by Tracy Wolff
And with my last ounce of breath, I shift my knee into solid stone—and shove it straight into Cole’s balls.
He yelps like a kicked puppy, and I’m not going to lie, a part of me is disappointed he doesn’t disappear instantly from a mortal injury. I’ll just have to comfort myself with the image of him limping for a bit, and regardless, his hands are no longer around my throat as he falls over to cup his injured flesh, and I can finally, finally breathe.
I roll onto my hands and knees, coughing my head off as I suck air into my oxygen-deprived lungs. I tell myself I need to get up, I need to keep moving, but there’s a part of me that knows it’s already too late.
Cam picked up the ball what seems like a lifetime ago. He’s won.
116
Death By Ice Cube
Is No Way to
Start an Obituary
But as I look around, my gaze slowly coming into focus, I realize not only has Cam not run down the field to the goal—their entire team is standing still. And staring at me.
If I’d hazard a guess, I’d think they were enjoying watching Cole choke me to death. Bastards. But now they’re staring openmouthed as Cole writhes around on the ground holding his hopefully busted junk, not sure what to do next.
Luckily, I have no such issues.
With every ounce of energy I can muster, I jump forward and shift, flying straight at Cam, my stone foot swinging under my body to connect with his to knock the comet free. But I needn’t have bothered, because as my foot draws near, he drops the ball and covers his privates. I was aiming for his chin, but whatever.
I swoop down and snag the ball before anyone else.
I’ve been playing defense since I got the ball at the very first second of the game, trying to figure out how to stay away from all the people I’m playing against instead of trying to figure out how to beat them.
But that stops right now.
Because there is no way in hell I’m putting myself in another position like the one I was just in. No way Cole is ever going to get his supernaturally strong werewolf fingers around any part of my anatomy ever again.
It’s time to even the playing field, and I’m just the gargoyle to do it.
My throat is still killing me, though, which makes it a lot harder to breathe than it should. Especially with a giant blue dragon on my ass, as Delphina was quick to recover from my snatch-and-grab and is already in the air, hot on my tail.
Delphina is faster than I am, and now she’s shooting solid chunks of ice my way—and while I may be immune to magic, I am not immune to a ten-pound block of ice slamming into my legs at incredible speeds. Gargoyles still shatter, after all.
And I like my legs exactly where they are…
Which means I have to do a whole lot of zigzagging and even more bobbing and weaving as I fly down the field. With this ridiculous ball vibrating more and more in my hands every second.
No freaking problem.
But there’s nothing like a near-death experience to keep a girl on her toes, so I just channel my inner snowboarder and try a whole lot of tricks I’ve never done before. Most of them turn out okay—I mean, it’s definitely function over form here, but the crowd doesn’t seem to mind, finally sounding like they’re on my side.
Especially when a giant piece of ice goes whizzing right by my head. Thank God. Death by ice cube is no heading for an obituary.
And not going to lie, Jaxon, Hudson, and Macy being here helps a lot. I didn’t know quite how alone I felt until I saw them standing there, trying to save me. Outraged on my behalf and cheering me on. Even if they couldn’t reach me, their wanting to made all the difference. It gave me the third wind I didn’t even know I was looking for.
I glance behind me as I race, race, race toward my goal. I know I’m not going to make it, though—it’s still too far away—which means I need another plan. I just wish I knew what it was.
My normal throwing the ball or dropping the ball isn’t going to work here, not with Delphina on my ass, just waiting so she can scoop it up and get back down the field with it. So instead of just letting it go, I grit my teeth and do a deep vertical dive down, down, down until I’m right next to Violet and Simone.
Then I drop the ball right into Violet’s hands.
She shrieks with surprise and takes off running, just like I anticipated. Simone, on the other hand, turns on me with an air spell, whipping the wind into a frenzy and sending it straight at me like a heat-seeking tornado that chases me right back down the field.
It’s moving fast—faster than I am, in fact—and it overtakes me a couple of times. Being caught in it feels like being stuck in a vortex, one that sucks away all the oxygen. And since I’ve already done the not-breathing thing tonight, I’m pretty much over it.
Still, I think I can use it if I play my cards right, so I don’t put too much effort into losing the tornado. Instead, I hold it close as I keep time with Violet, waiting for her to make the handoff to one of her teammates. It’s going to be Cam or Quinn—they’re the only ones really close to her—and I’d be lying if I said I was broken up at the idea of going head-to-head with either of those jerks.
As her time runs down, I slow just enough to lull her into a false sense of security, but to do that means letting Simone’s tornado catch up to me. So I do, taking a deep breath right before it overtakes me and holding it and holding it and holding it, even as the vortex spins around me.
