Once her expression cleared, she got up in Kord’s face, grabbed his shirt, and pulled him down so they were nose to nose. “What the fuck, Kord?” she said again.
“I was going to say something today. But then the Wardens showed up. No big deal, Kiema.”
Both Ransom and I snorted. He was an idiot of epic proportions if he thought that answer was going to satisfy our mate.
Kiema slid her hand from his shirt to his neck, her eyes narrowed. Pinching her lips together into a flat line, she was glaring at him as she waited for something.
Kord gave a nervous chuckle. “It’s not going to work that way with me, Kiema. My magic is all bundled up and behind some massive barriers. I’ll have to let you in, and I don’t think you want everyone else as a witness to that event.”
Now Ransom and I snarled.
“Of course, your other mates can be there,” he hurried to add.
“It seems there is much to discuss before more talk of the Beast is brought up. Do you have room for all of us, or shall we appropriate a nearby building?” Oliver asked, a sparkle in his gold eyes.
Kiema was still glaring at Kord, a look of intense concentration on her face.
Oliver turned to me. “We are happy with either option.”
Alok sniffed loudly from behind the bigger man.
Oliver rolled his eyes. “Please, don’t worry about Alok. I will fix his attitude for him if he is unable to do so himself.”
Alok’s pale skin lost whatever color irritation had given him.
“We’re a little full up, but we can get you situated across the street from us. It won’t be private, but it will be secure,” Taryk said, stepping forward. “We even have an in for bedding.” He glanced back at Scarlet, shot her a wink.
She giggle-snorted again. “Sure do. All your bedding needs, one simple solution.”
Oliver smiled. “Wonderful. We would be very grateful for your assistance.”
Chapter 4 – Kord
“Explain. Now,” Kiema said as she stood over me. She crossed her arms, glared down at me as I sat on the couch. I haven’t felt this taken to task since I was in my teens. She was tiny compared to us, but damn, was she scary.
“Just like I said on the roof. I have to let you in through my magical…booby traps, for lack of a better word.”
“Why do you need healing?” Ransom asked as he sat on the end of the couch in Saint’s home. I still wasn’t sure why we always came back to this floor when Ransom had a floor of his own. Judging by the glare on my mate’s face, I don’t think I would be getting an answer to that question today.
“I don’t. Not actual physical healing. My magic is…” I trailed off, trying to find the best analogy for what was wrong with me. I selected and rapidly discarded a ton of options. None of them were completely right, while some weren’t completely wrong.
Kiema growled.
“Shattered is going to be the closest term. But even that’s not really correct,” I said. I hated being imprecise with my language. There were so many words available in our language and out of habit and laziness, we limited ourselves to a few hundred of them.
“Explain. In great, but easy to understand, detail.” Kiema uncrossed her arms. Glared at me. Crossed her arms again. Her gaze was trailing over my body like she couldn’t quite figure out what she wanted to look at.
I just prayed she couldn’t read any of the Latin on my arms. Writing love poems to my future mate in a dead language hadn’t been my greatest achievement, but I’d needed the reminder of the things to come during the suckiest parts of my adolescence.
Saint snickered, pulling my attention back to my mate. Her expression was bordering on homicidal.
I’d never met such an emotional woman. Gaia’s balls!
“Fine,” I said as I threw my hands up in the air, exasperated beyond all belief. This small woman irked me in a way nothing else in my life ever had. “I’m one of the few people who registers very high on the scales that Iron Serpent set up. However, none of my power is accessible. It’s like it’s floating there inside me, but it’s been hit by a bomb and now there are only pieces of it. Not one cohesive whole.”
“What happened?” Kiema said, her ire melting into compassion in the blink of an eye. “When did it happen?”
I swallowed, hard. I purposely kept my gaze on her. I wasn’t ready to share the innermost details of my emotional life with two men I barely knew. I didn’t care if we were all mates to Kiema. “When I was a kid, I had some…difficulties…with some of the other kids in my coven.”
Kiema raised a hand, stopped me. “Coven? You were raised in a magical community?”
I nodded. “Yeah. You remember me saying that I was one of the most highly rated mages, right?” I raised one brow at her.
She made a snotty face at me. “Yes. Please continue.” She waved me on.
I nodded. “Okay, one day in Spells and Potions, some jackhole was messing with me. The counterspell I threw hit one of his deflection spells and slammed back into me.” I could remember that day as if it were preserved on digital.
Hawkins Aberdeen had been an asshole of epic proportions. His father was also the headmaster, so he’d never gotten into any trouble for any of the shit he started. That day, I’d had enough of the bullying and snide remarks. Smaller than almost everyone else, even in some of the lower grades, I didn’t have the physical bulk to intimidate him into leaving me alone. I did have the magical bulk to do so.
Even though my spell ricocheted back and hit me, had it hit him, he would have been turned into a Normie in no time flat. I was lucky that time. It also taught me a lesson in casting magic. Never dish out what you aren’t prepared to lose. You never knew the abilities of the person opposite you.
“So your magic was smashed to pieces by a spell you yourself cast?” Saint asked, bringing me out of my memories.
“Yeah. Instant Karma.”
“What happened to the other kid?” Ransom asked, a peculiar tone in his voice.
I looked at the man these other men considered a leader. “He got hit with the blowback. All of them did. I was suspended for using spells too advanced for my year of study.” I shrugged. Shaking off the memory.
Ransom nodded, not taking his eyes off me.
“Did anyone bother you after that?” Kiema asked.
I shot her a wry smile. “No. But it wasn’t because I was powerful, although I’m sure that didn’t hurt.”
She smiled at me. Lifted her chin in a come-on, come-on gesture.
“I finally grew into my genes that year. The rest of that semester while I was suspended and that next summer, I grew almost a foot and added almost thirty pounds of muscle. I’d been in martial arts for a couple of years before that to help me physically when things got rough, but that next school year no one seemed willing to mess with me anymore.”
“So your magic is fragmented and you need Kiema to heal it. What is your shifter form?” Saint asked, getting us all back on track.
“I’m not sure, to be honest. Sovas have legends of birds of prey, but that dates back to the 1800s and there were no confirmed shifts in form. But, by then, Iron Serpent had begun omitting the shifting results from the general public, wanting to keep all records of shifters to themselves.”