Page 38 of Dragon's Midlife Secret Baby
They ignored their master, watching Corbin with wide eyes.
Maeve touched her daughter’s shoulder. “Chelsea, I think your son is going to be able to help us. Again.” She stepped up next to Beck, and her brows shot up when she touched her grandson. “It’s strong, and he doesn’t know how to control it. We’ll have to be careful.”
Chelsea went to the other side as the rest of the witches gathered. Corbin looked up at her when she touched him. She, too, could feel the raw strength of the ley lines. It nearly took her breath away, and she fought to keep her body steady.
Corbin looked up at her. His eyes were red-rimmed from all his crying, and a few leaves had worked their way into his unruly hair. He looked exhausted, which broke her heart, but he was no longer scared. He was in the arms of his father with his mother at his side. “It fuzzy, Mommy.”
It only took her a moment to understand what he meant. The energetical vibrations of the ley lines were something altogether different from what she and the rest of the sisterhood had been using in their magic. It buzzed inside her, which must be the fuzziness he told her about. “It sure is, baby.”
“Is he going to be all right if youdo this?” Beck asked. He clung tightly to Corbin but didn’t try to remove his son’s hand from the stone.
“Yes.” There were many things she didn’t know right now, one of which was exactly how this energy would work alongside the other witches’ magic, but Corbin looked so content. He wouldn’t have been able to connect with the ley lines like that if he didn’t have some innate sense of what to do with all that power.
Chelsea laid her hand on Kristy’s shoulder, and the rest of the circle assembled. Even with this potential boost in power, they still had to make some accommodations. They couldn’t perform the winding and binding with their threads if they were holding hands, yet they needed to touch to keep that energy flowing through them. While Maeve and Chelsea touched those next to them with their hands, the other witches stood wide and intercrossed their legs with those next to them.
“We bind your magic as we bind these threads,” Maeve intoned once again. “You may do no harm to others. So shall it be.”
“So shall it be,” the others echoed before repeating the lines again.
The bright bluish glow from Corbin began to flow out through the rest of them. Chelsea saw it insparking trails down her arm, and it glowed in the strand of hair that Kristy wound around her finger. It grew brighter as they repeated their phrase again.
A lower-pitched voice was added to the recital. It was Beck. He spoke the words that his son couldn’t yet articulate.
“Fucking useless!” Sol raged, not yet having the staff he’d requested. “I’m not sticking around for any more of this foolishness.”
Energy flared up around his feet. It flashed around him and pulsed from his pendant as he turned toward the cliff.
All at once, Chelsea understood that he truly had used magic to get on and off this island. He was going to simply walk away from them, or perhaps even fly. They’d gone to so much effort, yet all of this had been a waste of time. Sol might require his staff to defeat such an assemblage of enemies, but he could still get away under his own power.
Sol stepped past the scorched remains of the guard rail. The air currents from the crashing waves below flowed up and over him, ruffling his hair and his tunic, but the red glow at his feet held him aloft over thin air.
“So shall it be!” the witches repeated once more.
The ley line energy coalesced intoan orb at the center of their circle. It remained there for only a moment before it arced through the air and slammed into Sol. He gasped as it turned into a ropelike structure, literally wrapping around him and binding him. The red glow under his feet went out like a blown-out match.
They had a fraction of a second to see the look of horror on his face before he fell, his screams echoing through the night air.
17
“Well,that’s the end of him.” Maeve’s face was grim as she returned from carefully peering over the cliff’s edge. She slapped her hands together. “Done and dusted.”
Lilith had returned to her human form for the moment and also took a look. “I’d say.”
“If only we could all have the chance to get rid of our exes so easily,” Lucille said.
Beck didn’t think any of it had been easy. “We’re sure? There’s no chance of him coming back somehow?”
Maeve shook her head. “The strongest mage or witch in the world wouldn’t be capable of that. Not even our dear little Corbin.”
Beck had his arms solidly around the boy andhadn’t let go ever since Griffin had saved his life, but he readily handed him over when Chelsea reached out for him.
Tears hovered in her eyes as she nuzzled her cheek against the boy’s head. “I love you so much, baby.”
“Love you, Mommy.” He rested his head on her shoulder, and his eyelids began to droop.
“He looks like a regular little boy,” Beck marveled. “It’s hard to believe he had a hand in defeating someone like Sol.”
Chelsea kissed Corbin’s forehead. “I’m still processing it myself.”