Sure enough, Violet makes the handoff to Quinn, and I dive straight toward him. I’m going to get that ball back, and I’m going to shove this tornado down one of their throats while I’m at it.
Quinn is totally unprepared for the ambush—for me or for the tornado—and he bobbles the ball at the first gust of wind. And that’s when I snatch it away from him and fly right out of the wind and into the nearest portal—leaving the rest of them behind to deal with the tornado.
I take my first deep breath in what feels like hours but is probably only about fifteen seconds. And then swear under my breath when I realize I’ve wandered into the stretchy portal—the one from the very first game.
It’s a million times better than being stuck with pins over and over again, but holding on to the ball is a big challenge. So is landing on my feet when I finally get dumped back on the field.
Still, I don’t have time to waste—Cole will be out for blood now. So with him and Delphina on my ass, I’m really going to have to be on my game.
Unless I’m lucky, of course, and I finally picked a portal that empties me out near my own goal line. Then again, nothing about today has felt particularly lucky to me, so I’m not counting on it.
Besides, I totally wouldn’t put it past Cyrus to make sure that all the portals emptied as far from my goal line as they could get—for no other reason than to make this as difficult for me as possible.
The weird vacuum feeling finally hits me, and I brace myself for hitting the field. Which I do, shoulder-first.
It jolts me but doesn’t hurt—stone for the win—and I jump up as fast as I can.
But it’s still not fast enough, because Marc is only a couple of steps away in his werewolf form, and one look at his eyes tells me he’s here to avenge his alpha.
Maybe that’s why I get so angry when he compounds that first assault by chomping down on my ball-carrying arm as hard as he can. It doesn’t hurt—again, stone—but hearing his teeth scrape against me riles me an irrational amount.
So when he starts trying to drag me down the field again, I decide I’ve had enough of this shit. And I whirl around, punching him in his ugly wolf snout with my other fist. He whimpers but doesn’t let go, his jaws turning into a vise on my arm.
Which only pisses me off more, so this time when I hit him I don’t pull my punches. I use every ounce of strength I can muster as I lash out with my stone fist and hit him on the side of his head as hard as
I can. And then I hit him again.
Third time’s the charm as he finally, finally lets go, and I roll away from him. But a quick look back shows me that while he’s shaking his head, he’s planning on coming after me again. And I just can’t have that.
I’m beyond exhausted, and there’s no way I’m going to be able to keep going like this—having one after another after another steal back any progress that I’ve gained. This game is rough when you’re playing eight on eight. When you’re playing one on eight—or even one on seven—it’s absolutely brutal.
Plus, each shift I make—gargoyle to human and back again—takes a little more out of me. As does being strangled by a superstrong were-jackass for nearly a minute…
All of which means I’m going to have to start taking out more of the competition if I have any hope at all of getting across that goal line. And I have more than hope. I have resolve. I’ve decided there is no way I am losing to that asshole Cole. No fucking way.
So the second that Marc lunges a little drunkenly my way, I decide it’s time to even the odds. I protect the ball with one side of my body and then use the other to slam into him with a full-on roundhouse kick to the side of the face—thank you very much, miserable kickboxing class that Heather made me take with her sophomore year.
He yelps but still keeps coming—turns out wolves have very hard heads—so I hit him with another, even harder one, and then swing around to deliver another kick…but this time he doesn’t just go down, he magically disappears. I swallow back the nausea as I realize if my next kick had connected, it could have been a mortal blow.
But now I’ve got even bigger problems. The ten seconds I spent taking Marc out of the game caused two new issues.
One, the ball is vibrating so much that it’s about to take me apart.
And two, Cole is headed straight for me, and I gave him the time to catch up.
117
Raining Cats
and Dragons
Part of me is tempted to stay right here and let him take his best shot at me, but I’ve got more urgent things to do right now—namely, reset the ball.
So that’s what I do, tossing it as high into the air as I can manage and then shooting up after it, about two seconds before Cole gets to where I’m standing. He makes a huge leap for me and his fingers brush against the bottom of my feet, but I’m already flying higher and he can’t grab on.
Too bad the same thing can’t be said for Delphina, who looks about as done playing as I am.
I’m almost to the ball, but she gets there a second before I do and uses her powerful tail to knock it all the way down the field—back toward the goal line I need to protect. Of course.
I zip off after it, already knowing I’m going to be too late and I’ll have to wrestle it away from someone else. But I’m back to dodging giant blocks of ice, so for the moment, I’ve got other things on my mind—mainly how not to be the prize in my very own midair shooting gallery.
