Chapter 262 Unlikely help

Chapter 262 Unlikely help
Aria's pov
What’s going on, Kael? I ask through our mindlink

I think they cleared the path for us Kael answers.

I turn around to see he’s right. The whole road had been cleared and the nightmarish creatures stood like guards along the perimeter, preventing anyone from stepping foot onto the path. Not wasting a single second to question our luck, I sprint down the cleared road toward the administration building, forgetting all about the creatures as my anxiousness for my father comes back. 

Ghost runs beside me and Thalric the other side. 

Surely we can win now, with Thallia down and the beasts by our sides. 

It didn’t take long to reach the administration block and there the Vile man sits on the fountain, running his hand through the water, not at all fazed at the three creatures running towards him. Silena stands beside him and My father is suspended high over the fountain.

Thalric stops first and I force myself to stop. I don’t know why Benson is still confident when he just lost Thallia and two other councilors. His brow rises as he looks at Thalric. 

“You disappoint me, Thalric,” Mr Benson sighs as he rises, putting his hands in his pocket. 

Thalric shifts back. "You didn't have to do that to Nerezza and Vibe! They served you loyally!"

"You have no one to blame for their fate but yourself," Mr. Benson replies. "You know the rules, Thalric. Yet, despite your betrayal, I’m still willing to bring Nerezza and Vibe back, along with everyone else... if you simply do your job. I will forgive this embarrassing little lapse in judgment if you take your rightful place beside me."

I shift my focus to my father. I don’t care whatever issues he has with Thalric, I just want to kill Mr Benson. My father is having trouble breathing and I know it’s because of Mr Benson’s magic wrapping around him. 

If Thalia is no longer powering him, how is he still so strong?

Unable to watch my father suffer another second, Lux runs forward, leaping straight for Mr. Benson's throat, but without even looking in our direction, he flicks his hand, swatting Lux through the air like an annoying fly. Ghost charges in from the left, his jaws dripping with rabid foam, but Mr. Benson swats him away just as effortlessly, while continuing his conversation with Thalric. 

He is somehow stronger.

"I’m going to kill these two because they’re no longer of any use to me now. And while I’m doing that, I want you to think hard on the choice you're about to make.” Mr. Benson turns to me and Ghost. “Silena, be a darling and take care of these two little pests for me, will you?"

He then sits back down on the edge of the fountain, trailing his fingers through the water once more as Councilor Silena steps forward. 

My eyes track all her movement. I have never seen her fight or unleash her magic before, but the fact that Mr. Benson previously described her as the best to fall into his laps, make me dread what is to come.

If she isn’t the one amplifying his magic, then what is her power?

"Silena... you don't have to do this," Thalric says.

The Fey, currently wearing the form of a striking, red-haired woman, looks at Thalric with cold, empty eyes and my heart hammers as I pray to the Moon Goddess that she turns against Benson just as Vibe did, even though I know defiance against him usually ends in death.

"You know I can't," she replies, her voice devoid of any emotion.

A sickening sound of snapping bones and tearing flesh echoes through the courtyard as her body contorts, expanding in a terrifying instant until a massive, golden-furred creature stands in her place…….a gigantic Were-Lion, larger than any predator I have ever seen. 

She is a shifter. 

She launches herself forward before Thalric can even complete his shift, her heavy paw striking his chest and sending him crashing to the left. Ghost rears back to meet her head-on, but she swats him aside with brutal efficiency, turning in mid-air to land a side-kick into his ribs that sends him rolling across the ground with a pained growl.

No! 

Lux charge forward to avenge my mate and targeting the base of the Were-Lion's neck, but right as my claws are about to tear into her golden fur, the lion vanishes and in a split second, a sleek, jet-black panther materializes behind me, driving its razor-sharp claws deep into my flank. I spin around to strike back, but she seamlessly flows from one deadly form into another, using the unique strengths of every animal to attack, evade, and outmaneuver us. 

The fuck?

She shifts into a microscopic mouse to slip past my snapping jaws……morphs into a massive python to bind Ghost's legs, and erupts back into a ravenous panther to strike from our blind spots. 

It’s a mesmerizing, horrifying display of combat fluidly unlike anything I have ever witnessed.

If I wasn’t fighting for our lives, I would be in awe.

A sharp, searing pain rips through my abdomen as the panther's claws slash across my stomach. I snap my jaws at her, but she instantly shrinks into a rat to dodge my bite, then explodes into a towering Were-Lion directly behind me, delivering a bone-crushing blow that sends me crashing heavily onto the floor.

Ghost roars lunging to slash at her throat, but she shifts into a massive alligator in mid-air, his claws scraping uselessly against her impenetrable, armored scales.

