Night Witch (Weatherstone College, #2)(89)

Logan’s face darkened as he took in the room, and the witches, warlocks, and monsters held down by his magic. With his release of the apex elemental energy he’d been channeling, the shaking of the building had eased. “I’m going to destroy the council,” he told me, no inflection in his tone as his fingers flexed against my skin. “There’s nothing that can save them now. We will rebuild the magical world with those more worthy.”

Capturing his chin, I held him still so I could glare into his face. “Logan Kingston. You will not murder dozens of witches and warlocks. That’s not the way forward.”

The slightest smirk played around his lips. “There’s a few less than there was already,” he admitted. “Belle no longer has a father, and the witch who ordered your death . . . she’s in a million pieces. Marcus got fried, though he might still be alive and wishing he was dead.”

I examined his expression to determine if he was kidding or not—definitely not. “Are you angry about that?” he asked with little more than curiosity in his tone. “Do you wish I’d acted less savagely?”

It took me about one heartbeat to decide how I felt. “I’m not angry at all. If they’d hurt you, I’d have let my demons tear them and this entire world to pieces.”

I’d finally accepted that my monsters were demons from Purgatory.

Logan’s smile was feral, and when we kissed this time, I felt him drawing his magic out of the hall and back into our bond. I already thrummed with a hundred times more power than I’d ever contained before, and when we added in the spellcaster energy, we were an atomic bomb about to explode. This amount of power couldn’t remain within us, and thanks to my sister-witches, I had a very good idea of what we needed to do next.

We landed in the middle of the chaos. Logan’s power had kept everyone as living statues, aware of what he was about to bring down on them, but without the means to break his energy and stop him. Now they were free, the battle between demons and students resumed, but they were all very aware of Logan and me nearby.

We were as dangerous as the monsters and they knew it.

Without thought, I tethered all of the dark creatures.

One moment they raged in mindless pursuit of blood, and the next I had them in my grasp, moving them toward me. “Can we broadcast this again?” I asked Logan, searching for my friends and family in the crowd. There were a lot of witches and warlocks here I loved, and I needed to know they were all okay.

“It never stopped,” he said to me, looking through the crowd as well.

Excellent. That meant whatever I did now would be broadcast to the world.

As the students grasped that they were no longer fighting for their lives, I sent almost all of the demons back to Purgatory. Five remained standing behind Logan and me, silently observing the confused students.

“Pais!” Sara burst out of the crowd, looking a right mess. Her dark hair was everywhere, and she had a nasty cut on her cheek, but she was alive. Haley pounced on us a few moments later, and I wasn’t surprised to see Noah and Tobias right behind her. When Noah reached us, he leaned over and murmured a few words to Logan that I couldn’t hear, but I would guess they were something along the lines of Thanks for not actually destroying us all in your rage, bro.

“Bring the council here,” I said to Logan, drawing my demons closer. They were a mixed group including a bear, a centipede, and a spider, and as they towered over us, I knew we painted a terrifying picture. My aim, before they partially removed my fucking head, had been to present myself as harmless and sweet. A complete nonthreat.

That was no longer the plan.

My friends glanced up at the demons but didn’t move away, demonstrating once again their complete and utter trust in me.

“Little Gem! You’re alive!”

At Dad’s call, the first tears pricked my eyes, but it wasn’t time to fall apart. Not yet.

He crashed against me, and I fell into his familiar warmth and ashy scent. “Trevor and J?” I asked as I pulled away.

“They’re fine,” he told me, brushing his hand over my cheek, pushing my hair behind my ear. “How are you okay though? I saw them use fire magic against you. I saw you fall . . .” He wore a look of anguish that I hoped to never see again. It shattered my hold over my emotions, and a few of the tears slipped free.

“The power of the other reapers saved me.” This was an explanation for the world, so I wasn’t surprised when my magic swelled, and my voice amplified to fill the hall. “Reapers are a guardian affinity. We’re supposed to be a collective, the only affinity who can truly join their powers to keep this world safe. We stopped the five planes of existence from colliding and collapsing into one, which would have the darkness of the realms devouring Earth’s natural light and energy. But the Council of Fools, through the years, murdered us all. We’re lucky that the fallen reapers lent me their powers, and now I have the means to make it right.”

The dark veil that had appeared when they rebloomed my energy was no longer present; it had been healed with my return and the banishing of the demons. But that was only the tip of the problems the magical world faced.

It was time to show them what they’d wrought with their ignorant actions.

Icy energy flowed from me, and my eyesight tilted for a breath. When it rightened itself, the darkness I’d seen in the vision from the reaper witches coated everything—the walls and floors where students sat and lay, everything.