They fell silent as the two red-clad staffers met in the middle of the meadow. Kiki, the brunette with a very pleasant way about her, worked a spell to broadcast her voice.
“This tournament will continue until one party yields. At that time, the winner is decided. Do not kill. This is not a fight to the death. If you kill, you will be gravely penalized. When we leave the field, you may commence.”
His people walked to the little protective alcove at the side of the field. The second they were gone, Noah blasted out a spell from way, way too far away. He wasn’t nearly strong enough to make any impact with it. He clearly thought Jessie was nothing.
As expected, she brushed it away as though it were a spider web and then started working her hands. Magic coalesced and took form, wrapping around her and her people.
“Is she trying to protect them all?” Nessa asked.
“She’s the only mage on her team. If she wants them magically defended, she has to do it herself.”
“That’s going to put her at a severe disadvantage.”
Noah and his people walked forward now, their robes rustling around their feet. Jessie’s people still hadn’t moved. Sebastian sat forward on the edge of his seat anxiously, wondering what was taking them so long.
“Good,” Jessie said, her voice barely audible from where he sat. “Good, good. Go. I’ll cover you.”
“She’s playing defense?” Nessa asked.
He shook his head slowly. It wasn’t like her to stay out of the fight. Unless she was worried about her control. Perhaps she feared she’d accidentally kill someone.
“She needs training in a bad way,” he said as the first gargoyle—still in human form—lowered to a crouch. He was the one with the colorful hair, but Sebastian was blanking on his name. Niamh reduced down into her little gremlin creature, black as night and with a mouthful of teeth. Blasts of light erupted from the shifters as the attacking mages bore down on them, shooting off paltry spells meant to toy with them, the spells barely missing. It was the equivalent of shooting bullets at someone’s feet to scare them.
Two huge wolves emerged from the light, followed by an enormous silverback gorilla that quickened Sebastian’s heart.
“Holy crap, Broken Sue turns into a bad mama jama,” Nessa said, her voice reduced to a whisper.
The huge polar bear was the last to emerge, down on all fours and no less massive for it. Nessa’s jaw dropped.
“Here we go,” Sebastian said.
Austin reared up on his hind legs, topping the basajaun in height by three feet, and let out a roar that thundered through the air. It soaked into Sebastian’s blood, turning his bowels to jelly. He shivered even as Nessa did, but the display had only just begun. The basajaun was next, his great arms wide and his hair puffed up. The silverback followed, roaring as he beat his arms against his chest, white scars knifing through his leathery black skin. The wolves growled, heads down and hackles raised, working around the outside of the mage group, flanking them.
The little gremlin creature shot forward, skittering on hands and feet, fast and agile and creepy as hell. The shifters and basajaun surged forward next, all rage and raw power and incredible speed and force, cutting down the distance between them and the mages in no time.
The mages cowered on instinct. Confident and full of swagger one minute, they were stooped and frozen solid the next. Not all shifters were created equal, and they’d clearly never seen any like this.
Austin reached Noah before Noah even straightened up, but instead of engaging him, he plowed into the man directly next to him, clamping those great jaws on the man’s shoulder before ripping to the side.
The mage screamed and tumbled like a rag doll, hitting the ground ten feet away and rolling. Blood smeared the sand. The basajaun got the mage on the other side of Noah, grabbing him by the feet, lifting, spinning, and then throwing him. The mage smashed into the barrier wall, what should have been an impossible distance for a throw like that, and crumpled into a heap.
“Don’t kill!” Jessie yelled.
“Good God, Sebastian,” Nessa said, her mouth still hanging open, staring.
The silverback took a shock of magic. It vibrated within the protective spell Jessie had placed on him, gaining power, and then shot back at the mage who’d fired it off, smacking him in the middle moments before the silverback was on him, knocking him to the ground and clubbing him.
Cyra took a hit and then turned. The spell shot off to the side rather than rebounding directly like the others. Sebastian had never seen that happen. The meaning became clear when she turned back and grabbed her attacker and another mage, hugging them to her strange armor. She hadn’t wanted the return fire of the spell to spoil her fun. From their screams, it sounded like they were being tortured. And honestly…they were. Sebastian remembered what that phoenix could do.
“Sebastian,” Nessa said, reaching out. “If you want them to live, you should stop this.”
The pink-blue gargoyle rose into the sky, able to just barely navigate within the available space. The other gargoyles couldn’t do much, their wing spans too mighty for them to take off. They tucked in their wings and crowded in around Jessie, on protective detail.
Noah got a spell off at Austin, only for it to hit his defenses and rebound, but it missed the mage.
“She changed the protection spell I taught her. Her creation is damn good, but it needs some tweaks,” Sebastian said, wondering how it worked so efficiently. “Is it siphoning energy or power from Jessie?”
“How can you worry about magic right now?” Nessa stood. “What the hell am I doing?” She sat back down. “I feel like I should…run…or fight, maybe.”
Austin ignored another bolt of magic coming for him, taking out two mages with a hard swing of his huge paw.
Jessie didn’t ignore it, though.
A huge swell of power made Sebastian’s eyes water, even from this distance. She put out her hands and readied a blistering spell that would kill Noah where he stood, Sebastian just knew it. She was reacting instinctively to seeing her intended mate in harm’s way. She’d lost control.
“No, no, no!” Hollace dove into her, and her spell went wide, glancing off Noah’s right shoulder.
The air concussed and Noah flew sideways, landing on the side of his face, his legs flying into the air over him. He crumpled and lay still. Even though the impact had been blunted by whatever defenses he’d erected, plus the fact that it had barely glanced off him, he still wasn’t even close to a match for her.
Sebastian and Nessa stood. “Oh!”
“Yield, yield, yield, yield,” a mage said as he sprinted away from the rampaging gorilla.
Another ran toward the stands, a woman who was pretty quick on her feet. The basajaun was faster, though. He swiped her from behind and sent her up into the air, over the first barrier and into someone’s lap.
“The fight is done,” Kiki called, not entering the field. “The fight is done!”
Jessie’s people stopped moving, and Noah’s people—those still standing—kept running, their flight reflex taking over.
Austin turned toward the crowd, toward Sebastian, and reared up again, releasing a roar full of rage and dominance and challenge. Sebastian could feel it in every fiber of his being. He reached for the back of his chair with a shaking hand and sat down slowly. Nessa took one step away, then another.