“No one had ever even heard of the Wishers before,” he explained, his expression becoming distant, as if he was reliving something from the past. “Then one morning, a little girl that everyone had always assumed was a Tuath accidentally made a wish. And it came true.”
Beside Avery, Selene suddenly leaned forward. “What was her name? What did she wish for?”
“Her name was Willow. She was a tiny, gawky thing who lacked the natural grace of most other Tuath fae. She was teased for this constantly. An ugly duckling….” He smiled to himself at the irony. “One morning, the teasing became violent. Fae normally can’t use their magic against other fae. It simply doesn’t work. So a small child such as Willow has no recourse against larger peers. They forced her out onto a frozen lake, and watched – and laughed – as she repeatedly fell in.”
“Where were her parents?” Selene demanded, her face growing ashen. “I mean, weren’t they Wishers? Couldn’t they have stopped this?”
Avery took her hand in his, but she was so upset, she nearly pulled it back out again. He could feel her ire swimming now – that fire that he loved so much in her, that absolute relentless need for justice in a world in which there practically was none.
“They were dead,” Avery told her. He knew the story well. Thanks to him and his brother, it was one well studied by all fae now. “Willow was an orphan of the Seelie court.”
“Willow was simply the perfect target,” Damon picked up. “Defenseless in every way – save one.”
“What did she wish for?” Selene demanded again, this time through gritted teeth. No doubt, she was just imagining all the things she would have wished for if she’d been in that situation.
“Her wish…. Well, her wish would become rather famous,” Damon continued. “She was going through what we now understand was a transformation, a realizing of her powers.”
“Like I just did, you mean.”
Damon nodded. “Wishers are most powerful during this time, and can wish for things they normally could not. It’s the only way her magic was capable of working against another fae.”
Selene waited, and Avery could swear she was holding her breath.
“She wished that the boys teasing her would feel what she felt,” Avery supplied.
Selene made a small sound. “A wish of empathy,” she whispered.
“Precisely,” Damon nodded, just once. “And boy, did they. Both boys, in fact, wound up drowning. It was an event that raised alarms and set off a chain reaction of slaughter that would see the eventual genocide of the Wishers. For no magic frightens a cold heart more than the threat of feeling that which it inflicts.”
“Or, rather, the near genocide of the Wishers,” Avery corrected softly. “Somehow you and your sister survived.”
Selene looked down at the rug and grew very quiet. It was a deep, dark kind of quiet, and Avery considered delving into her thoughts to make certain she was okay.
But then she said, “They killed them all? Even Willow?” She looked up at Damon. “A little girl?”
“The extent to which the Sidhe Kings feared Wisher transformations is understated,” Damon supplied softly. “We don’t know as much about Wishers as we’d like, seeing as how they were all wiped out, but over the years and by reading journals of those who were killed, we’ve pieced a few things together. Like we said, it’s during a transformation that a Wisher can harm other fae. This is one of the things the kings learned right away, and quite simply, they would have done anything to destroy a Wisher before he or she entered that dangerous stage. Wishers enter this stage at different times, from infancy to adulthood. But usually very young. I’m sorry to say, it wasn’t that the sovereigns even killed children…. It was that they mostly killed children. Some in their cribs.”
Selene stood now, and Avery could feel her aura growing. It was turning red, like fire – and blood. “But how did they even find the Wishers?! They’d been hiding all that time!”
“The kings pulled in mages from all reaches of the realms and created a spell that would identify Wishers in the precious, powerful moments before their transformation,” Avery told her, hoping his voice might help calm her a little more than Damon’s was. “They duplicated this spell, sent it out to the far reaches of the realms, and waited. Over the course of the next two centuries, they systematically smoked out the young, and in doing so, confronted and killed their parents as well. Even those who harbored or protected the Wishers in any way were….” Avery faltered, and he felt the blood leave his face. “They were put to death….”
As soon as he spoke the words, he fully realized what it was he’d just said.
Apparently, so did Selene, because she froze, her breath hitched a little, and she turned to face him.
He stood. “I think it might be time to track down your sister.”
“And my parents,” she said, her voice tiny and tight.
Across the table, Damon stood as well. It was clear from the look on his face that they’d all come to the same realization.
“That spell that went off wasn’t meant for me at all,” Avery said.
“It was meant for me,” Selene continued, her voice tight. “Because I was about to realize I was a Wisher.” Her face had gone completely white. “And so is Minerva.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Selene had just moved closer to Avery and prepared herself for him to open a portal out of the Goblin King’s castle and the fae realms altogether, when the ground beneath her feet shook, and tiny fragments of debris knocked themselves loose from the walls of the great room. A tremor went through the castle, deep and ominous. It lasted full seconds, disrupting the world like an earthquake.
A few of the animals she’d put to slumber with her wish spell rolled over in their sleep or even popped open an eye before settling into their naps once more.
“What the hell was that?” Avery asked.
The cat, Artemis, meowed loudly and unhappily at their feet. She was pacing back and forth, clearly agitated. Selene automatically picked her up, filled with a sudden concern for the welfare of all of the animals in the room.
