Page 47 of Ruthless Fae
Not possible. Karen has no magic.
Maybe she’d use the device around her head to stop the bullet. That had to be it, some sort of technology. Yet, a voice in the back of my mind reminded me of the truth. Karen did have magic, and she had used it on me the day she kidnapped me from my home at the Supernatural Academy. She had used an immobilizing spell to stop me from fighting, then she’d used another spell to levitate me out into a van. Alonzo had urged her not to use it, but she hadn’t listened. Maybe she’d sensed I would have fought her to the death before I let them take me.
Anger replacing my confusion, I pulled the trigger again and again and again. Three bullets hit the rippling barrier and got stuck along with the first one. They jittered together, useless.
With a growl, I threw away the gun and lunged downward aiming for Karen, who still had her eyes closed, lost in her spell.
Teeth gritted, I put my arms out, slammed into the woman with all my strength, and sent her flying off the platform. Her eyes sprang open as she fell through the air, arms windmilling. She hit the hard ground, her head snapping back with thethud, the controlling helmet coming loose and rolling away, making a sizzling sound as sparks flew from a tangle of cables.
Karen’s eyes rolled back, showing their whites. She grabbed at her temples, blinking sluggishly, clearly fighting to remain conscious.
At that moment, two things happened behind me at the same time.
One, the rows of mutant soldiers broke rank and began stumbling about confused, letting out a cacophony of shrieks, growls, and roars, unlike anything I’d ever heard. A shiver ran up my spine as flashes of teeth, claws, and horns registered in my vision.
Two, the sun flickered off.
Seized by a wave of terror, I shut my eyes, threw my arms over my head, and hunkered down, expecting the end of worlds.
Except, nothing happened.
Fearfully, I glanced to my left as the light flickered around me once more. Pinpointing the source of the disturbance, I whirled to face the dome and found it blinking in and out of existence, at times growing sharper then dimmer, then trembling and losing its spherical shape.
What was happening? Had the dean finally come to help us? Was this her doing?
My eyes darted all around, searching for an explanation. Below me, Karen groaned, catching my eye. She struggled to her feet, holding her head and panting. With every labored inhale she took, the dome skipped a beat. Puzzled, I glanced from the woman to the flickering barrier and back again, my brain making the connection even as it fought the logic of it all.
Karen, her magic, was responsible for the dome.
It had been her all along protecting the Habermanns, and no one had ever suspected. I remembered Alonzo urging her not to use magic the night they kidnapped me. At the time, I thought he’d wanted to avoid detection, but it seemed there had been a more sinister reason behind his request. He had wanted to keep her powers a secret. But, if so, why hadn’t Alonzo mentioned anything? Maybe they erased the knowledge from his mind. That was the sort of thing they would do, after all.
I shook my head pushing the questions away and focused on the dome. It appeared solid once again. Karen had won the battle against her impending blackout, and the shield had strengthened. Worse yet, the mutant army had turned into a wild horde and had started fighting. Creature against creature, trying to rip each other apart.
Snapping into the horrible reality, Karen flung an arm toward the fallen helmet and, with a twitch of her fingers, made it float through the air and sail into her hand. She went to place it back on her head, but I swooped down, snatched it from her grip, and flew back the way I’d come.
Karen growled in anger. “I will kill you,fae bitch!”
A gust of wind struck me in the back, slamming me against the ground. I hit a patch of grass and rolled head over heels, arms and legs sprawling outward, wings crumpling painfully. I came to a stop, dazed and battered. Pushing up from the ground, I glanced around, trying to get my bearings and caught sight of Karen, swiftly floating in my direction as if carried by an angry wind.
Apparently, since I already knew her secret, she’d decided it was time to use her magic on me. Her hands went up in the air, expertly tracing patterns, the way Charlie and Dean McIntosh did. I started to rise to my feet, but an invisible force pummeled me again and sent me rolling down a slope. Dust twirled all around me, filling my lungs. I sputtered and coughed.
Beating my wings as soon as I came to a stop, I got to my feet just as Karen appeared at the top of the slope with another attack spell at the ready. I prepared to dodge as she extended her hands in my direction, except, this time, a blur flew in from the side and crashed into her like a boulder.
Vaughn!
They tumbled to the ground, Vaughn’s snarls joining the cacophony of the mutant soldiers. Even as my wings screamed in pain, I took to the air and flew toward the two writhing figures.
Just as I approached, unsure of what to do, Vaughn yipped and jumped away, his fur on fire.
Panic seized me.Oh, gods! He will burn.
Before the fire grew bigger, he dropped into a patch of dirt and rolled in it, putting the flames out. He rose to all fours, smoking, bald patches dotting his side, but he was otherwise unharmed.
As Karen rose to her feet, I searched the ground looking for her helmet. When I spotted it, I went for it and quickly put it on. Turning to the horde, I moved to my arms left and right, the way I’d seen Karen do, but nothing happened. The creatures simply continued fighting each other, though a couple of them noticed my erratic movements, stopped their scuffle, and lumbered in my direction.
Oh, feine!
I turned tail and jumped into the air, my wings whirring. I’d only come a couple of feet off the ground when a band of pain squeezed my head so tightly that I forgot myself and plummeted back down, my hands trying desperately to peel the helmet off.
