Not battle fae … harpy, I sent to Finn. His growls burst free from his huge body, echoing over the area. The hairs on my body stood up, as they always did when he lost his cool and let the fierce beast inside take over. Harpies were a fae we had been warned about multiple times. They were the worst of their kind, battle-hungry and deadly, half woman and half bird.
My mind immediately flashed to Nix. Where was she? She’d cried out before and no one had even had the time to stop and check on her. I should have made more of an effort to find her. The only thing keeping me from losing my mind completely was Kade, still strong and battling without pause. If his familiar had fallen, he would not be so resilient.
A shadow in the sky caught my attention and my heart soared when I realized it was Nix. Thank the mecca. She was flying in a straight shot toward the harpy, who must have sensed the bird and was again heading for me, Blaine, and Monica. There was no way, even going supersonic speed, Nix was going to get here before the harpy hit us, so I braced myself, my sword held above me so I could swing at the bird-woman again.
It was an awkward position, Being attacked from above, and I was relieved that it looked like the harpy was focusing her beady eyes on me, which would allow Blaine and Monica to act as backup if I needed it. Three versus one gave me a fighting chance.
My dominants knew what to do. When the harpy was moments from reaching me, her screeches reverberating through my head, one of Monica’s arrows whizzed over me and sank into its shoulder. She had waited for the perfect moment to let it loose, hitting her target in one of the softer, fleshy-looking parts.
The creature shrieked, her thick and massive wings pumping as she pulled up at the last moment, colliding with Nix who had still been descending. I took advantage of her distraction and jumped as high as I could, lashing out with my sword and slicing through her ankle.
More shrieking erupted from the harpy, and Nix launched herself around and completely encased the harpy’s head in her talons. Blaine then took a running leap from the side, catching hold of her injured leg and pulling her to the ground. Nix held on for a second, so the harpy was almost pulled in two, before the familiar released her and Blaine slammed the fae to the forest floor.
Her wings spread out behind her, thick and bat-like, with serrated tips and a scattering of feathers. Blaine pinned her midsection just as she let out another harpy shriek. This time she was so close that I almost hit the ground from the sheer agony of her cry. In that second I would have done anything to stop that noise piercing through my skull.
I lashed out with mecca, aiming to cut off her vocal cords. My magic was wonky, but I did manage to lessen the sound, which gave me the time to regain my strength and drop my blade down on her body, cutting one of her wings off. Before she could screech again, Blaine drew his dagger across her throat to finish her off.
All of us waited for a moment; we had learned not to turn our back on any enemy until we saw their last breath. Then her chest was still … she was dead. We jumped to our feet and I hurried over to Nix, who had just landed a few yards away. She was swaying, and I sensed that she’d been hurt badly.
“Nikoli!” I shouted, turning around. Kade roared louder than I’d ever heard him before, even when Violet had used the gold spell to heal his hand. He launched himself with strong and deadly force at the troll, and in a single movement grasped its head with both meaty paws and tore it clean off. All of our attackers were now dead, except for the one who had absconded. We just needed to make sure that Nix was going to be okay.
She has to be okay.
Kade was running toward us, his change back to human happening as he moved. I snatched up his pants, and as soon as Kade was no longer furry and bear-like, he pulled them on before dropping down beside his familiar. He scooped her massive body up into his arms, his muscles bunching as he held her close.
My throat got tight at the look in his eyes, part fury, part fear, all love.
“You did good. You’re going to be okay,” Kade said as I tried to take stock of her injuries. From the outside I could see her wing was bent and bleeding, but otherwise she looked okay. Of course, I had no idea what the harpy might have done to her in the air.
Nikoli was at his friend and king’s side then, placing his hands on the eagle. A faint purple haze emanated from his palms, and within a few moments the bleeding had stopped. He ran his hands across the familiar, fixing up the wounds we couldn’t see, until finally, looking pretty exhausted, he sank back onto his knees.
“She’s going to be fine. Harpy got some poison into her, and her wing was pretty bad – she shouldn’t fly for twenty-four hours – but otherwise she’ll make a full recovery.”
Kade nodded, still looking very ferocious and bear-like.
I surveyed the carnage around me. “Remember how I wanted to come here alone?” I said to no one in particular. I heard lots of laughter, some shaking of heads and smirks too.
“Yeah, not my smartest move. I’m glad you guys are here,” I said as I grabbed my pack. My words were an understatement. There was no way to really convey how grateful I was to each and every one of them. They were my family.
Chapter Three
Frozen feet. Frozen heart.
After we patched ourselves up and gathered our things, we decided to walk a bit further and find someplace more secure to set up camp for the night. Even though the attack had been expected, and everyone had warned us we would not make it to the Winter Court unscathed, that didn’t make it any less traumatic. Fighting creatures like that messes with your mind a little.
About forty minutes later we finally found a small area within the forest that had a mountain at our back, so we only had to keep an eye on two paths. I was tasked with making the fire as Kade and the boys pitched the tents. Monica was taking inventory of our things and doing the math on our food to see how much we would need to ration. Thinking about it made my stomach grumble; I was hungry, but so was everyone else here. I already knew what she was going to say: we didn’t have enough to last the journey. Shifters needed more food than the average human; we were feeding ourselves and our beast inside. Not to mention that when we fought or shifted, as Kade had done, we burned through a lot of energy. Still, trading the food for weapons had already paid off. Our elven blades had served us very well in that last battle, and I’d rather be hungry than dead.