“He doesn’t have any hope of even getting near you. You know that.”

“Not unless I let him stumble into me, no. Which I will, just for giggles. But I want to see this competition first. I want everyone to see it. After these games, Jacinta will no longer be a pitiful Jane with a bunch of animals. She will be recognized as the most powerful mage in the world, with the second most powerful mage at her back. She will be a rising star. These games won’t only give her status—they’ll give her connections.”

“Won’t it be a grand joke if you have done all this to help her, only to be killed by her in a few days.”

“Not the kind of joke that would make me laugh, but certainly the kind of cosmic joke that would be par for the course with my life experience.” He sucked in a breath. “Here we go. Shh-shh.”

“It was sweet the way the shifter stayed to dance with her last night,” Nessa whispered as Jessie’s crew was led out of the holding area. “Holy crap, are they naked?” Nessa leaned forward, squinting, then reached down to grab her binoculars.

“Sure, now you’re interested,” he murmured, using his own binoculars to check on Jessie. She looked nervous, with tight shoulders and fisted hands. He felt bad for her, continually being thrown in the deep end, but trial by fire was the only sort that worked in the magical world.

Her big alpha was as experienced with the nuances of body language as she was naïve, thankfully. He walked by her side but a step or two behind her, giving her the head position while making it clear he would not hesitate to protect her.

“This is like Christmas,” Sebastian said, giddy. “You have no idea how powerful she is, Nessa. She learns fast, too.”

“You’ve said, yes. I can’t believe so many of them are walking out naked. And look at those others. They’re actually wearing that ridiculous armor you put in there.” She looked over the wall at the mages gathered below. When she sat back down, she said, “Some clearly think this is a joke, and others are disgusted.”

Noah and his group of mages walked out next, led by another of Sebastian’s people. They walked in a cluster. A couple of stragglers in the back seemed less sure of themselves—those were the smart ones—but most of the mages strutted right alongside Noah, who clearly thought this was a waste of his time. The group stopped at the other end of the meadow in their mages’ robes, hands by their sides, silently broadcasting their assurance of victory.

“They have no idea what they just walked into,” Sebastian murmured, looking at Noah’s smug face through his binoculars.

“A bunch of naked guys, that’s what they just walked into. Why did you put the magical ceiling so low over the arena if they fly?”

“I wanted to let the shifters shine on this one.”

“You need to get over your love affair with shifters.”

“I don’t love them. I’m terrified of them. It’s nice to feel a strong emotion again after Jala died, even if it is fear.”

They fell silent as the two red-clad staffers met in the middle of the meadow. Kiki, the brunette with a very pleasant way about her, worked a spell to broadcast her voice.

“This tournament will continue until one party yields. At that time, the winner is decided. Do not kill. This is not a fight to the death. If you kill, you will be gravely penalized. When we leave the field, you may commence.”

His people walked to the little protective alcove at the side of the field. The second they were gone, Noah blasted out a spell from way, way too far away. He wasn’t nearly strong enough to make any impact with it. He clearly thought Jessie was nothing.

As expected, she brushed it away as though it were a spider web and then started working her hands. Magic coalesced and took form, wrapping around her and her people.

“Is she trying to protect them all?” Nessa asked.

“She’s the only mage on her team. If she wants them magically defended, she has to do it herself.”

“That’s going to put her at a severe disadvantage.”

Noah and his people walked forward now, their robes rustling around their feet. Jessie’s people still hadn’t moved. Sebastian sat forward on the edge of his seat anxiously, wondering what was taking them so long.

“Good,” Jessie said, her voice barely audible from where he sat. “Good, good. Go. I’ll cover you.”

“She’s playing defense?” Nessa asked.

He shook his head slowly. It wasn’t like her to stay out of the fight. Unless she was worried about her control. Perhaps she feared she’d accidentally kill someone.

“She needs training in a bad way,” he said as the first gargoyle—still in human form—lowered to a crouch. He was the one with the colorful hair, but Sebastian was blanking on his name. Niamh reduced down into her little gremlin creature, black as night and with a mouthful of teeth. Blasts of light erupted from the shifters as the attacking mages bore down on them, shooting off paltry spells meant to toy with them, the spells barely missing. It was the equivalent of shooting bullets at someone’s feet to scare them.

