Stolen Magic (Dragon's Gift: The Huntress Book 3) (15 page)

Panic clawed at my throat, disrupting the lovely calm. My friends needed me. I was here to help them. But they weren’t here?

I stopped and shook my head, then fisted my hands in my scalp, hoping the pain would clear my mind.

It did, enough that I remembered we were here to seek someone. The Nullifier.
 

Find the fairytale in the forest.

These lights were straight out of a fairytale, luring the unwary traveler off their path.

“Aidan, snap out of it,” I said. “Don’t look at the lights.”

He shook his head. “What?”

“Don’t look at the lights.”

His gray gaze met mine, foggy with confusion. I reached out and pinched his arm. He jerked, but his vision cleared.

“Damn it,” he said. “Enchantments.”

“Yeah. Smart ones. Enough to keep the villagers away from the Nullifier’s house. They told me to go to a coffee shop that I didn’t even know existed.” I closed my eyes and focused on my dragon sense, picking up the trail again. “Come on, this way.”

We set off through the forest again. I danced my gaze around the forest, never resting on any one thing too long.
 

“We should talk,” I said. “Ty to keep ourselves from falling under the forest’s spell again.”

“Good idea. First topic. Aethelred said some interesting things about the crossroads you face.”

“Wow, you really jump into it, don’t you?”

“I like to cut to the chase.”

“Okay. Then yeah, I’ve got some thoughts. He’s obviously talking about my love of power.”

Aidan nodded.

“And that scares me,” I said. “It makes it real.”

“But it also means it’s not just you.”

“No, you’re right. He said that others have faced this as well. And that they’ve succumbed.” I shivered at the memory of my nightmare. “I had a nightmare at your house. A memory. The Monster is a FireSoul.
That’s
what Aethelred was warning me against. Don’t become like him.”

“And you aren’t.”

“I’m more like him than my
deirfiúr
. They’ve never been tempted by their FireSoul power.”

“They haven’t been forced to embrace it like you have. You’re doing it to survive, Cass. To protect the ones you love.”

I glanced at him and realized his gaze had been on me. Sincerity shone on his face. He really believed what he was saying. I reached out for his hand.

“I know we haven’t had time for that date I promised you,” I said.

“I wasn’t exactly expecting something traditional,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong—I’d take it. Dinner that isn’t pasties from P & P and a walk on the water sound killer, but your life doesn’t exactly leave room for things like that.”

“No. You’re right.” I focused on my dragon sense. We were still going the right way. “But I’m glad you’re on this, uh, adventure with me. My
deirfiúr
have always had my back, but having you, too, is pretty great.”

“Thanks.”

“You sure you have time to be always helping me out? You’ve got a giant business to run, right?”

“I believe in delegating. And there’s not really a more pressing concern than saving Magic’s Bend. It tops my list right now.”

I laughed, both amused and distressed. “Well, I’ll definitely take your help when I can get it.”

“Good. You have it whenever you need it. And also when you don’t need it.”

Whatever we had between us, we were making it kind of official, I realized. I wished we had more time to just
be
—to go on that date, to find time for more. But for now, I’d take what I could get, even if it was just quickly stolen moments while looking for the fairytale in the forest. Maybe this was our thing.

I still didn’t know if I was supposed to call him my boyfriend, but the word didn’t really suit Aidan.

“Do you hear that?” he asked.

I tensed, perking my ears. When I heard nothing but the rustle of leaves and the chittering of squirrels, I shook my head.

Then a rumble sounded beneath the ground, as if tree roots were grinding against dirt and rock. The glittering lights hovered just out of the corner of my eye, but I forced myself not to look. They were a threat, but there was something else far below.

We were getting closer to the Nullifier. The tug around my waist was getting stronger, as was the gross feeling of having my magic repressed.

Suddenly, the ground in front of us exploded, tree roots surging up and dirt flying into the air. I lunged back.

