lawn, wolves were fighting.
Including a familiar great white wolf, who was fighting with two other wolves. As I watched, Lex ripped the throat out of one of those other wolves.
Then I saw Bennett, blasting magic at witches and certain wolves.
Well. I still didn’t trust the man any further than I could trust him. With the exception of Silas, I didn’t trust any wizards, and even Silas was suspect sometimes.
Time for me to shift. There was still a fight to win out there, even though the tide of battle seemed to be turning.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Maddie
* * *
“You know, I never spent so much time in prison until I met you, Silas.”
He winked at me. “I take you to all the nicest places.”
Our conversation wasn’t exactly intimate. We were chained to the wall, and there were two guards watching each of us, all very well-armed. Isabelle and Frederick and Sebastian were with us, too. Isabelle looked miserable, no matter how much anyone assured her it wasn’t her fault. I was glad that the blast of magic hadn’t hurt her. It had just caused all of us—Establishment and Rebel and shifter alike—to black out, and then Warren Campbell’s reinforcements had picked up the pieces. We’d woke in this prison.
I couldn’t reach my pendant, which still dangled against my skin, but maybe that didn’t matter. I found myself closing my eyes. I believed in the pendant’s magic as more than the magic itself. I formed the word on my lips. Familia.
There was no way they could hear my call. But there was some crazy part of me that believed in a bond of magic between us all that was greater than the walls between worlds.
When I opened my eyes, Jensen was watching me. I felt silly for a moment, knowing Jensen never missed much; those glowing golden eyes seemed to register that I’d just thrown out the magical version of a hail mary. But he just winked at me, and I felt a little better.
Rafe worried his lower lip between his teeth. “I made the wrong call.”
“No, we made the wrong call,” Jensen said. “Isn’t that the point? You looked to us.”
“I…it’s still my responsibility,” Rafe said. “I was thinking about that damn round table. I was thinking maybe there was another way for all of us.”
As I stared at Rafe’s handsome, exhausted face, I understood what he’d tried to do. He realized we were stronger as a team, and he was trying to give all of us an equal voice.
“No wonder I love you,” I told him, and he pulled a face.
“I’d rather have you mad at me than loving me and dead,” he reminded me.
“I can be mad at you and love you at the same time,” I pointed out. Angry love was definitely a part of our relationship.
“I think you made the right call,” Silas told him. “I’ve been fighting you and that hasn’t been the right call either.”
“We’re stronger when we all work together.”
Rafe said flatly, “We’re in chains. Clearly, something went amiss.”
“We are. But we’re not dead yet,” Jensen said.
“That’s all the optimism he ever has to offer,” Silas said.
“Hey, we’ve all got our roles around here,” Jensen said.
Silas hesitated, then admitted, “I should have talked to you before I poisoned the entire camp’s guards.”
“I shouldn’t have been such a controlling asshole,” Rafe admitted. He began by saying it to Silas, but his gaze cut to me. He told me, “I’m not going to apologize for wanting to protect you. But I will for the way I go about it sometimes. I don’t want to protect you when I’m doing so in a way that goes against who you are: the girl who protects everyone else.”
I might have been in chains, but I couldn’t help but smile when a man groveled a little.
“I love you, Rafael Hunt,” I told him.
“I love you,” he answered.
We might have gone on, but a smooth voice interrupted our conversation. “What a touching scene of final words.”
Silas snorted, staring at the figure as if he recognized him. A man stood framed in the doorway, the light behind him so it was hard to see his features at first.
“You are sorely mistaken in thinking those are last words,” Silas informed him. “They’re unbearably cheesy.”
Rude.
“Warren Campbell,” Silas went on. “You have a very unhealthy obsession with me.”
“You are very cute,” I reminded Silas. “I’ve been obsessed with you since we met.”
“Thank you,” he said with a wink.
“The most powerful, most famous rebel magician of our time,” Warren