I desperately wanted to go to sleep. There was no reason in the world that I could think of to open the window and carry on a conversation with Fionna Flamingo under the circumstances. But then… Maggie had asked me for my help with her, and here she was.
Reluctantly, I opened the window and called to her. “Fionna? What are you doing?”
Rather than using a human voice that might come from a bird, which wouldn’t have been very hard, she just squawked at me again. I took a deep breath and tried not to roll my eyes. “Come here,” I told her.
She didn’t have to be asked twice.
As awkward as it is to fit a wolf through my window, getting a giant flamingo to come through isn’t any easier. Somehow, she managed. Then, s
I knew when my alarm went off that something was way different. I was so exhausted from not getting enough sleep lately and using so much of my powers, it took me a moment for everything to come back to me. Pictures flooded my mind. The war with Jason Buzzard. My pack frozen. Sam’s memory loss. Mage Jaye’s anger. Fionna. That came to me a little later than it should have. As I reached over to turn my alarm off, I realized I couldn’t move easily because I was being weighed down by something--someone. And it wasn’t Ben.I sat up quickly and realized that Fionna had switched into her human form at some point in the night and had curled up with me, on Ben’s pillow, and on my shoulder. Horrified, I shouted, “Fionna!” and leapt out of the bed, ending up near the closet doors as I stared at her, my eyes wide.She yawned and st
“Harlow, why are you looking at Alec like he’s a hot tamale and you haven’t had Mexican food in a long time?” Brice asked me as I stood motionless between the two of them.I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that, so I just stood there for a long moment, probably with my mouth hanging open, probably drooling a little bit. I had to remind myself that I was going to be late to school. I could see myself standing in the principal’s office, explaining to the secretary that I was late because there was a new hot guy in my house, and even though he was dating my roommate, and I am promised to marry someone else, and have a couple of other guy situations I can’t quite shake, I became frozen in place the moment I laid eyes on him, like he was one of those suave Latin lovers who sweep a lady off of her feet in those silly movies. Yes, I could see the secretary writing tha
Raven pushed my frozen-in-shock body out the door. Somehow, I got my feet moving so that I didn’t trip and fall down the steps. It was weird not holding Ben’s hand as I walked to his truck, but I had probably just embarrassed the hell out of him and not because I had said something stupid again but because I was fangirling on a guy that I’d just met who was dating my roommate. Whether or not Alec liked girls or boys or both or neither, it didn’t matter. He was Brice’s dude, and I had my own dude, one that opened his truck door for me but didn’t wait for me to get in like he always does so he can close it for me. Instead, he left it gaping open, much like my mouth had been at Alec’s news, and went around to the driver’s side.I had no idea what to say. Clearly, words were not my thing that morning. If I were smart, I wouldn’t say anything at all. But, I
Lunch was awkward. Ben pretended to not be mad at me, but it’s not like I can’t tell when he’s angry and can’t let something go. Not that I expected him to just let it go. We absolutely needed to talk. We couldn’t do it at school, though, so I was doing my best to be normal. He wasn’t trying as hard. He talked to the other people at the table, but more or less ignored me. At least he sat by me. I was glad Raven wasn’t at lunch with us so she couldn’t say anything about the sandwich I was eating.As soon as the truck pulled into the driveway after school, I turned to Ben, and before I could even open my mouth, he said, “We need to talk.”I’ve never seen two people move as quickly as Raven and Tony did when they got out of the backseat. They may as well have been the ones with magical powers,
“What is that?” I asked Ben, moving toward the swath of pink I could see in the distance between trees.“I don’t know,” he said, following along behind me. He was probably looking to take me hope, drop me off, and never have to see me again after the conversation we had just had. But we were switching frames of mind now. We were no longer “relationship” Ben and Harlow. We were “work” Ben and Harlow. And “work” Ben and Harlow are able to put things behind them and set aside their differences much more easily than “relationship” Ben and Harlow were.I picked my way between the trees until it came into focus. It was a tree, and what I was seeing was pink bark. Unlike the last trees that Brice and I had seen in these same woods, further away from here, it was a bright fuschia pink from th
