Page 62 of Witchwolf

Fuckingmages.

Some wiser wolves than me would’ve said this was what I got, for letting them waltz through the front door.

But if I hadn’t, I never would’ve met Dakota.

He never would’ve unwound the terrible truth of his existence.

Jiro spread his hands, and the gravity pressed harder. Jiro lashed out, and—and Dakota didn’t even move, but he’d done something. The back of my skull was buzzing as whatever he’d released slashed through Jiro’s magic and sent it skittering across the ceiling, rattling the drop tiles.

I had to get up, but Jiro’s hold on me barely stuttered as they started to fight. It took all my strength to reach for my phone in my pocket, hit the center button and hope the touchscreen registered right. Seth was a favorite contact. A couple presses should be enough.

But damn it all, I couldn’t even lift my phone to see if I was hitting the right buttons.

I could hardly make sense of Dakota’s tiny movements, but Jiro’s were horribly ostentatious. Invisible forces rushed back and forth across the room, blocked and thrown and?—

I didn’t know, but I thought Dakota was doing well.

Really well, considering that he’d only had a few weeks to come to terms with being a mage at all.

He was a miracle. I’d never seen anything like it, Jiro slashing out wildly, fury contorting his features as Dakota matched him.

Admittedly, I’d never watched a mage practice magic before. I’d seen a couple small shows from Prudence over the years, but nothing likethis.

Then, a blow too hard. From pure instinct, Dakota crossed his arms in front of his chest to block a rush of magic, and when he threw them out, all that he’d absorbed went out like a battering ram, throwing Jiro into the elevator’s metal doors.

That finally broke his hold on me.

My whole body ached from fighting his magic, and I staggered to my feet, stumbling like I’d just stepped off a boat after a hurricane.

Jiro rounded on us. Then, the whole room filled with bright orange that made no sense to me until I registered the wave of heat, the way the flames caught on my shirt and burned my skin.

The magic within me surged, rushing to repair burns as they happened, as others danced across my skin.

I threw myself into the fire, even as Dakota’s form disappeared in the blinding light of it.

I smelled my hair burning, my eyelashes, as I squinted against the flames.

And Dakota?—

He’d gone down. I felt him first with my foot, his body crumpled. But when Jiro closed his fist and the fires disappeared like he’d flipped a switch on the world’s largest gas logs, I saw him there on the ground, and fell beside him.

His skin—it’d blistered and split in an instant, a terrifying slickness to his burnt flesh. Where there weren’t blisters, his body was red and shining.

Each breath he took was rough and broken, like the fire had caught inside him too.

I bit back a desperate howl. I couldn’t lose him like this, all at once and so violently. It wasn’t possible.

“I’ll kill you,” I snarled between gritted teeth. It was a threat meant for Igarashi Jiro, but I couldn’t—I couldn’t do a damn thing.

Couldn’t tear my gaze from Dakota’s burnt skin.

Couldn’t pull away from him long enough to attack Jiro.

I couldn’t.

If I let go of Dakota?—

While I held him, he was still breathing. He was alive, if—if only.

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