Fire danced in front of my hands, growing in size until it blocked our view of the Sylph. Larger and larger, I made a barrier of fire, the tips of the flames turning blue and purple as I expanded it over twenty feet.

My arms shook and legs buckled so I was on my knees in the gray ash, but I didn’t stop pushing the size of the wall I was creating. Larger and larger, until I could no longer see anything except red and orange. I was at the brink of my abilities and yet I kept pulling more.

As Lark said, it was all or nothing.

Above us, the Sylph laughed and shook his head. As if we were nothing to him.

“That is the one to attack,” I whispered, and my magic heard me. I flicked my fingers, and like a faithful hound, the wall of fire raced away.

“Holy shit on a green stick, what did you do?” Lark gasped and I looked up. The flames were smaller, but they were chasing the Sylph, and gaining on him. He tried to duck down and the fire dropped on him, wrapping him in its embrace. His screams echoed through the sky and the tornado dropped into nothing. The Sylph’s body fell and as soon as it hit the earth, Lark was moving, Peta running ahead of her. I paused and looked at where Rylee was fighting.

“Lark, are you good?”

“Go to Rylee. We will finish him.”

They ran in one direction and I ran in the other as the sun dipped below the horizon.

My family needed me, and I wasn’t about to let them face a herd of wild ogres without me.

CHAPTER 14

RYLEE

BEHIND ME THE wind howled and the harsh retort of lightning cracking the hardened lava worried me. The sounds begged me to turn around, to run and help Pamela and Lark. Yet I knew their fight was predicated on their abilities with magic.

With the ogres, that wasn’t going to be the case.

Alex drifted to my left. “Should I shift?”

“Not yet. Maybe they’re coming to make peace because they’ve seen what a fucktart Orion is.”

On my right, Cactus laughed. “Fucktart? I like it. Might even steal it for those moments of sheer desperation I’m sure will come.”

I rolled my eyes and reached for my swords, pulling both out of their sheaths. Just because I was hoping they wanted to do peace talks didn’t mean I fully trusted them in any way, shape, or form.

Ghosting through the scattered trees, the seven-foot plus ogres drifted toward us. All the colors were represented: black, red, green, violet, gray, brown, and even a flash of blue skin could be seen here and there. That hurt the most.

Dox’s family had been blue and they’d kicked him out for being weak. For showing kindness to others.

Anger flickered along my spine and it took everything I had not to shout at the leader as she strode toward us. Sas, Dox’s lover and one of the only violet ogres left to the world.

Her eyes were narrowed, but that wasn’t what I focused on. No, her belly swollen with child was what caught my attention. She swayed from side to side like a ship at sea, she was so big. There had to be at least three babies in there. At least.

“Rylee, I’m surprised you would dare set foot in my territory.”

“Temporary lapse in judgment. We thought this was a different mountain I’d caused to erupt. My mistake.” I grinned at her, though the grin, I knew, was anything but nice.

Her lips compressed and her ogres ranged out behind her. Behind me, Blaz let out a cough, and his voice projected to all of us.

I’ve not eaten ogre before, Rylee, do you think they taste like beef . . . or chicken?

My eyes widened as the less than subtle insult seemed to hit the ogres as a unit. They lifted their weapons and rushed us with battle cries that drowned even the sound of the rushing wind.

Cactus flicked his hands and fireballs erupted from his fingertips, slamming into those ogres closest to us. “Cooked chicken for you, Blaz.”

Beside me, Alex whipped his clothes off and shifted, his body sliding through the change faster than ever. He looked up at me, his tongue flopped out of his mouth sending spit flying. “Geeky werewolf to the rescue.”

I took a deep breath and braced myself as the first ogre burst through Cactus’s flame throwing. It was a brown ogre, his skin a pale tan, the color of desert sand. His eyes were the same tone, and that’s about all I noticed before I was dodging the first swing of the war ax he carried.

The half-moon blade cut the air with a high-pitched whistle, and headed straight for my neck. I dropped to my knees and swung both swords out in front of me, in a crisscross slash. He stumbled back from me, my blade tips catching the edge of his knees and drawing blood.

“I would rather we fought on the same side,” I said as I stood and advanced on the brown ogre.

His eyes narrowed. “And I’d rather cut your lying head off and shit down your neck hole.”

So much for making nice. He took a second swing with the war ax and I bent backward like a contestant in a limbo contest gone terribly wrong. “Alex, spot me!”

The werewolf got his paws under my back and kept me from falling flat on the ground. Then he pushed me forward as the ogre dealt with the backswing of his big weapon. I shot forward, whipping my sword across in front of me and taking off the ogre’s hand that held his ax. Blood shot out of the stump and I sidestepped it. Though he wasn’t dead, he would be soon.

“Alex, you got him?”

“You gots it.” He let out a deep snarl and leapt for the ogre, knocking him to the ground. Alex went straight for the jugular, his wicked-long canines crushing the windpipe in a matter of seconds.