By the time I got to the school, I could tell the situation was pretty bad, and I didn’t know if my powers had completely recharged since I’d been using them so much lately, particularly to build this monstrosity of a school, I probably should’ve brought my staff with me, but I wasn’t thinking about that. I was too busy picturing Kayla, Liam, Leo, Lluvia, Sean, Liz, and the others all frozen.Remarkably, when I walked inside and saw Maggie floating there near Mage Jaye’s desk, I realized Mage Jaye had been mistaken.Fionna had missed someone, perhaps on purpose. It didn’t make me happy to see Abeo standing in the hallway, next to Fionna, as if they were both waiting for me.“Fionna,” I said in a calm voice as Mage Jaye hung back outside. “What’s going on?&r
“Fionna, dearest, what did you do to the other mages, and can you undo it?” I asked her as I took a peek out the window. Those Buzzards I’d seen flying in were landing all over the clearing outside, and even though there were plenty of wolves howling in the distance to let me know that my pack was summoning anyone and everyone who might be willing to come and help, we were in a world of trouble. I knew that a wolf’s abilities were limited against a mage, especially the ones as powerful as the mages landing outside. I didn’t get a good count, but it looked like there were at least twenty, maybe more. They were of all ages, shapes, sizes, etc. from young women to old men and everything in between. The one thing they all had in common as they shifted from bird to human and touched down in my forest was that all of them looked pissed off at the world and ready to fight. One girl in particular caught my eye. S
I wasn’t aware of what was going on around me for a very long time. How long, I couldn’t say for sure, but I knew, when I finally tried to open my eyes, something was very wrong and had been that way for a lengthy amount of time.At first, I couldn’t open my eyes. I felt a lot like I did anytime I completely used up all of my energy from the forest. But this was different. This was… painful. I wasn’t just depleted of energy, my body felt like I’d gotten hit by a semi-truck. Not only was my head throbbing, but every time I breathed, my ribs hurt. I didn’t know what Cody Buzzard had done to me, but if I ever learned to move again, I was going to remove his nuts--with a spoon.“Harlow? Can you hear me?”It was his voice! Did this guy want me to remove his nuts with
There’s a comfy chair right next to the fireplace in the main living area of Brookstone. It has become my favorite place to sit. I can sit there for hours and do absolutely nothing but stare out the window at the beautiful forest and sparkling lake. It’s amazing to me to think how far I’ve come in just a year and a few months. I don’t just sit around and do nothing, though. I haven’t had to use my magic to fight off any other mages or shifters since we destroyed Grimly Grouse and his evil minions, but I do use my magic sometimes for other things, like producing presents for my friends or making mythical creatures to entertain us. Brookstone is as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside. Part of that is the fact that we modernized it and redecorated a lot of the rooms. We wanted all of the modern conveniences we were used to, but we didn’t ruin the amb
My plan had been pretty simple. I’d bust into Brookstone, make the other mages and any shifters that were there think that the house was on fire, and I’d run them out to where my pack mates were waiting to take them down.I had no idea one of my pack members had her own idea of what should happen then. I guess I should have. It isn’t as if she hasn’t shocked me enough times in the past for me to expect Fionna to do something… unexpected.The mages in Grimley’s pack came streaming out of the house. Most of them went out the front door because I’d started the alleged fire in the kitchen, which was in the back of the house, on the east side. Fionna, being the tricky mage that she is, had opened a portal right on the other side of the front door so that every single one of the mages who ran out that exit sprinted right int
I didn’t bother to get a ride back to Brookstone the next day. It was clear that no one wanted to drive out there anyway, and it wasn’t as if it was a necessity. We had other ways of getting there, after all.I volunteered to change my wolves into birds so they could fly with us, but all of them passed on that. They said they weren’t used to flying and were afraid they’d fall out of the sky or something. Like I’d let that happen. I’d rolled my eyes, but since most of the area around where we’d stayed the night before was woodsy and rural, we decided it would be okay for them to walk out into the woods and shift there. The rest of us would fly over.My wolves weren’t going to be entering the property until after I knew the situation in the house. Once I knew whether we were on the defensive or the offensive, I woul
