Chapter Eleven

M y gaze moves back to Storm; his eyes flash with determination and a fair amount of heat, making my whole body tingle. I let my lips tilt up slightly as I goad him.

“We really don’t have time for this,” he tries to reason, and I almost cave before he adds with a sharp smirk of his own, “Princess.”

Rival whistles, “Oh, that’s it, shit’s about to go down.”

“Sure we do. It’s not like you can make me move,” I tease, knowing full well that he can.

I expect him to throw a few more barbs my way but what I don’t expect is for his smirk to widen into an almost radiant smile as he strides toward me. I strengthen my stance, thinking that he’s maybe going to do something, but he ducks at the last minute and then hoists me over his shoulder, striding toward the edge of the room and the others. As soon as my shock wears off, I start trying to twist my body to flip myself off of his shoulder; I never thought I’d be one to like being manhandled, but my soaked underwear tells a different story.

“Nope, you’re staying where you are. You had a chance to do as you were told,” Storm’s voice is pure sin as he shocks me yet again and smacks my arse.

“Storm,” Loki warns, obviously worried that he’s hurt me.

Storm soothes the sting with his hand, and then as we reach the wall, he pulls me down in front of him, looking into my eyes, a thread of concern there until he realises that instead of fear or anger, my eyes are filled with heat. His eyes blaze with heat as fire sparks between his horns.

Loki suddenly chuckles, as his voice sounds strained as he says, “Oh, never mind, she liked that a lot.”

Reaper’s growl vibrates the room, and I suddenly become aware of all the eyes on Storm and me.

“Well, this is interesting,” Grey comments, desire lacing his tone.

Clearing my throat, I turn around in his arms because he seems reluctant to let me go and shrug, “What? That was fucking hot.”

Loki and Grey share a shocked laugh, “I was not expecting you to admit that.”

“Shall we get on with this?” I ask, changing the subject because we’ve deviated enough from what we should actually be doing enough today.

“Well, that was entirely your fault for distracting us that time.” Zev points.

“I completely agree with that one,” Rival adds.

“Yeah, yeah,” I wave my hands at them dismissively and then glance at Reaper, Grey and Rival. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

“We’re just seeing if there’s going to be any more entertainment?” Rival teases.

I give him my middle finger and then smirk, “Nope, I’m done entertaining for now.”

“Alright, on the count of three?” Grey suggests.

The other two nod and they each call on their magic, readying it. Reaper’s hands engulf in purple and red flames right up to his elbows as he looks down at them in awe, “My fire has never come that quickly to me before.”

“It must have something to do with reconciling with Ryu,” I suggest, and he nods, although he still looks a bit confused.

“Mine hasn’t either,” Rival mutters as he watches whips of orange and red flames wrap around his legs and arms. His fire is different to Ryu’s, not only in colour but because his is really playful; each strand is playing with the other and chasing one another, and his magic signature feels entirely different too.

Storm’s arms tighten around me as he rests his head on top of mine.

“Are you not going to get yours ready, mate?” Mayhem asks Grey.

Grey shakes his head, his eyes tense, “I’ll release mine on the count of three. It’s still a little bit unpredictable after my stint in the Underworld.”

The guys all nod, accepting his words as truth, but when his eyes connect with mine, I know that the reason why he’s not letting his fire out now has something to do with what he can’t tell me, and it’s because of that one simple look, that I intend to pay more attention to what’s just about to happen.

The three of them share a look and a smile, and then Grey says, “Three!”

All at once, three streams of fire hit the door, and although I want to watch Rival and Reaper’s fire, incredibly curious about the strength of it, I can’t I need to watch Grey to see if it gives me any hint about the secret he’s keeping, and he knows that I’m watching him. I think that’s why he looked at me; he’s fed up with keeping the truth from me, from all of us; he wants me to figure it out, and maybe that’s the loophole that he’s found.

The problem is, I have never seen a fire like his. It’s deep blood red, veins of black and gold streaming through it, and I have never seen anything like it. I read a fair few books on the different types of supernaturals in all of the Realms, I don’t know all of them, granted, but my knowledge is relatively extensive, and nowhere have I seen a fire like that. It only lasts for seconds, and in those mere seconds, I swear I see something almost superimposed over the top of him, but it’s gone too fast for me to work out what it was.

As soon as the combined fire hits the door, Zev suddenly yells, “Get down!”

Without a second of hesitation, we all hit the floor, Storm’s massive body covering me completely but somehow not squashing me. I have never felt so safe, and I’m not quite sure what to do with that feeling. I glance up as much as I can with Storm above me, his wings extended and looking like a goddamn avenging angel. Rival, Grey, and Reaper’s combined fire ricochets around the room on a path of destruction, and I’m damn grateful that I put the ward up, although I can feel the ward starting to fail every time that the giant fireball hits it and bounces around the room. I have no idea how we’re going to stop it, that is, until Grey jumps into the air and catches the fireball, it sizzles out in his hand, and my jaw drops; how the fuck did he do that.

