The flock of birds was coming straight for us, and all I could think about was protecting my pack. I had my staff at the ready, and as tired as I was, I was determined not to go down without a fight.
That’s why it made no sense to me when I looked over at Mage Jaye and saw her jumping up and down, clapping her hands. “What are you doing?” I asked her, my forehead crinkled in confusion.
“They came! They came!” she shouted. “I knew they couldn’t stay mad at me forever!”
It dawned on me then that these birds were not another monstrous thunder of dragons bearing down on us to dislodge our souls from our bodies and dismember us, leaving our innards strewn about the forest. No, these were the reinforcements Jaye had sent for. “Are you shitting me?” I asked her.
She was too
So sorry y'all! Chapters did not post correctly. The chapter before the one that was originally called Saddled didn't post right, so I combined both of those chapters into this one.
I collapsed in my bed that night--alone. I’d found a place for Fionna to sleep. She had whined and asked why she couldn’t sleep with me, but I told her I needed to be alone because my head hurt, and she seemed to understand that. It wasn’t too much of a lie. I definitely had a headache. Or two. I tried to go to sleep. It was nice to be home. I’d taken a shower to wash away all of the left over awful mage residue. I was exhausted, and I hadn’t been in my own bed for a long time. Sleeping in the forest, whether it’s the one right outside my door or the one that Fionna created in her bizarro world, is not that comfortable. The last night I’d slept in my bed hadn’t been comfortable either, so I was due a good night’s sleep. So of course I couldn’t fall asleep. I just kept lying there on my back, staring up at the ceiling, like somehow my mind would just turn off
I woke up the next morning confused. I wasn’t alone, but it wasn’t Sam who was with me. Nor was it Ben. Thank God it wasn’t Fionna. I gathered all of this before I even opened my eyes. My sense of smell was nothing compared to my wolves’ but I knew a Raven when I smelled one.I sat up, leaning on one elbow and looked at the clock. “Shit. We’re late for school,” I said.“We’re not going to school today, Harlow,” she said.“Why not? Haven’t we missed enough already in the last few weeks?”“Sure, but it’s Saturday.”I stared at her like she was the crazy one and then fell back on my pillows. She was sitting next to me, her legs
The urge to shift into a wolf and go off tearing through the forest looking for Sam was difficult to subdue, but I found a way to fight it. I knew I was acting irrationally at the moment, and I just needed to calm down before I talked to him. Was I happy that he was out in the woods with Starla? Of course not! Was I going to handle it like a mature mage who knew how to take care of her business? Also no. But what I was going to do was give myself some time to chill out before I went off the deep end. If there’s one thing I can definitely say about Ben Peterson it’s that he knows how to keep his shit together in situations where other people would’ve lost it like a bathroom stall in Taco Bell. So I was going to take a page out of Ben’s playbook and not lose it on Sam. For a while.Instead, I made my way out to the old school site to see what was going on there. It was a pile of rubbl
It all sounded too good to be true. Mage Jaye was gone, and I didn’t even have to talk to her before she went. Fionna was going to be leaving with Mage Ostrich to go to a school where they might actually be able to help her, which was great because, as fond of her as I was growing, she needed help beyond what I was able to give her, and the School for Mages was no longer in my back yard.I was going to miss some of these people when they left, though. I wanted to talk to them and see if there was a chance a few of them would want to join my pack, but I needed to talk to my wolves first, and I wasn’t sure there was going to be time for that before they all left. For all I knew, Mage Ostrich had already sent everyone packing except for the ones that had flown in with him the night before. I hoped that wasn’t the case. I wanted to see them again at least to say goodbye, and I hadn’t re
Trying not to let Sam’s words cut into my heart like a dagger plunged in by an enemy mage was not working. I stared at him for several seconds before I finally had to ask, “Why is that?”He shrugged, and his face took on a sympathetic expression, like he was sorry he’d been so harsh. “I don’t know, Harlow. I guess it’s easier to be mad at you than it is to be mad at me because he knows how I feel.”“So… you came calling at my window last night, came in looking all irresistible and wanting me, and it’s my fault that we fooled around?”Sam shrugged. “I didn’t say it made sense. I’m just telling you how he feels.”I folded my arms. “What did he say exactly?” I realiz
I sat there for so long, my pack mates probably thought I’d become encapsulated by the stump and couldn’t move. But then… if that was the case… none of them came looking for me, so maybe they just knew I needed a moment or two. Or an hour. Or two.When someone did come looking for me, it wasn’t a member of my pack. It was Fionna. She came out of the woods down the same path Ben had come down. I wasn’t crying anymore, but I was sitting there staring at the same tree I’d been staring at for a long time. She kneeled down and wrapped her arms around me and rested her head on my lap, and I hugged her back as she said, “Friend sad.”“I am sad, Fionna,” I admitted. “I’m really sad right now.”“It’ll be okay, Harlow Nightingale
I generally pride myself on being fairly observant. I know it took me forever to figure out the fact that I am a mage, and maybe i should’ve been able to pick up on clues about that earlier than I did, but other than that, there haven’t been a lot of times in my life when i haven’t noticed things that are important, things that matter.You’re probably going back through this story now, at least mentally, looking for examples of when I’ve missed something. You’re just going to have to take my word for it. It really doesn’t happen that frequently.But with Fionna? Having feelings for Ben? I did not see that at all. Not even a little bit. I sat there on my stump thinking about how it could even be possible. How could she be so fond of me and secretly be in love with the man I was meant to marry? It didn’t even
Happy. Sam wanted me to be happy. That was the best news I’d heard in a long time. Unfortunately, I had absolutely no idea what was going to make me happy.But I did know I had some mages to talk to. So after my discussion with the pack, I went out to the compound Mage Ostrich had sprung up on my property and had a look around. It was definitely nothing like the School for Mages I’d built by myself in a couple of hours, but it wasn’t bad. I supposed the individual mages could change things to be more suitable to each of them if they so desired.It didn’t take long for me to find my friends, or for them to find me, as the case may be. Kayla, Lluvia, Sean, and Liz were sitting on lawn furniture chatting while Liam and Leo played basketball, or something that resembled basketball, nearby. The ball they were using didn’t quite look sol