Page 39 of Battle of Witches
Scooter wasn’t in the military. He wasallowedto question the orders Asfrid gave him.Anysane person should have hesitated when asked to drug a toddler. Scooter looked totally at peace with himself. If he had any qualms about this, I couldn’t tell. One of the reasons I was so good at fucking with people is because I was good at reading them.
Scooter not only looked like he didn’t have any doubts, but he was also probably going to enjoy this.
Now, I was dramatically posing on this bomb, intending to blow up Asfrid. I was hoping Ravyn’s potion put everyone to sleep, where they could be taken somewhere to detox and talk to someone. Unfortunately, Asfrid preyed on people who were prone to addiction issues. She drugged them and made them pretty promises. I didn’t want to hurt them.
This bitch right here? He knew who she was and that she and Valentine were wanted. Scooter gave them a place to hide and taught Asfrid how to use social media to recruitwithoutgetting caught.
And I could forgive that if he didn’t look like he not onlydidn’thave a problem with this, but he would also enjoy doing it. He wasn’t who I wanted, but he would do.
Scooter looked up and noticed all his hostages were gone, and it was just me here. He dropped the tray and just stared at me like an idiot. He didn’t know I was Loki, but I’m sure he could have guessed. Scooter was probably trying to figure out how I got past his fancy stone.
I could have monologued it. I wasexcellentat those. Scooter wasn’t worth a Loki monologue, so I just smiled at him.
“Boom,” I said, standing up.
Chapter31
Killian
Inever really felt the need to join law enforcement. It wasn’t acceptable for a person of my station the first time I was alive, and I really liked working at the museum the second time around.
I got that everyone was mad at Loki for different reasons that all traced back to the bomb he just exploded in Scooter’s basement. I mean, yeah, if the eagles and I didn’t get Ravyn’s potion over the fence in time, Duffy was going to lose control of his dragon and make a mess in this lovely neighborhood.
This was exhilarating. I didn’t get to do shit like this the last time I was alive. I had something to prove. Asfrid should never have been able to curse me. Ishouldhave put a shield around all of us as soon as Asfrid rose from the dead.
Ravyn was perfectly capable of protecting herself, but now that I was a hybrid, I was supposed to be there augmenting her skills and watching her back. Asfrid had some ancient beef with several people here, and I knew she wanted Ravyn. She was vastly outnumbered with two pissed off gods there, and I guess I just assumed she’d try to run.
It wasembarrassing,and it upset Ravyn for two whole months. I might not be the one who killed her. If Loki blew her to pieces, then no one was bringing her back if she tried to pull this shit again. I could help topple what she was building here.
I spotted Duffy. Asfrid might have gotten him hooked on that potion, and that explosion startled all of us, but Duffy looked like he was really trying to fight the shift. He was covered in hard scales, but he was the only person by the pool who was fighting it instead of already shifting and looking for a fight.
Before I could even drop my potion, there was another roar behind me and a massive gust of wind that blew me off course. I whirled around. Duffy might be fighting the shift, but Kaine sure didn’t. There was currently a giant-ass dragon in this nice gated community where all the rich supernaturals lived.
Okay, first of all, wasn’t he just big-mad at Loki for going off book and setting off a bomb? Everyone behind the fence was supposed to wait until Ravyn’s potion knocked everyone out. There definitely weren’t supposed to be massive dragons hovering over Duffy.
I didn’t want Duffy dead. He’d been through a good bit and didn’t deserve that because he fell for Asfrid’s bullshit. Witches had put him through enough. I didn’t think Kaine did, either, but what the fuck was he doing?
Kaine and Duffy’s eyes locked while Kaine hovered in the air. I recognized Kaine’s dragon because I’d seen him in Hell, but Duffy seemed to know him, too. I considered Kaine a friend now, but I would have been terrified if he had shifted and stared me down.
It wasn’t like that for Duffy, so I didn’t drop the potion right away. Kaine seemed to be comforting Duffy like that. His scales went away, and Duffy was fully a man again. He lifted his arms to Kaine like he was a god.
None of the eagles had thrown their potions since Kaine changed the plan. None of us really knew what he was up to, and we couldn’t exactly talk or wear earpieces when we were shifted.
Whatever Kaine was planning, he needed to do it. Most of the people around the pool were looking at how to attack Kaine, but some of them were gearing up to attack Duffy. The only person capable of fighting a shifted dragon was another dragon, and Duffy wasn’t doing that. He must have betrayed some cult code, and they were ready to turn on him.
One of the witches flung a killing spell at Duffy, but Kaine swooped down and blocked it with his body. He grabbed Duffy with his claws and flew back over the fence. There was already a bomb in the basement, and they knew there was a dragon in the fight. But they weren’t backing down. This group didn’t care what was on the other side of that fence or that Asfrid was probably dead. They were rushing towards the wall, ready to fight.
They weren’t looking to the skies for eagles and bats. They saw that the dragon was gone and thought they were safe. A lot of supernaturals underestimated eagle shifters, anyway. So, we spread out, dropped our potions, and flew higher, so we were out of range of the aerosol.
We all went to fly back over the fence, but I turned around to look. I trusted Ravyn’s potion. She’d always been a borderline genius when it came to inventing potions. If she hadn’t gotten hired at her dream job at the museum, she could have easily had a career making potions.
I turned around because I knew there were probably still people inside that house that didn’t feel like dealing with bugs. Scooter had a very neglected fish pond near the pool, and that psycho killed all the fish. It didn’t look like it had been cared for since he set up the thing and was now a breeding ground for bugs.
My blood ran cold. Asfrid was standing in the doorway watching her minions drop. How was shenotdead? Loki never did anything without thinking about it. Sometimes, he only thought about it for two seconds, but his mind worked in a way where that was all he needed. He wouldn’t have set off a bomb in the basement unless someone was dying.
It wasn’t Asfrid, so who did Loki kill? Andwherewas Loki? Asfrid didn’t look the slightest bit worried. A good bit of her minions were passed out on the lawn, and her dragon abandoned her. She turned and calmly walked back inside.
I could always count on Loki to plan on the fly, but he created and raised Asfrid. Loki wouldn’t do any of the horrible shit she did, but they were alotalike in the way their minds worked. She would have planned for being found and how to escape.