Damon placed his hand to his chest; his eyes were distant. “It’s Diana,” he said breathlessly. “She’s in trouble. I have to go to her.”
Selene thought fast. Diana was one of the two healers available to the supernatural world and its circles. The other had just stepped through some portal into the land of the dead – where she would be needed least of all.
Who would help Diana if she were hurt?
She weighed her options and the situation with quick efficiency. It was something she’d always been able to do, but it was easier now for some reason. Maybe it was the queenliness coming through. Selene couldn’t heal anyone but herself, just as, ironically, Diana Chroi could heal anyone but herself. Still, Selene could do a lot. She could maybe remove the thing causing injury, or – something. There was almost always a way to help. “We need to go with you,” she said, speaking to Damon.
Avery took her hand, met her gaze, and held it. His piercing eyes read her thoughts without even trying, and after a brief moment, he nodded. “She’s right.”
Damon didn’t argue. Instead, he raised his right hand, spoke an arcane word, and a mighty and wicked looking sword appeared in his grip. The next thing he did was open a portal himself, one which spanned the center of the great room and gobbled up the coffee table.
He glanced once in their direction – and then stepped through.
Selene and Avery followed suit, remaining side by side as the portal carried them forward, closed behind them, and opened again in front of them. They stepped through the other side.
The blast of heat hit Selene at once, forcing her to flinch. It had been entirely unexpected. Artemis, who was still in her arms because Selene hadn’t realized she’d carried her through the portal, at once jumped down to the ground, her back arched, her hackles raised.
Selene lifted her hand before her face, her mind spinning. The ro
ar of the blaze was like a train engine, and its smoke was so dark, it was a shade below night, thick and churning as it lifted itself into the sky and blotted out the stars.
They were on the northwest coast, as far as Selene could tell. There were redwoods around them tall and majestic. But on the other side of a small packed-dirt drive with various parked cars and motorcycles was a two-story colonial house that burned like a Roman candle. A portion of its outer wall was missing, and various support beams were crumbling from the impact of what must have been a mighty blast. Oddly, the fire engulfing it all was purple-black rather than orange-red, and deep within the recesses of its flickering, devouring flames, Selene could see shapes moving this way and that. Wicked shapes.
The shapes of nightmares.
Men and women were moving with fast determination around the house, and there was magic in the air; she could recognize it now. It rode side-by-side with the smoke as if they went hand in hand. Shouting, barely audible over the roar of the fire, came from every direction around them. The Wisher in Selene recognized the words as spell casting terms, ancient and arcane.
Though the spells seemed to have been directed at the house, several even at once, it didn’t seem any of them were doing any good. She could see people trapped behind the fire, moving beyond the purple-black flame, some of them locked in combat or struggle. And the blaze continued to burn.
It took two, perhaps three short seconds to assimilate and comprehend this much, and in that time, Damon had broken away from them, sword in hand, and headed directly toward the front door of the house. He was met half-way by a whirling-blurring form of black and gray, who slammed into him from the side and knocked him off his feet. But the Goblin King rolled, got back up, and within seconds, Selene was watching an actual head being sliced from an actual body. The head of Chroi’s attacker dropped to the ground and rolled several feet before bursting into flame and then evaporating into ash.
Selene swallowed hard.
Avery pulled her with a firm grip on her arm, moving her through the redwoods along the forest line. He nodded toward the house into which Damon had disappeared. “This is dark fire,” he said definitively, his expression grim. His hair moved in a wind formed by the blazing abode, and Selene could feel this same wind against her skin – but it was more than hot. It was hot like dry ice.
“Is Diana inside?” Selene asked, her voice shaking.
Yes.
They were at the side of the house now, where people had been pulled from its burning frame and laid in a small grass clearing. A few were being tended to by men and women who were simultaneously dodging what Selene knew were black magic spells. Who are these people? she thought to herself. But Avery heard her nonetheless.
These are the werewolves we told you about, he told her quickly. He knelt beside one of the unconscious bodies who’d been left temporarily alone. It was a woman, by the looks of her clothing, but half her hair had been singed off, and third degree burns marred her features on that side of her face. Avery gently grasped her chin and turned her head to get a better look. The color drained from his face. Oh gods….“This is Lily Kane.”
Selene recalled that name. Lily Kane was the werewolf everyone referred to as the Seer. Dread rolled through her. The war that she, Avery, and Chroi had discussed possibly happening between Rafael D’Angelo’s vampires and the werewolves had clearly just begun. And since vampires were warlocks, dark magic was apparently going to play a very big part in it.
“Is she alive?”
“She won’t be for long if she doesn’t get some serious help soon.”
She has a child, Selene thought. Avery had told her that the Seer had a little boy.
She looked up to take in more of the chaos, but squealed and back-pedaled when it was to lock gazes with a tall, dark, red-eyed man bearing long, white, and very sharp-looking fangs. The man smiled, raised his hands in an odd spell-casting gesture, and Selene froze up like a deer in headlights.