From the edge of the fountain, Mr. Benson's laughter rings out across the courtyard. "Beautiful, isn't she?" he calls out, thoroughly entertained by our struggles.

Thalric tries once more to reason with the Fey, but she shifts into a heavy brown bear and swats him across the courtyard, sending his body crashing into the administration doors. She turns back to Ghost, morphing into a massive white tiger and launching him high into the air with a brutal headbutt. Seeing my mate hit the ground, a fresh wave of fury overcomes my pain.

Okay, enough of this. 

I sprint forward, and when she shifts into another creature, I’m ready. I sink my claws deep into her shoulder, tearing flesh and sending her rolling across the ground. She rises instantly, her tiger form standing tall as her eyes ignite with a blinding, solid white.

"Aria, don't look into her eyes!" Thalric shouts, but his warning comes a second too late.

My gaze locks onto her glowing, white eyes, and an immediate, paralyzing numbness washes over my mind, freezing my muscles in place and stripping away our control over my body. I stand completely still, as the massive white tiger rears back and springs forward.

But just as the tiger launches into the air, a roaring fire blasts from behind me, striking her full in the chest. 

The tiger lets out a pained growl as the flames consume her, slamming her heavily onto the stone tiles. She writhes in pain as the fire licks at her fur, until Silena lies on the floor in her human form, her skin severely scorched but still breathing. 

The paralyzing hypnotic spell shatters, and I spin around to see Draven standing a few yards back, his hands raised high and his eyes blazing.

"You stupid boy!" I hear Benson roars and Draven is sent flying backward.

I look towards the fountain to see Mr Benson looking towards Silena and then he rises.

"It’s true what they say then. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself"

He thrusts both hands forward, unleashing a massive wave that sends all of us flying across the courtyard. I hit the hard stone floor so hard the impact forces me out of my wolf form, leaving me gasping for air as I drag myself up to my knees. Terror grips my throat as I sense his magic……he is somehow much more powerful.

Something must have happened between when he disappeared from the stage and got here.

But what?

Mr. Benson grins as he slowly struts forward before pausing to look up at my father. "I can make the impact feel as though he fell from the top of the heavens. I would have kept him alive as a trophy, you know, but now I see I need to eradicate every single person you have ever loved. When I’m finished with you here, I’m going to slaughter your brothers and every member of your pack.”

I look up to my father and he meets my gaze. 

“I love you,” Alpha Roderick whispers. 

“Awwwww,” Mr Benson says as he walks back to the fountain casually running his hand through the water.

"The fountain." Thalric says. "We have to destroy the fountain."

And then it struck me. I had sensed darkness from that fountain the day I sat there. That's it. Thalric is right. We have to destroy it but how? 

He will never allow us to come close enough.

"Use your fire, Aria." Draven's voice comes from beside me. 

He had blood on his face and he had discarded his jacket, and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt.

Is he really helping us after saying he won’t earlier?

"I don't know how. It only bursts out of me when I lose control to my anger."

"Take my hand," Draven extends his blood-stained palm toward me.

Beside me, Ghost lets out a low growl, stepping forward to push his massive body between Draven and me.

"I’m trying to help here, Blackthorn, like you asked. Unless you have suddenly become an expert on fire,” Draven snarls at Ghost.

I gently place my hand on Ghost's massive head, sending a wave of calming affection through our bond until he reluctantly calms down. Reaching out, I wrap my fingers tightly around Draven's hand and the moment our skin touches, a blinding, wave of raw heat surges through my veins like before, but this time, it’s more. 

It feels like we’re being combined of sorts, like his fire is flowing through me too.

"Close your eyes," Draven instructs, his voice acting as an anchor amidst the roaring inferno inside my chest. "Lesson number one, Aria: never be afraid of the fire living inside you. It feeds on your emotions, and it can feel your fear. Concentrate entirely on your target... and let it out."

I close my eyes, taking a deep, steadying breath as I visualize the marble fountain in my mind. The fear, the grief, and the terror vanish, replaced by an absolute, calmness. When I open my eyes, sparks are coming out of my fingertips and I thrust my hand forward, releasing what feels like our combined magic in a roaring wall of white-hot flame that surges forward, straight for Mr. Benson and the fountain.

"What the hell?!" Mr. Benson says as he frantically raises both hands, chanting something.

Wave after wave of pressure pushes back against the flame, but the fire pushes back foot by foot.  

Seeing the unrelenting fire closing in on him, he disappears to save his life and the fire slams into the fountain, the impact shattering the stones into millions of fragments, tumbling the central sculpture into the dust as the water sizzles and evaporates into a thick cloud of steam.

"NO!" Mr. Benson shrieks from the far side of the courtyard.

And that’s when I feel his fear.