“I’m going to bind him.”
“You can’t. His hide won’t allow it.”
I knew that, I knew that a giant’s hide would repel any magic I threw at it, but Ailin had taught me a few things, including how to work around shit like that. Ignoring the hunter, I closed my eyes to concentrate. The giant was big enough—as in I was probably only as tall as his pinky finger—that it would take a lot of power for my plan to work. Luckily, I was a powerful witch.
I drew on that power, manipulating the air around us, but a scream had me opening my eyes.
Horrified, I watched Grim’s body fly through the air and land hard enough on the ground that he bounced a few times, his head swinging in a way that made me think he might’ve broken his neck.
“Holy fuck.”
The giant had a rock in his hand—the one Grim had been hiding behind—and it took a step toward Grim, lifting his hand as he went. Grim was alive and unable to move, but I could see the absolute terror in his gaze.
My spell would take too long to help him. I had to draw too much power to hold the giant still, so instead, I released that spell and used my shadow magic to throw a shield up around Grim. The giant’s arm came down on my shield, but the rock bounced off it. The giant stood, confused for a moment before he started pounding on the shield. I could feel each pound of its strong fists since my magic was an extension of myself. Wincing with each hit, I ignored it as much as possible, keeping my magic steady against the attack.
While the giant was busy trying to kill Grim, I concentrated on my power again, pulling it to me, then pushing it out and willing it to do what I wanted. The Power of Three that I held inside me was a wild thing that didn’t like taking directions. It wanted to shoot lightning bolts and make storms in the sky and quakes in the earth, so sometimes asking it to do something different was a tad difficult. But not impossible.
The magic pushed the air around the giant into a swirling wind and lifted the heavy beast off the ground. It started flailing and wailing and screaming, confused and scared, so I also asked my magic to soothe the beast. Taking a breath, I sent out calming waves, and the giant stopped freaking out, although it was still scared.
As I came out from behind the rock, I yelled to the giant, “It’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you. I want to take you home.”
It watched me with big, huge tears in his eyes before he started blubbering like a baby. That was basically what a giant was, a big baby that threw tantrums when its favorite toy was taken away. The sight made me feel sorry for it even though it had killed people in its rampage.
That wasn’t really his fault, though. He was a wild animal, so to speak.
Continuing to keep him in the air and send calming vibes his way, I slowly made my way to the idiot hunter. When I got close enough, I dropped my shield—the giant couldn’t reach him anyway—then I winced. Grim was lying on the ground with blood coming out of his head, his body covered in scrapes and bruises.
“What did you do to yourself?” I asked as I kneeled beside him.
As I reached for the guy’s shoulder, he managed to move away a little and ground out, “Don’t hex me.”
I jerked back at that, then rolled my eyes and grabbed his shoulder. “I’m not going to hex you, you fucking idiot.”
Then I ignored his protests and pushed. Without letting go of the giant, I pushed some of my magic into Grim. His body resisted at first, but after a moment, Grim’s charm or whatever allowed my magic through. It was slow going because the last thing I needed was to lose control of the giant spell, but I continued pushing healing energy into the hunter. Healing wasn’t my forte, but it would do in a bind. At first, he tried to get away, but once he realized what I was doing, he held still and just stared at me with wide eyes.
When I finished healing him, I released his shoulder and sat down on my ass, exhausted from all the magic use. I rested my arms on my knees and stared up at the giant floating in the air.
Grim sat beside me a few feet away, in a similar seated position, feet on the ground, knees bent, elbows resting on them, gloved hands hanging loose. He even stared up at the giant. After a few seconds, he said, “I didn’t know the mark was a giant.”
“Would you still have come if you did?”
“Nah. Probably why they didn’t tell me.”
I nodded. At least he wasn’t as much of an idiot as I thought. “Still should’ve stayed out of it though.”
He shrugged and a few more seconds passed by. “Why didn’t you kill it?”
“I don’t kill innocent beings.”
He barked out a laugh. “That thing is far from innocent. It’s killed eight people in the last two days.”
“It’s a wild animal that was either hurt or messed with. It can’t help it. Giants don’t go out trying to murder people, they react when people harm them or their families. It’s terrified and grieving someone.”
“You can tell that?”
“Yeah. My magic’s linked to him right now. I’m trying to calm him down so he’ll stop freaking the hell out.”
He nodded and blew out a breath. “You saved me.”
I glanced at him. “Yeah… so?”
“And you healed me.”
I turned my head to him. “Well, yeah.”
He faced me and blinked. “But you’re a witch.”
That made me roll my eyes. Where did this guy come from? I scoffed. “You really think I’d let someone die when I can save them? What the fuck, man?” I stood and walked away from him. Fucking asshole.
Luckily, Jorah and Thayer rounded the corner, took one look at me, then pushed some of their magic into my spell to give me a break. My brothers hugged me and asked if I was okay, and by the time I turned around, Grim was already gone. Scowling at the spot where he’d disappeared from, I shook my head. Why did I care where that jerk was, anyway? Why should I care if he was healed enough to drive home? Why was I even thinking about a jerk that thought I’d let him die just because I was a witch?
Why couldn’t I stop thinking about those blue eyes of his?
Motherfucker.
I sighed and focused on my brothers before discussing what we were going to do with the giant. We wanted to set him free, but since he’d harmed people, we were going to have to set up a barrier to keep him from traveling this way again, and to keep people out of his territory.
We worked well into the night, but I was distracted the entire time since I couldn’t stop wondering if Grim made it home okay and worrying that he hadn’t.
As we walked up to our houses on our coven’s land, Jorah put his hand on my arm and asked, “Are you okay?”
I nodded and ran a hand through my hair. “Yeah.”
“What is it? You’re purposely blocking me, so you’re obviously thinking about something. Talk to me.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“It’s nothing. Just thinking about that fucking hunter.”
Jorah’s brow furrowed. “The one you keep running into?”
“That’s the one. He got hurt by the giant. I healed him, but it was a bad injury.”
“He was there today?”
“He disappeared right when you guys got there. He wanted me to kill that giant.”