Night Witch (Weatherstone College, #2)(88)

This is how the school looks beneath the veil. That darkness of the planes colliding. It’s been happening for so many years now that all the worlds are on the brink of collapse. We need your power, Paisley. We need the reapers. You must return.

The pitch and cadence of their layered speech grew until it crashed against me. The blue fire caressed my skin, sinking deeper into my essence, and I felt it tugging at my soul.

I didn’t fight it.

I’d always known there had to be a reason for our affinity, and it turned out I was right. The fear of the past was almost the magical world’s entire undoing. We were on the brink of destruction, with the five planes merging to annihilate the natural world.

I was all that stood between them and the end.

The voices of my ancestors, sister-witches, the other reapers . . . filled me as thoroughly as the blue fire, and it was only when every cell in my body flooded with power that I realized what the icy fire had been all along.

My connection to the collective magic of reapers. We were never supposed to work alone. We didn’t call the monsters and control them without the help of our sisters.

Darkness trembled around us, and with this, a new unease filtered through to me.

Go! they chanted at me. Your mate is unraveling the existence of the world. You must stop him, and then together, you will save them all.

Logan!

They filled me with their communal power, the equivalent of hundreds of reaper witches; I’d take this part of them with me to the plane of the living.

My bond to Logan was drawing me back home.

To finish what the council had started.





Chapter 42




I jerked to life with a gasp.

Lurching to my feet, I glanced down at the coat that had been covering me, the scent of mint and evergreen embracing me.

Logan.

He’d covered me with his jacket near the edge of the stage, and as I ran my hands over my unmarked throat—memories of that blade slicing into my neck flashed in my mind—I couldn’t believe I was alive and whole.

Power thrummed in my center, and as I glanced around the room, it was to find that I was the only one standing. A blanket of magic had the entire room locked down, students, council, and professors alike pummeled into the ground. The foundation of the school was shaking, just as it had been when I’d drifted in the darkness.

Following the flickers of our bond, I glanced up and my world stopped turning.

“Logan!” I shouted, using magic to force my way through his power.

His body floated in the middle of the room, a visible expulsion of energy seeping from him. He’d moved into the darkness of a spellcaster, tapping into the essence of the Earth itself. The power he’d called in his grief was enough to level not just Weatherstone, but half the world.

Magic tingled in my fingertips as my well of energy all but overflowed from the shared power. It took zero effort to use air currents to fly myself up to Logan, where I could see his eyes were closed, dark strands of hair floating around his face. The closer I got to him, the harder it was to penetrate his magical field.

Logan! I shouted through our bond, and for a moment I felt a response. Mate. I’m only going to say this once. Stop destroying the world.

Another flicker of awareness. Another sliver of my Logan returning to me.

Come on, baby, I coaxed. I love that you’re annihilating everything for me. It’s very villain of you. But I still want to live here, so let’s save it for later.

This time the flicker was a lightning bolt, and I gasped as a heavy weight slammed against me. Logan sent us into what remained of the far wall of the assembly hall, turning just before we hit so his back was the one to crack against the wood panels.

His hold on me was so tight . . . so complete . . . that there wasn’t a sliver of space between us. As his lips crashed against mine, I was consumed, forgetting the world was ending momentarily.

“Precious,” he growled against my swollen, bruised lips. “You fucking died. Don’t ever do that to me again.”

My laughter was soft, and I felt him shudder in my hold as he tightened his arms until it was painful. Not that I cared. “I’m sorry, love,” I said in a breathless whisper. “I was momentarily removed from this plane, but I found support from my sister-witches in another. They showed me the way.”

His piercing green gaze focused on me, and I squirmed under his intensity, even as I soaked up the love that I had almost lost. “Your power . . . baby,” he said slowly. “What happened?”

His magic tentatively probed where we were bound.

“Reapers were never supposed to work alone,” I told him again, my voice breaking as I recalled floating in the darkness with my sister-witches. “We’re guardians. Protectors of the magical world. We were all who stood between the living place and dark energy from the other planes. I know you can’t see it, Logan, but our magical world is covered in darkness from the other planes. It’s eating away at Earth’s energy, and soon there’ll be nothing left. Purgatory will filter through every plane, including the Eternal Lands.”

Logan kissed me again, as if he couldn’t help himself, and I heard him whisper, “Even as a child, you were extraordinary, but as an adult, you are beyond belief.”

I wished I could stay wrapped in his arms forever, but our battle wasn’t over yet. After placing another kiss against his soft lips, I pulled back. “Can you release the school now, best friend?” It was no longer a phrase used to create distance, but one of shared memories. “We need to show the world that we’re too powerful to fuck with—oh, and that we’re kind of the only magic preventing the utter destruction of everything.”