Chapter Thirty-Three

**Leo**

As my mate ran towards her destiny, I tried to ignore the anxiety that was buring in my chest. I wanted to go with her. I wanted to be there in case she needed help.

But I knew they needed me here at the moment.

“Back for more, sister?” The old woman crooned to River. “I’m lucky the Maiden was there in the chamber to heal you so I can beat you again, because I do love it.”

River stared at her with a hard glare but didn’t answer the taunt.

I could feel the magic burning in the air between them, like some kind of standoff. At least it was four against four now, even though I didn’t feel very confident in how much help I might be. I’d never fought a witch before.

A voice to the left drew our attention.

“You half-blood traitor,” a woman spat in fury. “This is all your fault. How can you help these insects kill your brethren?!”

I saw she was talking to Cass as she leveled him with a dark, deadly glare. I scanned the battlefield quickly and realized that the red dragon was gone. This must be her. Her hair was red and orange like flames and she had yellow eyes, just like the others. I realized Cass was the only dragon I’d seen so far whose eyes were a different color—blue.

He shifted back to his human form and laughed dryly.

“I’m sorry, my brethren? I spent two hundred years in that hole with you monsters and certainly didn’t feel any brotherly love. In fact, you all did your best to make my life a living hell. Every. Fucking. Day.”

“It doesn’t surprise me,” she answered, “that you would align yourselves with these pathetic underlings, since you were born to a feeble human woman.”

He stood straighter and his gaze darkened.

“Don’t talk about my mother.”

She grinned, a cat’s smile.

“It was always so easy to get at you with that one,” she laughed. “So protective of that pathetic, murderous whore.”

He bristled and lunged at her, but she was ready. She snarled and countered his move. They rapidly exchanged blows, obviously pretty evenly matched.

I had no idea what she was talking about concerning his mom. Cass didn’t talk about things from his past, except for the occasional vague comment.

I sensed movement behind me and saw that the witches were getting ready to fight. Now that Cass was distracted, it was three on four.

I looked at our opponents, eyeing them and trying to figure out what to expect. The crone and the young girl both wielded fire, which I knew from the fight in the chamber.

The other two were up in the air. I had no idea what elements they controlled.

The oldest daughter was looking like a crone herself, her gums blackening and her skin creasing. She had a slight hunch to her back, nothing compared to her mother, though. The second daughter was slightly better off, and the youngest girl still looked normal.

From what I understood, the longer a witch practiced dark magic, the greater a toll it took on them. The witches had a natural cap to their strength, except for Enid, who seemed to have endless power. If they pushed themselves too far past a certain point, they would pass out.

Dark magic used the life forces of other living creatures to power the witch. I was sure that all of their robes were full of soul stones. They were literally what the name implied. The soul of a living creature trapped in a crystal and waiting to be consumed for magic. The stronger the creature, the greater the power of the stone.

However, using these souls took a toll on the user. They were more powerful, and could basically cast magic without reaching a cap, but for reasons unknown, they ended up looking like Morga. Maybe it was the witches’ Goddess discouraging them from following a dark path, or maybe the evil of stealing the life of others stole pieces of their souls as well. The answer to that question I didn’t know.

I knew that light witches were at a massive disadvantage when fighting them, though. River and Rhia would meet their limits, and Morga and her daughters would not.

In the chamber, River and Rhia couldn’t even beat Morga and the youngest girl.

Suddenly, the witch from before, Nadaria, appeared next to River.

“You called?” she said with more cheer than someone who was fighting a war should have.

I hadn’t noticed River calling or signaling anyone, but witches did a lot of things I didn’t understand.

Nadaria glanced around and then wrinkled her nose when she saw Morga and the others.

“Oh, I see,” she said, clicking her tongue.

Morga glared at her, obviously not happy to see her. It made sense, since Nadaria wielded water, which would be more detrimental to a flame witch.

“Aren’t we all so blessed?” Morga sneered sarcastically, looking at her daughters. “The High Priestess Xena’s prodigal daughter has joined us.”

Nadaria had a little, pink, heart-shaped canteen strapped to her waist, and she opened it, pulling out a stream of clear water from it and manipulating it as a ball in her hands.

“Well,” Nadaria answered. “I am a little… out of my element… out here in this desert.”

She paused and looked around, grinning.

Was that a pun?

River rolled her eyes, and I thought Rhia smiled a little. Morga and her daughters didn’t find it funny, though.

“But I think I’ll manage,” she finished.

She gripped the water, and it elongated, lengthening while it turned solid. She’d frozen some of it into a sword of ice. The rest she concentrated into a ball and held in her other hand.

I was stunned. I didn’t know water witches could do that.

The witches all spread out, giving each other room and seeming to line up across from each other in dueling pairs. Rhia across from the middle daughter, River across from the oldest, and Nadaria across from the two fire witches.

I felt like a bystander more than an active participant.

“Wait for your opportunity, young wolf,” Nadaria said to me. “And when you see an opening, rip that old crone’s throat out.”

It was the most violent and serious thing I’d heard or seen from her, and her soft brown eyes held a steely hatred in them as she looked at Morga.

I growled in understanding and flanked around to the side, trying to get to a position that made them more vulnerable.

Nadaria attacked first, but not with the sword. She concentrated the water in her hand into what looked like small ice projectiles and flung them at the old crone.

Morga hissed and called fire, which shielded her. The ice melted and water vapor rose into the air. Nadaria reached her hand up, stopping it and pulling it back to her as water droplets.

