Page 36 of Heart of a Dire Wolf
He raised their joined hands. “Oh, mysterious spirits of Fort LeBlanc, please tell us how to do whatever it is the goddess wants us to do, so I can take my incredibly smart and sexy mate to a nice soft bed someplace where no one is trying to kidnap us or kill us or run over us with snow tractors.”
Multiple ghosts swarmed over their hands and around their heads.
Words echoed in her ears.Sit... throne...
A knot of swirling spirits streamed toward the sixth pillar.
Skyla looked to Nic. It was clear from his puzzled expression that he’d heard it, too. “If this is a trap, it’s the most elaborate one I’ve ever heard of. Which of us sits?”
Nic frowned in thought. “Two keys. Two hearts.”
She squeezed his hand. “Two butts.”
They walked toward the pillar together. She took a deep breath. “If this goes horribly wrong, and we get stuck in the ice, I’ll never give up trying to get us free.” She pulsed her love through their mate bond.
He kissed her quickly. “Likewise. I love you.”
She reached out to touch the pillar surface, but her fingers went right through. “Illusion.”
She and her mate took the one step up, turned, joined hands, and sat. Cold immediately chilled her thighs. Dire wolves might not mind cold butts, but humans did. She repurposed a bit of the abundant free magic in the room to heat the hard slab beneath them. It woke a resonating magical thrum from their throne.
“Thanks.” Nic smiled and snugged his arm around her. “Did I mention your magic makes me horny?” He turned to look at the other pillars, then gave her a speculative look. “Can you warm their butts, too? Maybe it’ll speed things along.”
“Worth a try.” She cautiously tried the same quick spell on the closest throne, with the golden elf. When nothing exploded or retaliated, she quickly did the same for the others.
The spirits swirled faster around the magic pillars. The blue ice of the floor turned aqua, then green, then sprouted verdant green moss, like watching time-lapse photography.
The magic of the pillars turned to fog and sank to the floor and flowed around the room, but didn’t go beyond the ice curtain.
The golden elf next to them opened his eyes. He held up his hand and watched it as it turned.
The other throne occupants stirred. The polar fairy stood first, then stumbled over to the arctic elf to help her stand.
The last to wake was the human-looking woman, but she was the first to notice Skyla and Nic. She cocked her head, as if doubting her eyes. “Are we still dreaming, or is the magister throne occupied by a tiger and a dire wolf?”
The golden elf stood cautiously, then looked them up and down. “They look human to me.”
The dark elf stepped off his throne onto the green moss floor. “They are shifters. It is the prophecy.”
Nic pulsed a thought through their mate bond.Have I mentioned that oracles make me crazy?
The dark elf turned to them. “We are the elders of Fort LeBlanc. I am Grafit. How long have we slept?”
“Best guess, eighty-five or eight-six years,” answered Skyla. “The dead aren’t very good with dates.”
That opened a floodgate of questions that she and Nic did their best to answer.
Nic explained about the town’s disappearance from the human world, the inexplicable reappearance. She told them who turned on the defensive ring, that the defenders included help from Kotoyeesinay, and who was attacking.
As the awakened elders spoke, they each seemed to be absorbing the magical fog with each breath they took, making them glow brighter and recover more of their wits.
The bald polar fairy scooped up a handful of moss and transformed it into a belted black tunic and boots. “I say we go up top for a bit of pest obliteration.”
The arctic elf gave him a tender smile as she clothed herself in green and pulled her icicle locks back into a knot. “Ever the fighter, my love. I vote we look before we leap.” She nodded toward the human woman. “Ortesse, if you would?”
Ortesse, seemingly not bothered by the cold or her nakedness, touched her throne. Magic flared to show a detailed, three-dimensional map as a large hologram, with the buildings and trees of Fort LeBlanc, the people setting up to defend, and the encroaching armies to the south and east. Everything and everyone seemed to be moving in slow motion.
A sour look crossed the polar fairy’s face. “Might have knownshe’dshow up.” Skyla couldn’t tell who he was looking at.