It was difficult to get rooms with enough beds for all of us, but my wolves decided they could always shift into their wolf forms and sleep on the floor, and since most of them didn’t sleep much anyway, we went with that. I was definitely going to be sleeping that night, though. I was so tired, I could barely keep my eyes open to discuss the plan for the next day. Fighting mages is hard work--apparently.“So what is our plan for tomorrow?” Kaylee asked. We were gathered in the room she and I were sharing, all of us sitting on the beds, the floor, and the small sitting area. “I take it we’re going right back there since you wanted to stay so close, Harlow.”“Yeah, we need to go right back over there and take care of things once and for all,” I said. “We just need a plan that will get rid of Grimly Grouse as s
With the ground shaking beneath our feet, the mages lifted themselves up into the air. I pulled up my wolves, too, but that didn’t help save my house. The thought of Grimly Grouse destroying my family home was enough to make me want to set his hair on fire.The ground was cracking beneath us now, some of them were at least a foot across. The idea of one of my people dropping inside of one of them was enough to make me want to fly everyone out of there and back to our rental right away.“Kaylee,” I shouted, wanting to try to fix the problem beneath us and keep my wolves out of danger. “Can you take over for me?”“You mean… float them?” she asked. “All of them?”“We can all help,” Liam said from the o
Looking around at my mages, I tried to determine who I needed to help and who was okay on their own. Liam was taking on a large male mage with a nose ring and the appearance of horns coming out of his bald head. I assumed those were placed there by magic, and he didn’t really have horns growing out of his head, but it was difficult to know for sure. “Give it up, Harlow!” I heard Grimly shout from far behind the line of advance. “I have more reserves. You cannot win.” It was difficult for me to keep my eye on this brute that was about to knock Liam out and respond to the maniac in the back. I decided to ignore Grouse and concentrate on Liam’s predicament. I was fairly far away from the fight, and there were other engagements going on between me and Liam, but I couldn’t let that stop me. The devil guy with the horn
The mages from Brookstone were slowly walking toward us, their long cloaks in a rainbow of colors not even moving from the wind they made, their steps were so even and slow. I stared at them for a long moment, trying to determine what the best thing to do was. A quick estimate told me that there were probably about thirty of them, which meant my team was outnumbered about five to one as mages went. The wolves would be able to help a little, but not much. They were mostly there to fight off any wolves that came our way, and Grimly Grouse had stopped using those, pulling out the big guns instead.We really only had two choices. We could stand there and fight and probably get annihilated because we were outnumbered so badly, or we could run away, regroup, and figure out when and how we should come back. I was really starting to lean toward Plan B, but when I looked at the faces of my packmates, I could tell t
I took advantage of the fearful flicker I’d seen in Grimley Grouse’s eyes and hit him with a bolt of power before he had much time to expect it. He got his hands up, but it wasn’t enough to completely deflect it. I ended up hitting him hard enough to knock him backward almost to the edge of the stream. The other mages around him took a few seconds to stare in shock before they remembered they had powers and could possibly do something to help him.They weren’t going to be able to help him, though. My mages were all ready, so before any of the red cloaked mages could hit me with their powers, mine had their hands up, shooting rays of light to counteract the ones directed at me. I watched the magic around me bend and shift, redirecting back the way it was coming. A few of the red mages were knocked off balance, but none of them went flying the way that Grouse did, probably because mos
I heard the first sounds of battle coming from my left, to the southwest of the house, but I couldn’t tell who it was that was caught up first by the wolves coming from Brookstone. I thought that Raven and Tony had been the furthest to the south, but I wasn’t certain. I decided I should fly over there and have a look. Of course, by the time I got over there, there was a good chance the rest of my wolves would be under attack as well since we’d seen the wolves shooting through the forest at an incredible rate spread out in a line. As I landed, I heard the sounds of battle echoing across the forest as Grimly Grouse’s wolves collided with mine. This wasn’t going to be pretty. I changed back into my mage form as soon as my feet touched the ground and immediately fired a