Page 51 of Bear Protector
“Have you ever stopped to wonder how I’ve lived this long, young thing?” Coco crooned. “I can think of eight…no, nine times I cheated certain death, and I can tell you it is always worth the fight.” She crinkled her nose, and then she relaxed her face and smiled. “All right. Maybe I was not brave enough to cross Minassus before this…but now, I can feel it in my bones, Kiera. We have a chance to cut the son of a bitch off at the knees and go back to how life was before. You are so strong, love. I can hardly believe the quantum leaps you have made these past few days. As your familiar, you know it’s my goal to help you hone your craft, to unlock the powerful parts within you and harness the world around us as you become stronger. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been so proud of you…but these past few days, it’s like you are a woman on fire.”
“Awww, dear.”
She grasped Kiera’s hands. “That fearlessness is exactly what you were born to wield…and if I go on, I swear your fiery little ass will make me cry.”
Coco sniffed a bit and fanned her eyes, which had already filled with tears. Taking a breath, she picked up the box and passed it to Kiera. “Enough with this sentimental stuff. Let’s get the hell out here.”
“Agreed. His carriage is close to the fortress entrance.” Kiera hurried up to her room with Coco following behind. She placed the lockbox on the bed. “What exactly are we looking for?”
“An account that Thalia wrote.”
Kiera stared over at Coco. “Our first witch Chancellor?” Coco nodded. “From three hundred years ago?”
“Yes. Did you open the box?”
“Yes,” Kiera answered.
Coco flipped the lid to one side and quickly picked up the rolled-up scroll on top. A large ancient coin the size of an egg fell to the bed.
“What’s that?” Kiera asked.
“Thalia’s talisman,” Coco answered. She placed the coin in her hand and made a fist around it. “She was not a fan of familiars, so she used this to concentrate her magic instead.”
A small piece of paper floated down to the bed afterward. Coco studied the scrap of paper for a moment, then her lips formed a tense line. She passed the note to Kiera. “It appears that the Chancellor knows about your powers.”
“What? Why do you think—” Kiera froze and the blood drained from her face. Her name was scribbled on it in the Chancellor’s handwriting, and below it, there was one phrase.Must neutralize.
“Got any doubts that he knows?” Coco asked, opening the scroll.
“No. I don’t understand, though. If Minassus was aware of what we were planning to do, or conspiring, as he would put it, why did he not stop us before he left for his mother’s village?”
“My guess is arrogance. He probably believed he had time. Speaking of time…” Coco sat on the bed and pulled Kiera’s arm, motioning for her to sit. “See here?” she asked, pointing to the fifth paragraph of the old handwritten document.
Kiera looked at the flowery cursive section that seemed to have been written more slowly than anywhere else on the page.
“Read it aloud,” Coco instructed. “In case there’s anything you do not understand. People spoke a little differently back then, and Thalia was pretty feisty herself.”
“All right,” she agreed, lowering her eyes to the paragraph. “It says,Ameerah was right. Something changed after I gave it up for that arrogant washed-up NFL’er last week. Even Ameerah herself said she sensed it all the way out in Green Bay. Anyway, I recited that spell on the laptop, speaking directly to the image of the cluster symbol that she sent to my cell. I don’t know how exactly, but it worked. The energy from Ameerah’s spell transferred from the symbol into me and magnified my abilities. From the spell! Not from the witch herself. I can’t even begin to fathom what it means, but for starters, I will ask every witch and sorcerer in Chicago to repeat the step, and I will try again. Those goddamned destroyers won’t know what hit them. If this works, the old biddies and I will share a laugh in honor of that jock I slept with. I guess I should have gotten his name. But maybe not. I saw him at the same bar where we met with that bleach blonde skank bitch, Corinne, from high school. Chick can’t even hold her liquor. Oh well. Who would have thought finally losing my virginity would help save the world?”
Kiera looked up at Coco. “What is an NFL’er? And a cell? Oh, and a skank?”
“The first is an athlete who played one of the most brutal sports of that time. A cell is a handheld portable phone that evolved into a device almost every person on the planet owned and stared at ad infinitum…” She stared off into the distance, dreamy-eyed. “All those colorful games… and don’t even get me started on our addiction to social media.”
“And a skank?”
“Never mind that. Some insults should stay in the past, darling. Did you understand the rest?”
“I think so…she drew power from the residual energy left behind in other witches’ spells?”
“Exactly…just like you, after you gave it up to Xander,” she said, grinning.
Kiera rolled her eyes. “And when I shook Liam’s hand…”
Coco nodded vigorously. “Exactly. Magic from him flowed to you. My best guess is it was the shifter magic left behind from the Chosen who transformed him, and if I’m right, he was turned to a shifter a different year than Xander was. Oh my goodness, do you knows what this means?”
“Um…can you give me a hint? My head hurts. It has been a long day.”
“I will give you more than a hint. All you need to do is physically touch one shifter from each of the years since Minassus initiated the shifter transformations ceremonies. You will draw power from each spell that was cast.”
