go for the mark. Hopefully the mages would be free to combat them by then.
“Why?” Charity said. She licked her lips. “Nervous this battle will end before it starts?”
“So that’s a no, then. You have to work on your poker face. I’ll let Darius know. He did say it was a hard skill to learn and usually needed more mature power. He’ll be glad that he only needs to worry about your royal pappy.”
Charity’s expression darkened, and I grinned. I’d learned a little thing from hanging around with vampires—you had to grab all the information you could, when they least expected.
I ran forward, lifting my gun and firing as I did so. The blast made a couple shifters flinch. Steve jerked and lowered to the ground, wounded but not out of the fight. I’d gotten him in the side. That would hurt, and more importantly, it would slow him down. That guy was frightful when he really got going.
Charity braced and lightning rained down over me, a really neat freaking trick. It was still magic, though, and I could dissipate most of that as easily as breathing. I dissipated those incredibly tight and intricate weaves, cutting the distance between us, my gun still up and swinging to the other side. One bolt got through, striking me, filling up my world with electrified pain.
I’d live.
I squeezed the trigger several times in quick succession, riddling Charity’s fae friends and a white wolf standing too close with bullets until the magazine was empty. I jammed the gun back into place as Devon lurched forward.
I snatched a spell-filled casing out of my pouch, the magic stuffed in there potent but not deadly. I cracked it opened between my fingers and threw it to the side, landing at the feet of a big, brawny gray wolf that stood in front of Cole.
Cole was going to be so pissed with what came out of that casing in five…four…
I stepped to the side and threw an uppercut, landing on the underside of Devon. The breath exited his muzzle. I pivoted and brought my sword down onto his head, inconspicuously backing it up with my air magic, slamming him down to the ground and hopefully knocking him out.
…three…
Charity was already swinging, fast and agile, just like her kind. But new at all of this.
I arched out of the way. She followed through, spun, and stuck out a hand to blast me with her electrical fireball…thing.
“Damn it, just gotta grab…” I snatched out an empty casing, the magic used up, but no one else knew that. I slapped it onto my blade as her ball of fire reached me. It kissed my face, kept at bay by my ice magic, and even if it wasn’t, the only thing I’d suffer would’ve been a loss of eyebrows. But that demon might see, and so I needed to go through with the ruse.
…two…
I slashed my sword through the fire, whispering expletives that they’d hopefully think were spell words. I was out of practice at pretending to use fabricated magic instead of my own.
The fire dried up, but Charity was already on the move, her sword slashing down at me.
Good Lord, the woman was fast!
I twisted, barely missed by the blade, and punched out, clocking her right in the jaw. Devon struggled to his feet, and Steve at the end stayed down, definitely not that hurt but saw a way out of fighting me. I’d remember that. He was an okay guy, that Steve.
The casing I’d thrown coughed spikes within a balloon of magical pink powder, spraying the gray, brawny wolf and white-furred Cole behind him. The spikes lodged into their flesh, shallow wounds that wouldn’t keep them down for very long. That pink powder would stick to them for months, though. Their coats would be stained, no matter how many times they changed. Very disco.
“Good luck with people taking you seriously after this, snow tits,” I yelled at Cole.
One of the fae, a guy with a handsome face, though pinched in an expression a teacher’s pet might wear, struggled through the