“Will you shut that animal up?” the robed woman snapped at one of her colleagues. “I can’t hear myself think.”
The man made a jerking gesture, and John Doe’s song cut off. Dai tried to speak again, but was silenced by his own warlock. In the abrupt hush, the witch swept the courtyard with a scornful stare.
“Panicking like chickens,” she said scathingly, to the men who’d been fleeing for their lives mere moments ago. They crept sheepishly out of the shadows, hanging their heads—though Rose noticed that they all still stayed well away from Ivy. “Anyone would think you’d never seen a shifter before.”
“We haven’t seen one like that before, Magus!” one of the chastised men protested, pointing at Ivy. “It’s some kind of dragon, but—”
The witch rolled her eyes. “I’m not interested in feeble excuses. Just hurry up and bind the wretched creature, before the High Magus returns and sees this mess.”
Several of the acolytes stepped back. The one the witch had picked out went pale. “B-but, Magus,” he stuttered. “No one can touch it. Everyone who’s tried, well…” He trailed off, gesturing helplessly at the collapsed forms scattered around the courtyard.
The witch tilted her head, looking interested. She walked closer to Ivy, dragging Hugh along behind. Ivy’s jaw worked as though she wanted to spit, but the witch’s magic held her motionless. All she could do was glare at the woman in pure hatred.
“Interesting.” The witch tapped a fingernail against her lips for a moment, evidently thinking. Then her mouth curved in a smile. Silver light shimmered around her fingers as she reached out to caress Ivy’s cheek. “But no great obstacle. I shall simply neutralize its venom—”
The witch stopped. An expression of great puzzlement spread across her face.
She looked down at the gleaming horn protruding from the center of her chest.
“The unicorn is loose!” a warlock screamed.
“Yes!” Rose shouted in triumph, as the magic holding her abruptly disappeared. “Yes!”
She’d gambled everything, based on a single, newly-recovered memory. A recollection of a gun, swinging up to point at her…and the Phoenix, exploding out of his cell in response.
And she’d been right.
Nothing could stop a shifter from protecting his mate.
Chaos erupted as Hugh flung the witch’s limp body aside. Warlocks scattered in all directions, desperate to escape the rampaging unicorn. The black binding around its foreleg had completely vanished. Its horn flashed like a blade, sparks trailing behind it. Ivy shifted into her wyvern form again, fighting back-to-back with her mate.
“No!” the warlock next to Griff howled as a couple of acolytes tried to grab Ivy’s wing. “That’s a mated pair! Don’t try to bind them, you fools!”
“Hit them with everything you’ve got!” Dragonfire swirled around a warlock’s upraised hands. Dai snarled in rage and pain, clutching at the runes around his wrist, but he clearly couldn’t stop the man from drawing power from him. “All of us, together, on the count of three!”
John’s knees buckled as his warlock summoned a crackling ball of lightning. Griff writhed like a cat trying to escape a harness as his warlock too drew power from him.
“One!” Dai’s warlock shouted. All three took aim at Ivy and Hugh. “Two! Thr—”
Virginia, Hayley and Neridia stepped between the warlocks and their targets. The women linked hands, forming a human shield.
Griff’s warlock’s eyes widened as he realized he was threatening his shifter’s mate. “Oh, sh—”
He didn’t get to finish the sentence. The griffin’s gleaming golden beak snapped shut, silencing him forever.
And suddenly the courtyard was very, very full of dragon.
John’s huge, finned tail swept his warlock, a dozen acolytes, and quite a lot of the nearest wall into oblivion. Dai vaporized his own warlock with a single, precise blast of fire, then ducked his head. Virginia scrambled up onto the dragon’s neck, clinging onto his curving horns. John picked up his own mate, cradling her protectively in webbed feet.
“Chase!” Rose shouted, looking around frantically. “We have to find Chase!”
Connie was already running, awkwardly, arms supporting her pregnant belly. Leaving the dragons to finish destroying the last few warlocks, Rose pelted after her. They ran down the row of cages.
“You!” Connie yelled in fury. “Get off my mate!”
A warlock was frantically clutching at Chase’s mane, trying to scramble up onto the pegasus’s back. At Connie’s shout, he fell off. Chase danced away, snorting, black hooves striking sparks on the flagstones.
The warlock scrambled to his feet, making a grabbing motion at thin air. Chase bucked and twisted, as though caught on an invisible leash.