Magic Claims (Kate Daniels: Wilmington Years, #2; Kate Daniels, #10.6)

The two male lions, one a beast, the other in warrior form, glared at each other and collided. The enemy First reared up on his hind legs and slapped at Curran’s neck and head, his knife-long claws slicing through the air. I’d seen Curran kill a feral bull with a single slap. A hit like that would crush a shapeshifter’s skull like a walnut. Instant kill.

Curran leaned back, let one giant paw slide by him, stepped in, and drove a straight right hand into his opponent’s face. The enemy lion’s head snapped back.

I was halfway to them.

Curran turned to me. “No!”

I stopped. It nearly killed me, but I stopped.

The enemy First snarled and charged again, lifting up, swinging his left forepaw, trying to knock Curran to the ground. If he managed to pin him down with all that weight, it would be over.

Curran danced out of the way. The claws rent the air in front of him. The momentum of the strike pulled the lion to the right, exposing his flank. Curran turned his body and drove a short, vicious hook into the lion’s ribs. Bone crunched. Before the other lion could react, Curran thrust his hand into the same spot and dug a bloody chunk of flesh and bone out. Blood poured from the wound, the yellow shards of ribs stark against it.

The other lion whirled, lunging.

Four clumps of dark smoke appeared in a ring around the lions and coalesced into priest-mages.

Oh no, you don’t. If I don’t get to help, you don’t either.

The Ice Age First roared in outrage. The Pale Queen screamed at him from the tower. The priest-mages dashed around the two shapeshifters, fading in and out of existence.

Jushur and Rimush shot from behind me, like two dancers perfectly in sync.

Curran hammered another punch into his adversary’s ribs. The other lion snapped, so fast I almost didn’t see it. His jaws locked around Curran’s left arm. He reared, throwing his colossal front legs over Curran and dropped his entire bulk on top of him.

Curran went down.

The two Blades of Shinar sped through the smoke, their twin swords slicing in precise, brutal movements. Four bodies fell onto the grass.

The Ice Age First bit down, snarling, his hind legs digging into the dirt on both sides of Curran, giving him leverage. I couldn’t even see Curran under the lion’s mass. I grit my teeth.

Come on, honey. Come on.

The Ice Age lion raised his head, and his mouth was bloody. I caught a glimpse of Curran under him, his shoulder drenched in crimson. The lion bit down again.

“Dad!” Conlan screamed. He tried to run past me, and I caught him and gripped him against me.

All fighting had stopped except for the two Firsts. Both sides watched in silence.

The lion raised his head again. His forepaws pinned Curran’s shoulders, the huge claws gouging into his flesh. The Ice Age First roared, announcing his imminent victory.

Curran was a grappler.

His arms slid between the lion’s front legs and knocked them up and out. The lion’s paws landed on the ground above Curran’s shoulders. Curran slipped his right arm under the lion’s left front leg and caught it in the crook of his elbow. He thrust his left arm up against the lion’s throat, barring him from biting, and twisted his body to the right, wrapping his legs around the lion’s flanks.

An armlock. He’d done it to me more times than I could remember. But human bones were a lot weaker than a lion’s.

The Ice Age First still hadn’t realized what was happening.

Curran crunched, bringing his body up. The muscles on his arms and back bulged, shifting as he built more bulk in a split second.

The lion’s left foreleg snapped like a twig. He howled in surprise and pain. His hind legs clawed the ground as he tried to free himself.

Curran wrenched the broken limb off and hurled it aside. Long claws sprouted from his toes, and he kicked the lion’s gut, tearing through flesh and organs.

The lion flailed, frantic, and rolled to the side in a last-ditch effort to get away. Curran rolled with him, and as he ended up on top, he thrust his monstrous hand into the lion’s chest.

I had beheaded people. I had stabbed creatures in the heart. But I would never forget Curran ripping another First’s heart out of his chest. It sat in his huge, clawed hand, a bloody clump, and contracted one last time, sending a mist of blood into the air.

The First’s body collapsed into a humanoid shape. He was large, almost six feet tall, and sheathed with bluish hair. Two large antlers crowned his head.

Curran stood up. He raised the heart up, showing it to everyone, walked over to me, and dropped it at my feet.

Umm. What was I supposed to do with it?

His eyes were pure gold, still mad with bloodlust.

I stabbed the heart with Sarrat. It seemed like the thing to do.

Curran turned away from me and roared.

Every shapeshifter knelt as one. Heather’s archers, the Blades, Darin, Conlan, and I were the only ones standing on the entire field. On the tower, the Pale Queen stood frozen.

Curran had taken the Pack. It was his. The fight was over. We had won.

The magic permeating the field vanished, sucked toward the tower in an instant.

Magic crackled like lightning above the Pale Queen. The few remaining hunters who had survived Heather’s arrows ran from her. Some of them leaped off the tower and slid down its side, crashing into the grass.

The dark smoke boiled and expanded in slow motion, rolling over the tower, out and down. It caught the shapeshifters kneeling by the wall. Their gold collars flashed. Their heads exploded.

She was out of magic. Her best fighter and her priest-mages were dead. She was sacrificing her own people for a last boost of power. There were at least forty of them still alive on the field, most too injured to fight or run. She would kill them all, the elderly, the children, everyone with a collar. All of them would die.

“No, Sharratum, no!” Jushur screamed.

The magic shot out of me almost on its own. The very last of my reserves. All I could give. It rolled from me, pitifully weak. The world went gray. I fell but didn’t land.

There was a noise. It came from far away, as if I were deep underwater and someone was screaming for me on the shore. I floated in the desaturated mist, disconnected and scared. So scared.

I wanted to hug Conlan again. I wanted to kiss Curran and see him grin at me.

I still had too many things to do. I wouldn’t let it end here. No, not happening. I needed to get back to my family.

A faint tint of green began to spread along the edges of the colorless mist. The land. It was exhausted, its magic depleted and drained by the Pale Queen, and still, it was reaching out to me as it reached out to everyone.

I stretched my hand. A thin green shoot wove its way through the mist toward me.

Just a little more. A little bit.

The green touched my fingertips.

Reality rushed at me in a swirl of color and warmth, the sounds too loud, and I heard Conlan screaming into my ear, “Mom! Don’t die, don’t die!”

I made my lips move. “It’s fine,” I lied. “You’re fine. Everyone is fine.”

Conlan sobbed.

“Where is your father?”

“I’m here,” Curran said. “I’ve got you.”

Oh. He was holding me. That’s why it felt so nice.

“Love you,” I told him.

“Don’t do that again,” he snarled.

“Is everyone dead?”

He shifted me in his arms so I could see the fortress.

I had claimed a chunk of land, about a hundred yards wide and maybe three hundred yards long. All of our people were safe. A handful of Ice Age shapeshifters stood and sprawled inside my claim, bewildered but alive. Their collars lay at their feet. A couple of hunters, somehow on their feet, staggered toward me. Everyone else, all of her people, the hunters and the shapeshifters, were dead. The grass outside my territory was littered with headless corpses.

In front of us on top of the tower, an enormous phantom gripped the tower with five-foot-long bony fingers armed with huge claws. Her face belonged to the Pale Queen, but her mouth was full of fangs. A crown of bony horns and antlers rode on her head. Dark smoke swirled around her like a robe.

I had seen the smaller version of it before. That was the phantom the priest-mage had threatened me with in front of Penderton.

That was it? You killed all of your people for this? To turn yourself real big?