Chaos erupted as they all started fighting. I tried to keep my eyes on everyone, but it was madness. River was battling an air witch and Rhia an earth witch, but they worked together, crossing attacks and blocks for each other in a beautiful dance.

Nadaria was amazing to watch. She dashed around, and steam vapor rose as she and the fire witches dueled in rapid succession. She was on the defensive a lot because she was fighting two, and I knew I needed to pull one away.

I stalked around behind them, but felt eyes on me. I looked at the fire witches and realized that the black crow on the young girl’s shoulder was watching my every move.

Her familiar, like Hades is to Enid.

A beat of sadness washed through me. Like Hades *was* to Enid.

I glanced at Cass. He was still in an intense brawl with the red dragon. They both bled from various places and their hatred for each other rolled off of them in waves.

I moved forward, toward the witch’s backs and the young girl surprised me by turning her hand back to me and blasting a torrent of fire my way. I leapt away from it, but felt it just singe the hair on my tail.

It gave Nadaria an opening, though, and she sent a small ice blade soaring. It sliced the girl across the cheek and she cried out, holding her face.

“You petulant child, pay attention!” Morga scolded her while she sent a fireball at Nadaria.

“Yes, mother,” the girl answered automatically. “The wolf is behind us, though.”

Morga glanced back at me like she’d forgotten I existed, and then at her daughter.

“Kill him,” she said. “I’ll handle the water witch.”

The girl turned to me, grinning, and lit fires in both of her hands. She started an onslaught of fire projectiles and I danced around, doing my best to avoid them.

Agility wasn’t my strong suit. I was more of a brute strength guy, but I did okay. They singed me a couple of times.

Wolves were faster and stronger than witches, so I needed to get up close. I could never win a fight at this range. I noticed she was favoring one arm, like it may have been injured.

I advanced on her quickly and she stepped back, blasting a stream of fire that I had to stop and roll sideways to avoid.

I rolled to my feet and didn’t stop my advance, gaining several feet of ground with two enormous leaps.

Bleiz snarled at her, and I thought I saw a small bit of fear in her eyes. She was young, most likely the least experienced, and I doubted she’d ever fought a wolf before.

She put her hands on the ground and lit a giant ring of fire, which she pushed out away from her like a shock wave.

It traveled on the ground towards me, and I jumped to avoid it. I didn’t see the second one behind it though and I landed on it. The fire seared the pads of my feet and I yelped in pain and surprise.

But I could see the shock on her face when I didn’t stop. I’d had worse.

I leapt for her, but fell short of her neck. I grabbed her injured arm instead. I sunk my teeth in and shook my head, tearing at the flesh while she screamed.

An enormous blast of air hit me, and I flew a good twenty feet before hitting the red desert dirt and skidding to a stop.

The air witch had noticed what was happening and attacked me, but that left her exposed. River capitalized on the moment and a giant rock crushed into the woman’s skull, sending her crumpled to the ground. Unconscious or dead, I didn’t know, but blood pooled around her head.

Morga screeched in dismay.

“You incompetent wretch!” she screamed at the young girl. “You’ll get us all killed!”

But Nadaria wasn’t letting the old crone have any rest as she sent a giant ice ball for her face. Morga barely reacted in time, melting it. As the water fell, Nadaria pulled it back towards her hand.

She couldn’t afford to lose very much of it or she would be in trouble.

I stood slowly. I would feel that in the morning, no doubt.

The young fire witch was bleeding badly from the wound I’d inflicted, and I advanced on her again. She only had the use of one hand now and fired rapidly at me. But I could sense she was desperate, unnerved, and in pain.

I felt bad for a moment, but this was war, and she was the enemy. I also knew she must’ve been the one that burned Daro nearly to death and then laughed about it. He said it was a young woman who had done it, not an old crone.

I easily avoided the projectiles this time. She was too predictable. Youth and inexperience in actual battle made her fall back on the same pattern, the same moves that usually worked for her.

The crow cawed in distress, and she screamed. I was too close now. I jumped, and she placed her hand on my chest. Fire blossomed there and my fur singed away. I growled as my skin seared and sizzled from the contact.

But I didn’t stop and grabbed her exposed throat with my jaws. I crunched the bones easily, and her screamed died immediately as I crushed her windpipe. I held on until I was sure she was dead.

I dropped her limp body and looked up to see the old crone was watching. She had momentarily disabled Nadaria and… could’ve helped her daughter, but didn’t.

She clicked her tongue in disappointment, shaking her head.

“What a waste of time, that one,” she hissed.

The earth witch wasn’t fairing well either, trying to fight River and Rhia at the same time.

My chest was on fire where I’d been burned, and I could smell my own seared hair and flesh.

I growled at the old witch, but she sneered.

“Don’t even try it, boy. I promise I’m a lot harder to kill than that.”

She turned.

“Enough!” she yelled.

She placed her hands on the ground and pushed an enormous shock wave of fire, like what the girl had done, but twenty times bigger. I turned and ran, trying to get away.

Rhia put up an air shield around her and River, and Nadaria blocked herself with a shield of water.

It rolled over Cass, and the other dragon, but they were unaffected.

When I recovered, Morga was standing over her unconscious daughter, with the other one at her side.

The red dragon saw what was happening and yelled, “Wait for me!”

The earth witch looked up and manipulated the rock around Cass’ feet so he couldn’t move. He growled in frustration, pulling at them.

Morga held out her hand, and as soon as the red dragon grabbed it, they were all gone in the blink of an eye.

“Cowards!” Cass roared at the open air where they’d stood as he broke the rock away.

I growled in frustration. They’d escaped.