Figures scrambled up from the earth, their short, dwarfish bodies formed from twisted roots. Color glinted here and there. Gems stuck in the crevices between their gnarled roots. Five root-dwarves, with more climbing out of the scar in the earth.

I pulled my obsidian daggers free from my thigh holsters and tossed Aidan one.

“We come in friendship, Nullifier!” I called.

The dwarves did not answer, however.

Their dark jewel eyes glinted as they charged us, their footsteps shaking the earth beneath them. They seemed to gain strength and power with every step, drawing it from the earth.

Three collided with Aidan as the other two clashed with me. One went low for my legs, while the other threw a mean right hook. I got my blade up just in time to sever his root-arm, but crashed to the ground as the other plowed into me.
 

I kept my grip on my blade. Thank magic for obsidian, the sharpest stuff on earth. Because obsidian was volcanic glass, my daggers had been enchanted not to break. I thrust it out as the dwarf lunged for me, sinking my blade into his chest.

He didn’t even flinch. Instead, he gripped his rough, root-formed hands around my neck and squeezed. Stars burst behind my eyes as I gasped. I slashed with my blade again, swiping him across the face.

Again, he didn’t react other than to squeeze tighter.

Damn it
.

I raised my legs, tucking them under his body, and kicked with everything I had, throwing him off of me. I gasped raggedly at fresh air. He was silent as he flew through the air and crashed to the ground, but he scrambled up immediately. The other dwarf was so close I could make out the glitter of jewels stuck between the roots that formed his body.

If I couldn’t use my magic or my blades, I had no idea how to beat these guys. Aidan was holding his own, but he couldn’t kill them without magic.

I reached up and touched the comms charm around my neck. “Nix? Del? I need help!”

“What do you need?” Nix’s voice came through.

Gratitude welled through me that the Nullifier’s power hadn’t disabled my charm. Possibly because it wasn’t a kind of magic that could be used to hurt him.

A dwarf threw himself at me, taking advantage of my distraction. I crashed to the ground. Pain exploded at my back, like my ribs crunching.

“Dwarfs made of roots in Switzerland.” I gasped as I wrestled with the dwarf. “Any way… to beat them without magic?”

“Okay, okay, on it. Give me a sec.”

Nix was my remote backup on tomb raiding jobs, helping me with riddles and other challenges. Because so much was based on folklore, it often wasn’t hard to find the answers to things through research.
 

“‘Kay, dwarves are big in Swiss folklore,” Nix muttered, no doubt scrolling Google. It was a little embarrassing that I was a tomb raider who relied on Google, but it worked so I wasn’t going to give it up.
 

“Hurry!” I kicked the dwarf off me. He sailed through the air, roots flailing, but the next plowed into me almost immediately.
 

I glanced over at Aidan to see that he’d tied up his three using roots he’d pulled from their bodies, but three more had clawed their way out of the ground and were headed toward him. My gaze caught on the sparkling gems gleaming from the crevices between their roots, my dragon covetousness pinging. I’d like to pull those sparkles right off them.

The dwarf on top of me landed a sharp blow to my cheek, sending light exploding behind my eyes. Agony radiated from my cheekbone.

That was what I got for getting distracted by the shinies.
 

“Now, Nix!”

“Getting nothing here. Lemme ask Dr. Garriso!”

I thrashed with the dwarf who had me pinned, managing to slash off both his arms with my dagger. He didn’t even flinch, which I was sort of glad about because the dwarves were cute in a gross way. His arms would grow back, but I hoped it’d buy me half a minute.

I scrambled away from his flopping form, but the other dwarf grabbed my ankle. This was becoming an exhausting cycle of incapacitating one dwarf just to have the next recuperate and attack.

“Cass!” Nix’s voice blared. “Grab the gem in their forehead. Pull it out!”

Gem in their forehead? I twisted beneath the dwarf who’d grabbed me. He clambered up my body, swinging for my head. I ducked, then peered at the tangled roots that made up his craggy face. Gems for eyes, but no gem in his forehead.