Two huge wolves emerged from the light, followed by an enormous silverback gorilla that quickened Sebastian’s heart.

“Holy crap, Broken Sue turns into a bad mama jama,” Nessa said, her voice reduced to a whisper.

The huge polar bear was the last to emerge, down on all fours and no less massive for it. Nessa’s jaw dropped.

“Here we go,” Sebastian said.

Austin reared up on his hind legs, topping the basajaun in height by three feet, and let out a roar that thundered through the air. It soaked into Sebastian’s blood, turning his bowels to jelly. He shivered even as Nessa did, but the display had only just begun. The basajaun was next, his great arms wide and his hair puffed up. The silverback followed, roaring as he beat his arms against his chest, white scars knifing through his leathery black skin. The wolves growled, heads down and hackles raised, working around the outside of the mage group, flanking them.

The little gremlin creature shot forward, skittering on hands and feet, fast and agile and creepy as hell. The shifters and basajaun surged forward next, all rage and raw power and incredible speed and force, cutting down the distance between them and the mages in no time.

The mages cowered on instinct. Confident and full of swagger one minute, they were stooped and frozen solid the next. Not all shifters were created equal, and they’d clearly never seen any like this.

Austin reached Noah before Noah even straightened up, but instead of engaging him, he plowed into the man directly next to him, clamping those great jaws on the man’s shoulder before ripping to the side.

The mage screamed and tumbled like a rag doll, hitting the ground ten feet away and rolling. Blood smeared the sand. The basajaun got the mage on the other side of Noah, grabbing him by the feet, lifting, spinning, and then throwing him. The mage smashed into the barrier wall, what should have been an impossible distance for a throw like that, and crumpled into a heap.

“Don’t kill!” Jessie yelled.

“Good God, Sebastian,” Nessa said, her mouth still hanging open, staring.

The silverback took a shock of magic. It vibrated within the protective spell Jessie had placed on him, gaining power, and then shot back at the mage who’d fired it off, smacking him in the middle moments before the silverback was on him, knocking him to the ground and clubbing him.

Cyra took a hit and then turned. The spell shot off to the side rather than rebounding directly like the others. Sebastian had never seen that happen. The meaning became clear when she turned back and grabbed her attacker and another mage, hugging them to her strange armor. She hadn’t wanted the return fire of the spell to spoil her fun. From their screams, it sounded like they were being tortured. And honestly…they were. Sebastian remembered what that phoenix could do.

“Sebastian,” Nessa said, reaching out. “If you want them to live, you should stop this.”

The pink-blue gargoyle rose into the sky, able to just barely navigate within the available space. The other gargoyles couldn’t do much, their wing spans too mighty for them to take off. They tucked in their wings and crowded in around Jessie, on protective detail.

Noah got a spell off at Austin, only for it to hit his defenses and rebound, but it missed the mage.

“She changed the protection spell I taught her. Her creation is damn good, but it needs some tweaks,” Sebastian said, wondering how it worked so efficiently. “Is it siphoning energy or power from Jessie?”

“How can you worry about magic right now?” Nessa stood. “What the hell am I doing?” She sat back down. “I feel like I should…run…or fight, maybe.”

Austin ignored another bolt of magic coming for him, taking out two mages with a hard swing of his huge paw.

Jessie didn’t ignore it, though.

A huge swell of power made Sebastian’s eyes water, even from this distance. She put out her hands and readied a blistering spell that would kill Noah where he stood, Sebastian just knew it. She was reacting instinctively to seeing her intended mate in harm’s way. She’d lost control.

“No, no, no!” Hollace dove into her, and her spell went wide, glancing off Noah’s right shoulder.

The air concussed and Noah flew sideways, landing on the side of his face, his legs flying into the air over him. He crumpled and lay still. Even though the impact had been blunted by whatever defenses he’d erected, plus the fact that it had barely glanced off him, he still wasn’t even close to a match for her.

Sebastian and Nessa stood. “Oh!”

“Yield, yield, yield, yield,” a mage said as he sprinted away from the rampaging gorilla.

Another ran toward the stands, a woman who was pretty quick on her feet. The basajaun was faster, though. He swiped her from behind and sent her up into the air, over the first barrier and into someone’s lap.

“The fight is done,” Kiki called, not entering the field. “The fight is done!”