Unstoppable (Their Shifter Academy #6) - May Dawson Page 0,8

line.

“Fifty-four,” Catarina said, just a beat behind.

“Forty-nine,” Maddie said.

They rolled again.

Rafe shifted impatiently beside me. I was impressed he’d managed to let Maddie go up there, even though she was stronger of the two of them.

“I’m shit at math,” he admitted under his breath to me.

They rolled again and again, Silas and Catarina staying locked together. They both missed occasional rolls—as if they were interfering with each other’s dice—and the game seemed to grow only more intense. Maddie chased them both, her numbers rising steadily. She was adding eighteens every time now.

Maddie rolled again, a beat behind Catarina. Maddie’s dice were still rolling across the velvet tablecloth as she glanced up at Catarina.

Catarina started to say, “One hundred ninety—” and then abruptly broke off, stopping herself to correct, “One hundred ninety-eight.”

“Two hundred,” Maddie said.

Silas’s lips flickered at the corner.

The three of them raced steadily up. The numbers flying around the room gave me a headache. “Who knew wizards would be such nerds?” I whispered to Rafe.

“Magic’s not that glamorous.”

Maddie won the game, and she beamed at the two of them.

“Fine,” Catarina said, waving her hand dismissively. “Cash out.”

She smiled at Silas. “I’d hurry if I were you.”

Silas said, “You’re not going to have much of a business left if your shady dealings get around.”

She gave him a cool smile that made me think she had no intention of us surviving long enough to leave her a bad Yelp review.

We headed quickly up the stairs. When the robot handed Silas the money, Silas tucked it away carefully in his wallet. “Thank you.”

Then he suddenly lunged over the counter. The robot tipped back, trying to get away from him, and suddenly blades sprouted from the heels of its hands. But it was too late.

Silas locked the robot against his body. Then magic flared around his arms, giving him supernatural strength, and he ripped the robot’s head off. We all still shared at him in shock.

He turned as Catarina rose up the stairs and threw the head at her. She ducked to one side. The head slammed into the wall, where it regarded us with reproachful metal eyes.

Then suddenly her wand was in her hand and she was coming at him.

Silas muttered a word in Latin as he threw out his hands. She flew against the wall and stuck there, encased in what looked like spider webbing. She was screaming after us as we ran out the door, but the second Jensen slammed the door behind us, the sound cut off. Her institution was completely soundproofed.

We were on the quiet, quaint street.

Silas had been running with us, but now he slowed to a saunter, his hands in his pockets. “Time for us to catch that train.”

Rafe checked his watch. “You’re lucky we have a time crunch, because right now, I’m this close to kicking your ass for putting Maddie in danger.”

“I told you to stay upstairs and eat some cake. You didn’t listen,” Silas said.

Rafe eyeballed him hard, as if he was debating how quickly he could kick Silas’s ass, and Silas added, “What do you have against cake?”

Rafe crossed his arms impatiently. “I’m not letting you go into danger on your own.”

“I’m in danger when you don’t listen to me,” Silas said. His voice was mild, but confident.

“We don’t even need the money. There was no reason for that.”

“We will,” Silas said. “The robot knew all our faces, but I pulverized his memory banks. No one will know you were with me except Catarina, and she can’t exactly go to the police.”

“Why did the robot know your face?” Rafe demanded.

Maddie and I exchanged a glance, and then I rested my arm around her shoulders. She leaned into me.

“You knew I had that under control, right?” Maddie asked me. Rafe and Silas’ bickering faded into the background; the rest of the world always did when she turned those wide blue eyes up to me.

“Never doubted you.”

She smiled, that slow smile that made my heart stop in my chest even after all this time.

“I almost fucked up adding eighteen so many times,” she admitted.

“I am so proud of you,” I said. I pressed a kiss to her forehead as the four of us headed down the quiet road to the train station.

She rested her head on my shoulder, and I reached into my pocket and found the edge of the slender gift-wrapped package I carried.

I’d seen the anguish on her face the moment after we all stumbled through the portal. The rest of us