Chapter 32

32

The hunters stopped when they saw me approaching and waited for me to meet them.

“What’s the situation?” the hunter I recognized asked.

“What’s your name?” I asked. “I can’t call you ‘hunter’ since there are two of you.”

“Antoine,” he answered. He pointed to the one next to him. “Phil.”

“Okay, Antoine and Phil. I’m Kass. Those people over there are mostly my family and friends, but the three witches and the crazy man Roman are our enemies. They blew a hole in the wall of the restaurant and they’re trying to kill Theo. She said that you can sneak around so that you can attack from behind to try to catch him off guard. I think we need to come at him from multiple directions at once.”

“We heard from our Director and they’re sending more people, but they won’t be here for about an hour,” Antoine said as he looked beyond me at the fight going on.

I needed to get back to help, to ensure Theo didn’t lose.

“Do you have any potions?” I asked.

Phil pulled out a small bottle from his pocket and held it out. “Stamina,” he said in a deep, stony voice.

“Thanks,” I chirped, spun and ran towards Theo.

She noticed me coming and created a shield to keep Roman’s attacks from hitting me. “What are you doing, crazy?” she hissed.

Opening the bottle, I shoved it between her lips. “Drink.”

She tilted her head back and swallowed the liquid. Immediately, her eyes widened and the darkness beneath her eyes lessened. “Whoa,” she whispered. “That was a potent stamina potion.”

“You can thank Phil the hunter,” I explained. “How is it going?”

I looked over at Roman who was glaring at us and trying to hit us with ice shards, but they disintegrated on impact of her shield.

“We’re at a stalemate,” she muttered. “I can’t get past his defenses and he can’t get past mine. We’re pretty much going to continue until one of us runs out of stamina or magic.”

“Well, you just got a stamina boost, so hopefully it’s not going to be you.”

She sighed. “This is the most annoying fight I’ve ever been part of.”

Behind Roman, I saw the two hunters approaching.

“They’re behind him now,” I said. “I’m going to distract him so you and the hunters can attack and hopefully catch him off guard.”

“How are you going to distract him?” she asked.

I winked. “You’ll see.”

Did I have a plan? Nope! But I was the queen of going with the flow. So, that was my plan.

Taking a breath, I refocused on the rage simmering inside of me from Zara’s spell. It resurfaced and I shifted into my shark warrior form again. Letting my mouth open wide to show off my full-sized shark teeth, I squatted down, flexed my muscles, and sprinted away from Theo and at Roman.

He tried to hit me with some ice shards, but I zig-zagged, dashed towards the restaurant, ran along the sidewalk a bit, then ran towards him again.

As he turned to fire off a spell at me, Antoine drew his sword and jumped in an arc to try to cut into Roman’s shoulder.

Roman rolled to the side, stopping him from using the fire spell.

It gave Theo a chance to shoot off her own fire spell that hit him squarely in the chest, sending him flying back through the air to slam against the side of a building.

Was that it? Had we defeated him? It seemed too easy. For someone who was supposed to be a crazy strong villain, he hadn’t put up that much of a fight.

Looking at Theo, I saw her squatted down to relax for a moment while we waited to see what would happen.

“Kass!” Antoine yelled.

As I turned, an electric green magical whip wrapped around my midsection, jerking me up and towards the building where Roman had fallen.

Screaming in pain, I almost immediately blacked out.

Sharks were very susceptible to electric shocks and the amount coursing through me was almost enough to kill me.

My limp body was thrown through the air, but I couldn’t open my eyes, let alone try to stop my fall.

I hit something solid and warm that smelled like Jong-min.

The warm thing vibrated against my head.

Ringing in my ears lessened and external noise increased.

“Can you hear me yet?” Jong-min asked.

“Min?” I whispered and realized that my voice was hoarse. Was it from me screaming while being electrocuted?

“Can you open your eyes?” he asked.

I tried, but failed, and it hurt to even try. “Hurts,” I hissed.

“I’m trying to heal you, so stay still,” he ordered gruffly.

How could he be mad at me? I didn’t do anything wrong.

“He’s not mad at you,” Jong-hyun whispered and I felt his hand on mine. “He’s mad that you are hurt.”

Had I said that out loud? Was I speaking and didn’t realize it? Should I stop talking so that I didn’t declare that I desperately wanted to be the filling to a twin sandwich again? It had been months since I’d last had that chance and I was craving it.

“She must feel fine if she’s saying all that,” Jong-min mumbled.

