Unstoppable (Their Shifter Academy #6) - May Dawson Page 0,58

expanded. The sun had been falling on my face, but clouds overtook the sky. Then I added, “Storm.”

The clouds turned gray. A rumble of thunder filled the air, and then the sky let loose, lashing rain down on the village. The flames were doused before much damage could be done.

We attacked the stringers, who fought back but soon realized they were no match for the combination of my magic and Alisa’s.

Raura watched them disappear into the treetops; I aimed a last blast of magic at their backs, and some of them fell face-first into the green undergrowth, only to be captured by vines and yanked up into the canopy of trees.

Raura humphed. “Your power is usually wasted on you, but sometimes you use it to good purpose.”

“You can’t fool me, Raura,” I told her. “You’ll be a good queen. Especially with those males by your side.”

She shook her head. “I’m not sure we have a story together.”

“Well, give it a try, Huntress. You’re so badass with everything else.”

“I’m not taking advice from mortals.” She watched Alisa ride toward us from the village, and her eyes narrowed. “Even with half her brain gone, she’s quite the would-be queen.”

“Half her brain?”

“She lost her memories. She’s trying to save a kingdom she doesn’t even remember.”

I could understand that. Despite everything that was wrong with the fae world, it was easy to fall in love with it.

Alisa rode back to us, her hair soaked to her head by rain.

“Come here,” Raura said, holding her hands out to her. “I’ll fix you.”

Alisa looked at her skeptically, but Raura used her magic to dry her off the same way she’d done for me earlier.

“I suppose I don’t really want to capture you,” Alisa admitted. “I don’t know why I’d even do with you. I just don’t want to make life any easier for Faer.”

“Oh, believe me,” Raura said. “Tyson doesn’t make life any easier for anyone.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Jensen

* * *

“I am going to kill him,” I told Rafe.

“When I’m not thinking that about you, I think it about Silas,” Rafe told me.

The four of us had stopped briefly on our way to Elegiah; we needed to stage the vehicle we planned to take back. For a few moments, it was just the two of us; Maddie and Silas were down in the village quietly stealing our supper.

I blew out a breath. “What’s with this maybe I won’t come home shit?”

It was hurting Maddie, and that made me want to hurt Silas.

Rafe gave me a curious look. “You know this is his home world. Why wouldn’t he stay here?”

“Because he belongs with us?”

“Does he?” Rafe mused, leaning back against the car, his arms folding across his chest. He studied my face, then cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, now you want to kill me, too.”

“Maddie is scared,” I said flatly, because I knew that Maddie’s feelings had to bother him as much as they did me.

Rafe shook his head. “Oh, come on. Just admit it—you’re scared.”

Ridiculous. It was anger that had me taut, not fear. “Ah, no. My life only gets calmer without the boy wizard careening around.”

Rafe shrugged. “And yet. He is your bestie, as Maddie would say.”

“Maddie’s not the one who just said bestie,” I reminded him. “It sounds like something Rafael Hunt would say.”

Maddie and Silas came trudging up the snowy hillside.

“Is it ever summer here?” I demanded of Silas.

“Not this close to Elegiah,” he said. “This is the last village, the last population, we’ll see for miles.”

The four of us sat on the hood of the car or stood around it in a circle while we ate sandwiches. It was a relatively warm morning compared to how cold it was at night. Maddie sat on the hood with her legs dawn up, the cold breeze ruffling her long blond hair around her face. We’d put on our uniforms when we got closer to the penal colony; I hated the thought of seeing her in it for longer than a photograph.

Suddenly the light around us changed, the sky growing dimmer, and I had the sense of something looming behind me. Maddie dropped her sandwich, her eyes widening and her jaw falling open. As I whirled, I could already feel her throwing herself off the hood to stand beside me.

There was a tear in the sky. The tranquil blue sky over the pines gapped open where it looked as if it were being unzipped; another sky full of angry gray clouds was beyond it. Then I breathed in