Mal hesitated. The safe places he was familiar with and could portal to were halfway around the world. He should be conserving his magic for the fight that was galloping down on them, but he couldn’t leave them here to die. He hadn’t realized how much he’d relied on the promise of having Scarlet’s magic to draw on.
“You have to save your strength for the fight,” Scarlet said miserably, guessing his train of thought. “Can you portal them just to the dock? They can escape on the boat...”
Mal hadn’t been to the dock, but he’d been to the pool deck, and he sketched as big a doorway as he dared into the air and brought it to sizzling life. Everyone dashed through, just as a great boom shook the island and Mal felt the cage below the surface explode into shards of broken magic.
They staggered from Scarlet’s clearing to a pool deck that was shaking and buckling, tiles popping out as great cracks appeared. Glass everywhere was shattering, furniture from the pool was picked up by wild winds and smashed to the far walls. As they fought to stand on the swaying ground, against the wind, a storm surge rolled in from the angered ocean and buried the dock and the entire beach in swirling foam and crashing waves.
The boat docked there was flung as if it was a child’s toy, right into the railing of the pool deck, and it broke into chunks. Some of the pieces bounced back into the roiling water and some flew up to skid over the tiles and splash into the churning pool. One of the motors struck a palm tree that gave a shudder and upended.
“Or not!” Travis said wryly, shouting over the wind.
Laura lost her footing on the heaving ground and Tex caught her before she fell. Mates clung to each other. Several shifted to find better steadiness on four paws, including Chef and Magnolia, who sheltered others from the wind behind their massive bears.
For a moment, the earth stilled slightly and the wind was a little less, but Mal knew that it was only a matter of time before the wyrm fought his way to the surface.
“You have to get out of here now,” he said in despair. He couldn’t save Scarlet, but he could save the people who were loyal to her. Scarlet stepped back from him, swaying weakly in place. He started to sketch a new doorway, focusing on his stronghold in New York. It would take a reckless amount of energy, but he knew he had to do it. The earth was starting to rumble again as the wyrm crawled for the surface; they didn’t have more than a few minutes.
“Wait!” It was Graham, stepping forward with Alice’s hand in his own. “You could have beat it with Scarlet’s power, right?”
“I don’t have anything left,” Scarlet said helplessly.
The gardener ignored her, glaring at Mal in challenge. “Corbin... he could use a shifter’s energy to do magic. Could you do that with us?”
Mal stared at him. “Bind you? You’re just...”
“All of us. If you could tap all of our power, would it be enough?” Graham looked aside at Alice, and she set her jaw and stepped closer to him, nodding in agreement.
“I’ve never had a chance to save the world before,” she said merrily.
Mal swept his gaze over the assembled shifters and gestured carefully. They all glowed with power—if not the scope of Scarlet’s single-handed energy, each with their own unique strength—and strongest of all were the mate-bonds between them, a curious glow of magic and love. “I could do that,” he realized in astonishment. Graham and Alice both stood open to him, the simple act of their offer putting their potential in his hands.
This wasn’t magic the way that he had studied it, with spells and structure and study. This was something more elemental, like his innate ability to slip through rock, or Scarlet’s ability to make things grow. “This could work,” he said, with something painfully like hope growing in his gut.
Bastian, just behind Alice, exchanged a look with Saina and moved to stand beside Graham with her. “I’m not Scarlet’s caliber, but I am a dragon,” he said proudly.
Mal hadn’t banished his energy sight and it was as if a veil had fallen away from Bastian’s source.
Scarlet put a trembling hand to her mouth, tears shining in her eyes.
“I’m nearly tapped,” Saina said, coming to Bastian’s side. “But what I’ve got, I’d give.” She was a gentle light, even exhausted.
Darla and Breck came forward, hand in hand. “We’re not going to let you have all that fun without us,” Breck called over a gust of wind.
“I got a debt to pay back,” Wrench said to Lydia, and she lifted her chin proudly and met Mal’s gaze with a firm nod.
Magnolia and Chef, still in bear form, bowed their great heads in agreement.
It was Mary who dragged Neal forward. “We’re in.”
Tony gave Scarlet a conflicted look and Amber spoke his concerns aloud. “Could this hurt our child?”
Mal felt like he’d been sideswiped by the offers, his power sight nearly overwhelmed. “I don’t think so,” he said, dazedly. “The data I’ve seen suggests that in vitro exposure to magic may cause children to shift earlier, but I’ve never seen evidence of harm. I would not take enough to hurt any of you.”
“Then I’m in,” Amber said with a lift of her chin.
“Pura vida,” Tony said. Pure life, the Costa Rican motto. Their magic was suddenly at his fingertips.
“Us, too,” Tex and Laura said in unison.