He kicked at the front door, but his foot bounced off it. Inside, flames cracked above voices, Emma’s being one. He glanced back at the door. Orange and yellow cables of power were spread across it. Wards. Different from Emma’s. Fuck. His heart pounded in his throat. They weren’t going to get into the building, not without magic. His blue flames licked along his hands, reaching out to the building, stretching for the window. The door had crisscrossed cables of wards, but the windows had less than the door.

Flint moved from the front porch as Oak kicked at the front door. It didn’t budge. He fired his gun at the lock.

“Magical wards. You’re not going to get through it,” Flint growled. He searched the front yard and found an old forgotten flower bed from back when the cabin was a vacation home and not fire tinder.

Flames licked out of the top of the roof. He picked up a rock and held it in his hand. A glint of quartz sparkled in the dusky sunlight as he turned it. The stone was the same size as one of the power storage containers.

He could do this. He focused on the rock, transferring power to the stone. His eyes tightly shut, he pushed the power into it. When he opened his eyes, the chunk of rock glowed in his palm. With all his Little League pitching experience, he lobbed it at the building. And it ricocheted back at him, missing his head by a few inches.

“It was worth a shot,” Oak said. He’d picked up a rock, too.

Flint let out a breath. Right. He snatched Oak’s stone. This time, he pushed power with the intention of shattering the ward, rather than power with no force, no intent. He pictured it breaking the ward. The spell, his first intentional one, sunk into the rock. The orb in his hand heated until it burned the skin of his palm. He threw it like a fast ball at the window. It spun. He froze in his pitcher release stance. This time, the rock connected. A crack formed in the wards.

More, he needed more. He brought up his other hand and made his power flow out. A stream of energy attacked the window, first blue, then it changed to red. A fireball erupted from his hands and attacked the window. Cracks formed from the point of contact, spreading out. He held his hands up, blocking out everything else: Oak, the woods, the smoke coming from the roof of the little cabin, and mostly Emma’s yells from inside.

He drained all the power he had into the fireball and gave a final push. “Goddess,” he whispered. The window shattered, glass flying about and then dropping to the ground.

Oak jumped through the open window. Flint’s chest heaved. It took a moment before he could climb through and catch up with Oak.

Smoke filled the room. Flint crouched to the ground. Fireballs flew from both sides of the room. The haze was thick, the flames growing with the influx of the oxygen from the smashed window. He spotted Emma by the far wall, and the male hidden behind the large stones of the fireplace. Fireballs crossed above his head, and her hair haloed around her face. The curtains behind her were on fire.

“Flint, get out of here.” She flung another fireball across the room, coughing.

A gun blasted.

31

She had no idea how she’d gotten there. She’d woken up in a bedroom, wards all around her but the door unlocked.

The lanky, dark-haired witch had frowned at her when he saw her in the living room. “You’re awake.” He’d seemed surprised. “I can’t believe my boss wanted a pathetic witch like you to replace me. Show me your gift. This cabin isn’t much of a seer’s meditation well, but it will have to do. I’ll let you go, but give me the visions I need for him first.”

“Fuck you, do your own homework.” She had aimed a fireball at him. She had no intention of being taken to a different location again. She’d watched too many late-night real crime documentaries. And for the last five minutes, the two of them had flung fireballs at each other. She had no doubt this was how she died. She’d blasted another fireball across the room at the crazy witch.

A ball whizzed by her head.

She’d tried to open the front door and windows. But the wards on them were twice as strong as any she’d ever encountered. There was no way out of this hellhole, and she firmly believed taking this stranger with her would at least serve him right.

A loud bang came from the other side of the room. Seeing anything but a few feet in front of her had become almost impossible. She fired in the direction the other witch’s power pulsed from.

“Emma, let’s go.” Flint grabbed at her waist. She used what little power she had to block the asshole’s last fireball.

Something thudded above the sound of the old wallpaper burning. Emma coughed. And before she could set off another blast, Flint tossed her over his shoulder—and jumped out the window. How? She’d tried to break the window before her captor had realized she was awake.

Fint sat her on her feet, hunched over, and she coughed. She dropped to her knees in the leaf-littered yard.

