“Why do I get the feeling they’re not telling us something?” Ezra grumbled, rubbing the back of his neck.
We stopped at that. This did seem too easy.
I murmured quietly, “They keep saying a small dose. I think we’d better listen to them.” They hadn’t put any special inflection on the word, but it had been repeated a few times.
“Well, let’s do this,” Jack muttered, his eyes starting to glow brown. “Small, it is.”
Standing in a circle, we turned toward each other.
I let my eyes glow blue, feeling my Shifter power surge in my Core, and quickly tamped it down to a small amount, then let it ripple to my hands.
“You ready?” Pearl asked, her eyes glowing gold.
“Yep.” I nodded.
She and I held hands.
We staggered as our powers touched. Gasped.
Hers felt like raging spells and time, purely charmed.
My wolf instantly growled. My magic didn’t like hers so much.
“Wild…” She whispered, starting to shake beside me. “Animal…”
“What’s wrong?” Ezra asked immediately.
I wanted to pull my hand away so badly, but when she started to loosen her hold, I hissed, “No!” It was still Pearl. Differences be damned. “It’s still me. Lily. Just me.” I held back my wolf’s growl wanting to erupt again.
She was visibly trembling, but she gripped my hand harder, which made us jerk, but we didn’t let go even as our magic warred with one another’s.
Pearl spoke to Jack and Ezra, her voice trembling, “It’s bad. Prepare yourselves.”
Their jaws clenched as determination etched their features.
Slowly, not really wanting to at all, I held my other hand up to Ezra.
He stared at it for a heartbeat, and then clamped his hand on mine.
I choked, my knees hitting the ground, scarcely keeping the howl at bay.
Ezra stiffened next to me, his Vampire growling deep inside his chest.
His power was dark. Dark and dangerous and sensual. None of those in a good way when it met mine. I instantly wanted to be free. I was a wild animal, as Pearl had said, and not only was I battling Ezra’s power against my left hand, I was also battling Pearl’s against my right. Dark and sensual on one side, spells and time on the other, and wild animal in the middle. I had never felt my power want to physically take control but, now, it wanted to push them away.
Savagely. Instantly.
I grunted, standing on shaking feet as sweat began pouring down my face, and gasped, “Pearl, can you feel Ezra’s power?” He had cut off his Vampire’s growl, and was now crushing my hand so hard he was most definitely leaving bruises. That was a good thing. It gave me a focus. If I so much as even contemplated letting my power go off, it would. In a heartbeat.
Pearl shook her head jerkily.
“Ezra, can you feel Pearl’s?” I asked, still panting. That was all I could manage.
“No.” His voice was deep. Scary deep. Trying to keep himself in check.
“I can feel both of yours.” I licked my lips. “It’s…horrible. My power’s on the verge of exploding to push yours away. I don’t know how long I can hold out. Whoever takes—” I grunted, feeling Pearl’s power surge a little. “Pearl, don’t do that. I can’t hold if you—” Her power surged again, not much, but just enough so that mine reacted. “Shit!”
Well, I learned something new. An explosion can be invisible. It wasn’t seen but it was most definitely felt. It was like a mini-grenade went off when my power instinctively surged to epic extremes, making theirs counter and surge all at once. And…boom.
All four of us shouted as we went flying high into the air away from one another with a force that took my breath away and cut my shout short. Then, I was falling. Screaming, I watched the ground come at me faster than I had left it, I was pretty sure. I tucked. There was nothing else to do as I hit the ground.
Sinking in to the softest dirt I had ever felt, my screaming abruptly cut off in shock. I kept going down, the ground bowing like I had fallen on a trampoline, until the force of my fall died away, and then the silky earth was pushing me back up slowly to the even surface where it hardened to normal grass and dirt beneath me. From where I lay, I glanced around frantically, and saw King Fergus with his arms raised, eyes glowing.
My best friends were on the ground like me, all of us dazed. I was pretty sure Pearl and Jack could have saved themselves on a normal day from that fall, but it felt like my power was fried right now, which meant theirs probably were, too. King Fergus had just saved all of our behinds.
King Nelson sauntered out of the shade into the sun — smiling — as King Fergus’s hands lowered, his eyes no longer glowing. King Nelson folded his own hands together, appearing as happy as a clam, and said, “Let’s try that again, shall we?”
“I hate them,” I muttered, two hours later.
Pearl and Ezra were currently holding hands.
Looking sickly, Jack stared at Ezra’s outstretched free hand.
We hadn’t gotten past three of us linked. Whoever was in the middle always blasted us across the lawn. The Kings found this entirely amusing. They had even had Mrs. Jonas bring them lawn chairs and drinks so they could sit comfortably to watch the show and not be parched from the heat.
My wolf growled. “If we didn’t need King Fergus right now, I’d say kill them all.”
King Venclaire laughed outright, sitting safely away from us, and leaned over as he murmured to the other Kings, probably tattling on me.
“Hurry up,” Ezra hissed, gritting his teeth.
“I don’t want to,” Jack mumbled.
“What are you, like, two?” Pearl muttered. “Grab his damn hand.”
“Screw you,” Jack retorted, but without much conviction. I didn’t blame him. This was awful. Inhaling deeply, he lifted his hand and slowly set it on Ezra’s, closing his glowing eyes, jolting at the contact.
Ezra’s head fell back, muscles cording in his neck, his Vampire growling furiously.
I blinked gradually as a crawling thought arose. Maybe, we had been going at this too slow. Ezra had said hurry up. We kept grumbling between grabbing the other’s hand, the suffering drawing out. Possibly, it should be handled like a bandaid. Rip it off and be done with it. I held up my hands and said quickly, “Everyone, drop hands! I have an idea!”
They groaned, their heads tucked down, all of them physically shaking. Ezra was panting and his fangs were fully extended, appearing like he wanted to use them to rip my throat out, whereas Jack and Pearl looked like they wanted to use their bare hands to rip my throat out.