“Stop talking,” Jong-hyun ordered. “You’re injured and we’re trying to heal you.”

“Where were you?”

“Our younger brother teleported us away,” Jong-min said and growled. He also muttered something under his breath that sounded like it was a bad word.

“We’re sorry that we weren’t here to help,” Jong-hyun whispered and stroked his thumb across the back of my hand.

“What happened after the tentacle snatched me?” I asked and started trying to open my eyes again.

“Whip, not tentacle,” Jong-min said. “Stop talking.”

“Why don’t I hear fighting?” I asked. “What happened?”

“He tried to use you as a hostage, but then threw you at Theo. While you were flying through the air, he used a spell at the same time as Theo.”

My eyes finally opened and I saw Theo standing next to a bloody puddle. The two hunters stood nearby, phones to their ears.

“She obliterated him,” Jong-min whispered, “using an illegal spell.”

“An illegal spell?” I asked.

“It was the only way to save you. If she hadn’t used it, you were going to be destroyed by Roman’s spell, also an illegal one,” Jong-min explained.

Tristan and Damien ran out of the restaurant and over to Theo, checking her over for injuries and hugging her.

She cried as she hugged them.

Pushing at Jong-min’s hands, I tried to get to my feet, but they resisted.

“I need to get up. I need to talk to Antoine.”

“Who is Antoine?” Jong-hyun asked with a bit of a snarl as he helped me to my feet.

“The hunter,” I explained. My legs wobbled. Looking up at Jong-hyun I asked, “Uppies?”, raised my arms up, and wiggled my fingers.

Jong-min scooped me up in a bridal carry and walked me over to Antoine. “My mate wants to speak to you,” he snapped.

Antoine hung up his phone and asked, “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve been better. Now’s not the time for that. Are you going to report Theo?”

He scowled. “I have to.”

“No you don’t,” I said quickly. “You could say you didn’t see what happened in the smoke. You could let her live out her life instead of going to prison.”

“She used an illegal spell?—”

“To save us all,” I snapped and hopped out of Jong-min’s arms. “You know Roman was about to use an illegal spell as well. One that likely would have destroyed all of us.”

His lips thinned.

“We are obligated to report what we see,” Phil said as he came to join us.

“You’re going to send her to jail because you guys were too incompetent to find Roman before he attacked us?” I asked and folded my arms across my chest.

Phil and Antoine flinched.

“Perhaps we could alter our report slightly,” Antoine said with a loud sigh. “There was a lot of smoke and I was watching you fly through the air instead of focusing on the target.”

I hugged Antoine and kissed his cheek, ignoring the growl I heard behind me from Jong-min. “Thank you.”

“You owe me one, Shark,” he muttered as he walked away.

“Ditto,” Phil said.

“Okay, bye! Thanks for coming!” I yelled and waved as they walked over to Theo, Damien, and Tristan.

“You sure you’re okay with owing a hunter?” Grant asked as he and Reed joined us.

“I’d rather owe them then see my best friend go to prison for the rest of her life.” Especially when this was the first time I had seen her with men who she seemed to truly be happy with.

How could I not do whatever was within my capabilities to let her continue dating them and see if this was her happily ever after?

I had found mine, and if I could help my friend in finding hers, I would do whatever that meant, including owing a favor to a terrifying member of an organization that used to hunt Theo and I.

Maybe I could make Antoine my friend and he could protect us from future hunter interference?

Yeah! That sounded like a great idea.

“What are you thinking about?” Jong-min asked and tapped my forehead with his finger. “You’ve got that, ‘I have a crazy scheme’ face on. It worries me.”

“I never come up with crazy schemes,” I said with a huff and spun away from them to head towards the destroyed restaurant.

“Lied the pool shark shifter woman,” Grant whispered behind me.

“Said the card shark dragon shifter man,” I countered.

“Ha!” Reed laughed. “She got you there.”

“You’re all a bunch of sharks,” Theo said as she walked over to hug me. “And I think you’re great, serrated teeth and all.”

“So, going to introduce me to your boyfriends?”

She flinched and chuckled awkwardly as she stepped back. “Um, Damien and Tristan, meet my pool shark bestie and her shifter card shark men.”

“Uh, what?” Damien asked.

Theo and I burst into laughter and hugged each other as we laughed until we cried.

Silver, Zara, and Zyra joined us after handing over the tied-up witches that had been assisting Roman.

“What’s so funny?” Silver asked.

“We really are a rag tag group of people,” I said as I looked around. “And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”