Flint ran off to the truck but came back with a bag. “Fuck it.” He picked her up and carried her to the truck.

She held her arms around his neck, her head on his shoulder. “I was fine. You didn’t need to rescue me.”

“I know.”

“Thank you.” Her lip trembled.

He put her on the driver’s seat of his truck. His chest shook as he ran his thumb near a hole in his shirt she still wore. He cocked his head. “I need to help Oak. If I’m not back in five minutes, take the truck to the main road.”

“I’m not leaving you.” Emma gripped the steering wheel, ignoring the pain from, well, everywhere.

“Can you follow directions for once?”

“No.” She scowled at him.

“You’re infuriating. That’s a first aid bag. Use it.” He slammed the door. But the corners of his lips tipped up.

She watched him go. She wanted to protect him, but her magical tank was empty. The roof of the cabin blazed higher. It flickered around the chimney, near where the male witch had taken shelter when she’d startled him with her first fireball. No amount of asking had gotten his name. The witch was powerful and angry and wanted to pass off her visions as his own. His jealousy was unfounded, though. Except for today, she hadn’t been able to pull much from the well.

Her heart rate was returning to normal. She watched the clock on the dashboard. Two minutes left before she should leave Flint and his friend Oak to go back to the main road. Something popped in the back of the house, and flames raged up the side of the chimney. Emma jumped. She tilted her head sideways under the truck’s visor to get a better view of the broken front window. Something moved.

The clock turned over to five minutes. No way was she going to take off for the main road, but she couldn’t sit there anymore, either. Yes, her arms and hands ached with burns. Her skin was cracked, and it would take weeks of using her own magic to heal herself, but she couldn’t leave Flint in there.

She had enough energy for a single spell. One her dad used all the time at the lake in summer. A spell that drove her mother absolutely mad with worry, thinking her husband was dead on the lake floor each time he used it.

Emma ignored her wounds and moved back to the house. It was hotter now than when she’d left. But the wards around the door were gone. The witch who’d made them was dead. She tried to touch the doorknob but pulled her hand back from the heat. Instead, she opened it with as little magic as possible, casting her oxygen mask spell instead. She didn’t have any protection from the actual heat and fire that surrounded her.

On the far side of the room, she found Flint pulling at a large slab of stone from the side of the fireplace that had landed on Oak. Flint was using his muscles, not his magic. He glared at her for half a second. She put her hand on Flint’s neck, and his magic reached for her. She used what little they had left to lift the stone. It rose an inch, then a second, and Flint pulled Oak out from under it and helped his friend to his feet. Wrapping his arm around the tall shifter’s middle, he guided Oak to the door. The male limped and coughed as Flint helped him.

Her oxygen spell was almost spent. The three of them hobbled out together. Her spell vanished as they stumbled away from the building. Popping and cracking rang from the house. They headed for the truck.

Flint turned to Emma. “Slide into the middle.”

She glared at him and climbed over into the full-size backseat, scraping a burn on her leg as she did. Her teeth gripped the side of her cheek, keeping the pain to a minimum. “Oak needs space.”

The brown-headed male held his breath. His crushed leg had to be causing him a lot of pain. He nodded his thanks at her.

Flint rounded the truck and gingerly slid into the driver’s seat.

“You need to listen to your mate,” Oak coughed out as he pawed his way into the first aid bag in the middle of the front seat.

“Oh, I’m not his—” She glanced at Flint. There was something she wasn’t telling him.

“Agreed.” Flint shifted the truck into reverse and moved away from the house. As the flames shot upward, Emma’s stomach heated, and it wasn’t from the fire.

“If he wasn’t dead before, he’s dead now.” Oak stared out the front as they backed down the dirt driveway.

“He was gone before you put the bullets in his gut. I saw the wards drop when I took Emma out the first time.” Flint emphasized the first time. He briefly caught her eyes in the rearview mirror.

They were halfway down the rutted road when another truck came roaring up. Jack drove, with Maddox and Hudson crammed in the front. Beck poked his head out from the back seat.

An explosion happened behind them. Hudson rolled down the window. “What the hell is going on?”