I bobbed my head, as much to avoid his blows as to get a different angle to better see through the roots of his face. A tiny flash of red caught my eye, beneath the first layer of snaking roots. It was deep, damn it.

I sucked in a breath and plunged my hand through the roots. My knuckles burned as the wood gouged at my skin. Barely, my fingertips brushed the smooth stone, and I pushed harder, wincing. I tightened my fist around the gem and pulled it free.

The dwarf collapsed.

“Aidan!” I called. “Pull the gem out of their heads!”

The other dwarf barreled into me before I could get up. We wrestled, his small form shockingly strong. Eventually, I threw him onto his back and thrust my fist into his forehead. My hand screamed with pain, but I plucked the gem free.

I rolled off the dwarf, panting, my aching hand gripped around the gem.

“You okay?” Nix’s voice sounded from the charm around my neck.

“Yeah,” I panted and tipped my head back to see Aidan pulling the gem from the last dwarf. It collapsed into a pile of roots before being absorbed by the ground.

“Can I keep the gems?” I asked Nix.

“Hang on, lemme check.” Muffled talking sounded from the charm. “No, sorry. Bad luck. Toss them back.”

“Damn.” My dragon sense winced as I tossed the glittering stone to the ground. The sparkling blue was immediately absorbed by the dirt. I scrambled to my feet.
 

Aidan walked toward me.

“Good thinking,” he said. “How’d you know?”

I pointed to the charm. “I didn’t. Nix did.”

“Dr. Garriso, actually,” Nix said. “We should keep him on retainer for tricky things like this. Our own phone-a-friend.”

I laughed. “See if you can work something out. We’ve got to get going now. Thanks, Nix.”

“Sure thing. Be safe. Call if you need anything.”

“Will do.”

I touched the charm to turn it off and flinched at the pain in my hand.

Concern darkened Aidan’s gaze. “You okay?”

“Yeah, a little scratch.” I eyed his big hand. It was beat up, but he didn’t seem to notice.
 

“Hardly.” He reached for my hand and lifted it, his touch gentle. “Let me take care of this.”

“I don’t think your magic will work.”

“Let me just try.”

I held out my hand. Healing warmth flowed from his touch. My pain leached away.
 

“Why does it work?”

“Maybe it’s not a kind of magic that can hurt the Nullifier. Like the magic that fuels your charm. It’s got to be exhausting to continually repress the magic around you. He probably saves energy by repressing only the stuff that could be harmful to him.”

“Yeah, I guess. That feels amazing, thanks.”

“No problem.”

I couldn’t help but notice he’d healed me before himself.

“One hundred percent?” he asked.

I flexed my hand. “Yeah.”

“Good.” He lowered my hand and let go. “Which way now?”

I focused on my dragon sense, thinking of the Nullifier and my desire to find him. The tug pulled at my middle. “Left.”

“Lead on.”

We set off through the forest. I kept my gaze active, darting from tree to shrub to sky, never landing on something long enough to become enchanted.
 

“You aren’t going to heal your hand?” I asked.

“It’s a little thing. I’ll save the power. With the Nullifier repressing most of my magic, I don’t know how much I have to draw on.”
 

Like most Magica, Aidan had to regenerate his healing power if he used too much. We Magica were just magical rechargeable batteries of varying strength, though I didn’t know what our source of power was. No one did. We were all just born like this. There were myths about our origin, of course, but they were so old I’d never thought they were important.

“I think we’re almost there,” I said after a few minutes of walking. “Somewhere near—” Magic vibrated in the air, strong enough to steal my breath. “Do you feel that?”

“Yeah.” Aidan’s gaze shot alertly around the forest. “Something is coming.”

A shriek tore through the quiet, followed by the beat of wings and a whoosh of air. Aidan plowed into me, throwing me to the ground. My breath exploded from my lungs, and I stared dazedly at the sky.

Flame and smoke swooped in the air above, right where my head had been, followed by water and stone. I squinted, my head spinning from my fall.

“Dragons,” I whispered as my vision sharpened.