“Just what kind of supernatural are you? That fireball was fucking strong. My fire alone was stronger than I have ever made it before.” Rival asks as we all start to stand up.

Storm reaches down a hand and pulls Zev to his feet, clapping him on the shoulder as he stands, “Nice work, man.”

“Thanks. Apparently, my gift is still working. Just not as often as I want it to,” Zev replies.

“No, seriously, what kind of supe are you?” Loki asks this time, “I can’t get a read on you, and I’m usually pretty good at that.”

Grey studies each of them individually, his eyes finally landing on me; I nod my head ever so slightly, trying to tell him that he can trust them, I do, and that should say something, considering I don’t trust anyone.

“I can’t tell you,” Grey mutters, looking frustrated as hell.

I knew he couldn’t tell us some things, but the fact that he can’t even tell us what kind of supe he is, well that’s interesting as hell.

Storm scoffs and crosses his arms over his chest, “Yeah, you can. It’s easy as hell.”

Since he’s standing next to me, I give him a look and smack him on the chest, which earns me a growl, “No idiot, he literally can’t tell us. He has a high-level silencing spell on him.”

Storm huffs but doesn’t bother replying as realisation dawns on the other's faces.

Zev claps Grey on the shoulder, “That sucks, man.”

“It’s not fun, that’s for fucking sure. Especially when I want to tell you, and there have been times when I could’ve fucking helped but couldn’t.” Grey runs his hand through his hair exasperatedly.

“We get it, Grey,” I reply, not liking that he clearly wants to tell us things, and he can’t. It’s not his fault, it’s whoever put the spell on him in the first place, and they are who I’ll go after if one of us dies because Grey can't give us information that he knows.

“Alright, I want to see if it managed to weaken the magic on the door enough that we can get in now.” Loki interrupts, already heading toward the door.

Before any of us can warn him that it might not be a good idea, considering the combined fire shot all around the room, and the door doesn’t even have any scorch marks on it, he grabs the handle and immediately gets blasted back, landing on the floor with a thud and a groan.

Rushing over, I crouch next to him, “Shit, are you okay?”

He groans, sounding like he’s in serious pain as he stays on the floor, and I start to think that he’s seriously hurt.

“Are you okay, Loki?” Mayhem asks an edge of worry in his tone.

Loki mumbles again and says stiltedly, “Might die, need the kiss of life.”

“You idiot, I genuinely thought you were hurt,” Killian chuckles.

Loki lifts his head, amusement in his eyes and his lips fighting off a smile. “I am; I need a kiss.”

Rival grins and shrugs, “Well, alright I’ll kiss you if it’ll help get us back to trying to find out what’s behind the door.”

My eyebrows rise, and I have to say I’m slightly intrigued about how this is going to play out. Loki looks as if he’s considering it for a second before he grins and hops up, “Not this time. I had my eye on someone else.” He winks at me, and Rival chuckles.

“Still got you to get up though,” Rival replies.

“That it did mate,” Loki winks and then turns to look at the rest of us as he switches subjects, “so clearly we can’t just open it even after it took a beating from the combined magic of those three, so how do we get in?”

“I’ve got no idea. There’s not much more that we can do. There must be some kind of specific spell that opens it.” Zev suggests.

“It would’ve been helpful if Monty could’ve told us what it was,” Reaper adds.

“That’s not how Monty works; he only ever gives you just enough information, nothing more and nothing less,” Grey replies.

“Yeah, I’m beginning to understand that,” Storm mutters.

“Farren said that he liked games,” Killian adds.

“That doesn’t help us get into the room. What’s the point of telling us where the room is and the key if we can’t get to it?” Mayhem asks.

“Ask it,” the voice mutters to me, and I jolt slightly. One day I would really like to know who the hell is talking to me but considering that it hasn’t steered me wrong yet, I’m inclined to listen this time too.

As the others talk, I walk over to the door and cross my arms, listening to it with my magic. Sure enough, there’s a kind of sentient hum.

“Farren, what are you doing?” Zev asks curiously.

I shrug, “I just want to try something.”

“Care to fill us in?” Kill asks.

“Not particularly, it’s kind of difficult to explain,” I reply and then do what the voice suggested that I do, feeling slightly ridiculous as I say, “hey, door, we would really like to enter the room, please?”

“Really? That’s your plan?” Storm asks, and I can practically hear his eyes rolling.

