“Fae!” I shouted, and ran through the last section of the cherry grove to come upon the base of the hill where our people were partying the night away. Except they weren’t partying, they were fighting for their lives as fae descended upon the hill.
I turned to Violet. My best friend was glowing with mecca; she looked lethal and pissed as hell. Kade was fighting the shift, his growls rumbling across the hill and into the valleys. Now we knew why there was a magical cloak. Someone must have seen Kade and I leave the main party zone and used that moment to strike. The cloak hid their scent and the scent of bloodshed.
“Stay and fight, or flee and try to fix the mecca?” Violet asked me, her voice low and wispy but somehow still slamming mecca energy into me with each word.
“I will not leave them to die,” I said, baring my teeth. My wolf was fighting against my hold; these were her people. Our people. We would never abandon them.
Violet clapped her hands together, sticky tendrils of purple energy forming between them. She had that smile on her face, the one that usually meant get the heck out of her way – she was out for blood – and it was equally awesome and disturbing.
Bending down, she placed her hands over two thick fallen branches. “Transformato,” she whispered as a mist leaked from her palms and saturated the branches.
Mecca wrapped around them, coating their thick crumbly bark, and then as Violet pulled her hands back they had turned from simple broken wood to deadly blades. She tossed one to Kade; he caught it and sent Nix to fly the skies. Violet handed me the other one. Its weight was solid and fit my grip perfectly. This sword would kill many a fae tonight.
“Don’t you need a weapon?” I asked my best friend.
When she stood, her eyes were set on the slaughter before us; her face looked ghostly.
“I am a weapon.”
And with that we all charged up the hill to meet whatever fate the gods saw fit. As I neared the battle, my heart fell when I saw that more shifters than fae were dead on the ground. This was a huge attack. Hundreds of fae had descended on us, and our drunk, unarmed people were being crushed.
Finn nudged my side and I knew he wanted me to ride him. In two swifts movements I tore the costume wings from my back and leapt onto his saddle.
Kade, Violet, and I were all battle trained, and we knew on instinct to split up. Violet branched off to the right. After a moment’s hesitation and a lingering look, Kade branched off to the left. I could tell he didn’t want to leave me to battle the fae alone, but I was a queen. We did not cower on the sidelines. If I died tonight, I would die protecting my people. I would die with a happy heart.
Use the mecca, Ari. You’re more powerful than any on this hill. Prove it.
Finn was right. I was linked to the most powerful energy grid of magic ever in existence. There was a lot more energy on our side of the veil, and I would utilize it tonight. I might not be the expert Kade was, but I was trained in calling the energy and using it as a weapon. The only thing I was having trouble with was cutting the magic off so it didn’t suffocate me, but there was no time during combat to worry about that. As Finn galloped into the fighting crowd, I took a deep steadying breath and felt for that live wire deep inside of me, that electric pulse that was always a distinct current within my body. The mecca was always within me, just waiting for me to shape it, use it.
Some of the fae had noticed me. One of them came at me, but I easily cut him down with my sword, having the height and speed advantage of riding Finn. Despite the distance between me and my friends, I could make out Kade to my left fighting hard, using mecca and sword. There was a pile of fae at his feet. We were lucky the Tuatha attacking us now were far less powerful than the dark fae who’d tried to kill us all at Kade’s Staten Island home. It felt like they were around the power level of those who hit the night of the queen’s death. Which gave us a chance.
A flash of white to my right was Violet. She was blasting fae and taking them to their knees. Forcing myself to focus, I channeled the energy from my center and drew it in one fast motion to the surface of my being. I’d never pulled so much, so fast, and it brought with it a hot, sharp pain.
When my body felt like it was literally going to be torn into two, I screamed and thrust my hands out, directing it at the brutal mob before me. The mecca was clever; it knew who I considered friend and foe. It bypassed my people and followed the sickening floral scent.
I let the mecca flow from me as I lifted the sword and started cutting down fae, one after another, never stopping, not even to wipe the blood from my face. They had attacked us, hurt my people, and I would destroy them all even if it killed me. A few of them managed to land blows on me, but Finn was always right there with teeth and claws, tearing through them. Together we were a formidable weapon. Add in the mecca and it was even more. My blasts of mecca were bringing many of the fae to their knees, blood trickling from their eyes and noses and ears. This gave the shifters the opening they needed to pick themselves up and strike. Bear and wolf worked together, shifters united against a common enemy. For this moment, we were no longer divided.
I swung my sword in figure eights. My head was beginning to ache and my body starting to sway, but I kept pushing energy. Purple coated the hilltop, turning the fight in our favor.
“Ari, no more!” I heard Kade bellow. I registered his words, but not fully. I was almost too far gone to realize what I had done. There was no way to stop it. I was in a car going a hundred miles an hour down a hill and my brakes were cut. The momentum was too great. There was no way to save myself.