On a Razor's Edge (Darkness #3)(26)

The large form of Jonas appearing in the doorway punctuated my words. I really missed privacy.

*****

“So this is what it’s come to?” Jonas asked a few days into their protection detail as he watched Sasha. She stood in the clearing beyond the cabins with Toa, working at some spell or other. “This is what more than a decade of good service gets you? Watching some human pet play at magic? The borders are open, our enemy is pushing at us, making a bunch of noise, and here we are, sitting on our asses, staring at some dumb human?”

“How do you know what’s happening with the borders?” Charles asked more lightly than he felt like asking.

“Unlike you, I keep tabs on my surroundings. I’m not going to let the Boss take us all down because he’s infatuated.”

“Unlike you,” Charles returned with an edge to his voice, “I trust the Boss’s judgment. She’s at black power level, Jonas. Black. That’s the highest you can reach. Protecting her from getting snatched is ten times more important than chasing some purple Dulcha back across our border. Plus, half the time, she summons up all sorts of crap that keeps us on our toes. Maybe you should drop the pity party and be a team player for once. Or do you have interests outside of our clan…?”

Jonas swung his gaze away from a flailing Toa enshrouded in black smoke. Charles felt his skin prickle within Jonasʼs hostile glare, as if he stared into the eyes of a predator, the gaze flat and unwavering. “Be careful, Boy Wonder. You might be the Boss’s favorite now, but when he gets tired of the human, you won’t be much more than a baby with a Watch Command badge again.”

Charles shook his head, forcing himself to look away. Human males stalked the perimeter of the clearing, using all their senses to guard. If Charles was honest with himself, besides the fact that these Mata changed into animals, they had a lot of the same characteristics his kind did. Their vision wasn’t much improved, but their hearing, their smell, and their prowess would top a normal human any day. Plus, they had this extra sense. Somehow magical, they could perceive things.

Charles had no idea how that perceiving thing worked. He could walk up to one of the shifters, absolutely silent, and he or she’d turn around and notice him as if he’d been as loud as Sasha. At breakfast earlier that morning, heʼd basically tiptoed in. Heʼd made sure his clothes didn’t even make a rustle. But sure enough, a really hot chick with her back to him had asked if he wanted coffee when he was only a couple steps into the room!

How did she know? It was a little creepy.

He didn’t want to ask about it, though. The Mata didn’t seem to like his kind much. And of course the Boss and everyone older than Charles hated the Mata, so there was that. No one talked about it, but there was history.

“She can’t even do magic correctly,” Jonas growled, bringing Charles out of his reflections.

“She’s new to it. She wasn’t raised with it,” Charles shot back. He noticed a man at the edge of the clearing bracing, readying for a fight. A second later he was stripping out of his clothes.

Sasha paused in her ministrations, halting Toa with her. They looked toward the tree line. Charles stood as the male’s body blurred strangely, a blast of magic flaring. Skin morphed into fur, creating a huge wolf larger and broader than a Great Dane. Fighting one of them, with the teeth and claws and all that, would be…uncomfortable.

“Cool!” Sasha exclaimed.

A second later, Charles was running at the daft idiot. Toa, thinking just as fast, wrapped himself and Sasha in a white bubble, making a shield. At least one of them had sense. As Jonas joined Charles around the two mages, the rest of the clearing filled with wolves, ten in all, working together in defense like a wolf pack would.

Three members of Charles’s clan stepped into the clearing; Adnan, Mira, and, “Oh great,” Charles muttered. Darla. They traveled with a member of Tim’s pack, a male that changed into a Tiger, fierce and nasty when pushed to it. Jonas tried to push him to it, often.

Strangely, Toa kept the shield and the wolves kept their lupine form, teeth bared, surrounding the newcomers. Charles and Jonas stepped forward.

“Why are you here?” Jonas asked, his attention focused on Adnan. “Aren’t you supposed to be in class or something? This ain’t a daycare.”

Adnan raised his chin but didn’t have time to answer before Darla waved the thought away. “The Boss suspects a leak. We’ve come to warn you and provide a few more bodies . I’m also here to ensure the human is getting a proper magical education.” She eyed Toa with disdain.

“Stefan sent you?” Sasha blurted, hands at her hips.

Darla stared down at the human with her beautiful face perfectly flat. “I am still in line for the mate title, human. He might have a sophomoric interest in you now, but he is a business man. He wants all his future assets in one place. If you don’t work out, who do you think will take the mate title? And if something happens to me, there is Mira.”

Sasha visibly deflated as Toa nodded. The white shield winked out. “Let us get back to it,” Toa stated as he eyed Darla. “You may watch, but you may not interfere. If you have a problem with the way I am going about things, you are free to scurry back to your liege and tell on me, as you see fit.”

Darla’s eyes smoldered as she stared at the blond creep, receiving that strange blue-eyed gaze in return. She flicked her beautiful head and huffed. Toa turned to Sasha.