Before I can retort, the door hums louder, and then the lock clicks, and it swings open. I glance over my shoulder at a shocked Storm and flip him the bird, chuckling when he rolls his eyes, and Loki snorts in amusement.

“Well, it looks like the magic respects manners,” Grey mutters, sounding amused himself.

I am far too curious to reply, and I cautiously step into the room, half expecting another spell to go off. When it doesn’t, I breathe a sigh of relief and get my first good look around the room as the others follow me in. It’s like it’s been stuck in time; with a single glance, I can tell it’s been untouched for a long time. The room itself was obviously used as a mix between an office and a pretty extensive library, with a desk still scattered with papers that look aged and an empty coffee cup sitting on the desk as well, almost as if someone just got up to leave. Despite the apparent age of all the items in the room and how long the room has been sealed, there’s no dust anywhere, even though the air is stale. Magic was obviously involved in keeping everything in good condition.

The most shocking thing in the room though is that there are books flying around, at least fifty of them. Some of them are lazily flapping their pages, circling high up in the ceiling, whereas others are darting around the room at speed.

“What the hell?” Mayhem asks.

It’s like his voice has announced our presence because suddenly all the books start flying toward us, trying to dive bomb us as birds would do, they clearly don’t like our presence in here, and what was a majestic and magical experience has turned harmful, none of the books are exactly light, and they’re all aiming at us with speed.

“Ah shit, you pissed them off!” Loki yells as he ducks, avoiding a huge black and gold book that seems intent on taking his head off.

I really don’t want to damage the books; I know that seems illogical because they are trying to attack us, but they’re freaking books; I can’t use magic against them. A thought occurs to me though; I may be able to use some sort of magical net to catch them and stop them from attacking us further until we can calm them enough or convince them that we aren’t here to harm them. I weave the net in my mind using all the different strands of my magic; well the magic I know how to call on, not the new stuff. Once the net is formed, I will it into existence and throw it over the books heading toward Reaper and me.

“Nicely done,” Reaper praises.

“Don’t hurt the books!” Rival suddenly yells as Storm and Killian release their shadows and aim them for the books heading toward their heads; they pull back at the last minute.

“Fuck.” Killian growls as he doesn’t quite duck in time, and one of the books dings him on the head.

“How the fuck do we stop them then?” Mayhem yells at his brother, earning a glare from him as he bats one of the books out of the way.

“I don’t know, but the knowledge that they have is most likely irreplaceable!”

“Hang on,” Grey mutters as he ducks another book; his eyes flash black and red as he says something in a language that I vaguely recognise but can’t quite place from where. Whatever he says has the books stopping their attack and lazily heading back to circling the ceiling and playing like they were before.

“You could’ve done that sooner!” Zev exclaims, and I glance over to see him with a massive bruise on his cheek.

“Are you okay?” I ask him, walking over to him and starting to reach for him before I realise what I’m doing and stop myself.

His smile is soft, “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“I guess the books weren’t too pleased that we were in here,” Kill mutters.

“I think they’re protecting the room,” Rival replies.

“Is everyone okay? No serious injuries?” Storm asks, looking around at the others before his eyes land on me and scan me with a level of concern that he didn’t give the others.

“I’m fine, they didn’t get me,” I answer him, and he nods once, as tension releases from his frame and the others respond they’re okay.

It’s troubling that he gets so worked up when I get hurt; sweet but troubling. In our current situation and with my life the way it is, I’m going to get injured a lot. It just comes with the territory; he’s going to have to get used to it.

“Good, let’s see if we can find the key fragment and get out of here before something else decides to attack us,” he replies, clearing his throat and earning a knowing look from Killian.

We all split up to start to look around and find a clue to where it is, the room is enormous, and I have no idea where to start. I’m also in no rush to leave despite what Storm wants to do. There are so many interesting things in here, and I haven’t even gone any further into the room. I love anything to do with our history, and this place is like a treasure trove and better yet, it’s freaking mine.

“There’s a window in here,” Rival says, as he looks around the room almost reverently now that we aren’t being attacked by books.

“It’s glamoured on the outside. We checked that there were the right amount of windows for the rooms,” Grey replies.

“Why?” Kill asks.

“Because in houses of this age, there tended to be hidden rooms, but you could always tell because of the windows,” Grey replies and then adds, “this room has been sealed for a really long time. I bet there are some books that are no longer in circulation here.”

“For a change, I am actually looking forward to reading some of these and seeing what information they contain,” Reaper adds, striding to the back of the room and looking through the shelves.

“There’s a lot of magic in this room,” Zev says as he starts to look over the desk. “Be careful with the books; they’ve clearly got a lot of magic and may have some defensive spells built into them.”

“Got it,” Reaper replies, moving further into the shelves.