There was a second blur in front of her, and Selene felt the very real absence of her mate beside her. The man with the fangs roared in anger when Avery bowled into him, shoulder to chest, and whatever spell he’d been casting ricocheted off a nearby tree trunk, sending up black and red sparks. Avery’s momentum took them both to the ground, but the rest of the struggle happened too fast for Selene to be able to track it – until suddenly Avery was standing over the man, the man was getting up from the ground, and there as a burst of tremendous, blinding light. Selene heard a horrible squeal of agonized grief, which was followed by an explosion of flesh into flame.
Sunlight! Selene realized a second later. Avery had cast sunlight on him!
He’d simply held up his hand, narrowed his glowing green gaze, and a burst of light so bright, it could only have been sunlight, emanated from his palm to hit the fanged man square in the chest. And now she knew he’d been a vampire.
Because a moment later, the vampire burst into red and gold flame – and then died into nothing but a tall pile of ash.
Selene had little time to ponder this development before Avery was attacked once more, this time by more than one vampire, and these tremendously powerful bursts of “sunlight” were coming in regular succession.
The shock of this sudden light against the dark of night, and the chaos of the screams, the blue-black flames, and the magic exploding all around Selene were dizzying and terrifying. She couldn’t help but ponder the very real possibility that no sooner would she become queen than she would wind up getting killed in a magic fire fight.
I might die tonight.
Focus! she told herself fiercely. Do NOT panic.
She narrowed her gaze and looked around for the best way to help. Men she could only assume were werewolves were busy gathering buckets of water from a hose attached to a shed not far from the house. But Selene knew, even as they did this, that it was pointless. Such a small amount of water wouldn’t have put a dent even in a normal fire. But this? This was the work of countless warlocks. This would require a miracle to put out.
And though people Selene now recognized as witches were trying their best to cast spells to ease the pain and suffering of the injured, it was clear they were having little success. Their magic was not healing magic. There were two women who could have helped anyone, and one of them was trapped somewhere in that dark fire hell, and the other was not even on this plane of existence.
The entire night had become a scene of discord. It was impossible to keep track of who was attacking who – the offensive magic seemed to be coming from deeper in the forest, under the cover of the redwoods and their deep, dark shadows one moment, and then imminently close the next.
But the overriding terror was that of the burning house. Selene could hear screaming coming from deep inside. Others were clearly trying to get these victims out – using transport magic and casting at it from a distance, but nothing was capable of making it through the veil of dark fire. It was like a prison of flames, indestructible and inescapable.
It was unnaturally powerful.
We have to stop this, Selene thought suddenly, getting once more to her feet.
She recalled what Avery had told her about using her magic now that her transformation was complete. She knew that interfering in “life” now was a risky business for her. And she was well aware that if she acted with her magic now the way she wanted to, it would be more than just one “life” she would be effecting.
She also knew she didn’t really care. She had the power to do the right thing. To have that power and not use it when it was needed was a definition of evil, the other being apathy. Often, they went hand in hand.
As far as she was concerned, she really had no choice at all.
Selene rolled back her shoulders, eyed the ominous, dark fire with fierce determination, and just as Avery suddenly appeared beside her and shouted in alarm for her to stop, she hastily said, “I wish the dark fire would go out!”
There was a blast of wind, cold and hard and
so forceful that everyone around Selene was shoved several feet forward toward the house. However, Selene stood firm and strong in this blast, somehow immune to its immense power. As everything around her was hurled past her, she remained where she was and watched the wish roll over the clearing, scouring the ground as it went, to finally hit the house like a tidal wave.
There was a tremendous woosh sound, deep and powerful, and the black flames crackled madly as they shrunk beneath the wish’s weight. Within seconds, they were smothered completely out of existence, leaving the house smoking silently and forlornly in their wake.
Selene watched distantly as the men and women who had been rushing to put out the fire now ran head-long into the smoking remains. There were more shouts, but the sounds were as distant as the world was becoming.
Weakness was flooding her. It was like a numbness that began at her fingers and toes and quickly spread inward.
Before she realized what was happening, she felt Avery’s presence surround her, strong, steady, and heady with power. Bands of steel enveloped her as he bent to fluidly lift her into his arms and gather her against his chest. She rested her head on his shoulder and, with what felt like the last of her conscious breath, she whispered, “I guess you weren’t kidding.”
“There must be at least half a dozen people still trapped in the house,” he said, his voice tight as if strained with emotion. “You just saved them all from certain death.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
There had been a total of eleven casualties on their side. Seven deaths.
There were a few dead beta’s, fighters who had not yet managed to secure their own packs. But like captains of sinking ships, the alphas and their mates had not held back in the battle either, and they’d suffered for it.
Among these unfortunate captains was Lily Kane’s husband, Daniel Kane, the Baton Rouge chief of police and one of the most powerful alphas to lead his own pack. Another had been an alpha who’d once been Malcolm Cole’s second-in-command but whom had since moved on to create his own pack; his name was Jake. A wizard in Imani Zareb’s coven had fallen. Another terrible loss was that of Katherine Caige, the Curse Breaker. And then there had been Malcolm Cole’s wife, Claire St. James…. Charlie.