I do a pretty good job of it, mostly by doing more of the death-defying flips and turns I didn’t even know I had in me before half an hour ago. But Delphina’s getting better at shooting on the fly, and she catches me with a huge block of ice to the hip, which sends me spinning out of control as pain explodes along that side of my body.
I plummet downward in a flat-out spin. My brain is screaming at me to pull up, to get moving, to go, go, go, but gravity, aerodynamics, and exhaustion make a deadly combination. So in the end, I do what my driving instructor taught me to do when skidding out in a car. Instead of fighting to pull out of the spin, I turn into it.
Apparently, it’s the right move, because it changes everything. I get control in a couple of seconds, and then I’m flying down the field, straight at Cam, who has cotton in his nose, blood on his shirt, and the ball clutched in his ham-fisted hands.
My hip is killing me, but that doesn’t matter at this point. Nothing does but stopping Cam before he hands the ball off to Cole—because I know Cole is going to want to be the one to bring it across the goal line—and end the game.
Except either Cam is getting smarter or one of the witches is, because as I barrel down the field toward him, none of them tries to use a spell on me. Instead, they use a spell on him…and he effing disappears halfway down the field.
What the hell am I supposed to do with that?
I’ve got no time—no time—but the only thing I’ve got going for me is he doesn’t have that much time, either. In fifteen seconds or so, he’s going to have to toss that ball to someone else—invisible or not.
But I don’t want to wait that long. Every second he runs is an extra several feet he gets toward the goal line. And that is not something I can let happen.
Glancing around, I’m desperate for an idea when one suddenly hits me. It’s nothing I’ve ever done before. But then again, I’ve never before done 95 percent of the things I’ve done in the last twenty-four hours.
Is it a long shot? Yeah. Does that matter? At this point, not even a little bit.
I want to land, but I know better than to put myself down where Cole might be able to get me. So I stay in the air and start looking for the ice Delphina’s been shooting since we got into this hell-arena. There are hundreds of chunks scattered around the field, and I’m going to use them all.
Or at least, that’s the plan.
Most of the books Amka laid out for me in the library really didn’t shed much light on what gargoyles can do, but there’s one thing they all mentioned… Gargoyles are naturally adept at channeling water—supposedly it’s why, for centuries, so many buildings used decorative sculptures of us as water spouts. I don’t know if any of that’s true or not—and neither did Jaxon or Hudson, since I’m the first gargoyle they’ve ever met—but I’m going to operate on the idea that it’s true.
And probably lose this game if it’s not.
But I’m not going to think about that right now. I’m not going to think about anything but getting that ice to work for me. And so I start to focus on pulling the water to me. Just like I channeled magic into Jaxon through the mating bond or Hudson’s magic to light candles, I let the energy build in me. Feel its purpose as it courses through my body, drawing it into my hand.
Once I can feel the ball of energy burning brightly in my palm, I clench my fist on it, draw it back in. And then I pull, pull, pull, pull the ice toward me, melting it into water even as it flies through the air. And it does fly. All of it. And no one is more amazed than I am.
It’s an amazing thing to see, these giant blocks of ice flying at me from all over the field and melting into funnels of water in midair. But the one thing I didn’t account for—the one thing that makes this even cooler and more terrifying—is the fact that there is a lot of water in the air.
And I am pulling it all toward me.
Suddenly my funnels become one giant wall of water moving down the field, and I’ve never seen anything like it. Judging from the way the audience is reacting—screaming and stomping their feet—neither have they.
I want to look for my people—for Hudson and Jaxon and Macy—and see what they think of what’s going on. But I’m terrified of breaking my concentration, of what will happen if I drop my focus for even half a second.
I also don’t have the time. I need to find Cam before it’s too late.
Not going to lie, I’m freaking out a little bit, but I figure it’s now or never. So I take a deep breath, gather all the water into my hold, and then throw it straight down the field at where I think Cam is.
Sure enough, as it falls, it falls around him, not through him, and that’s enough to show me where he is—only about forty yards from the goal line.
I take off after him, flying at absolutely top speed, and still I don’t know if I’ll get to him in time. So I pool the water back together and create a giant wave of water…and bring it crashing down on him, Violet
, and Quinn—all of whom are on that part of the field. And as the wave starts to dissipate, I pull the water back and, with a spin of my wrist, turn it into a whirlpool to trap them all.
Cam turns visible again somewhere in the middle of my whole water attack, but he no longer has the ball. None of them does, and I strain my eyes, trying to find it before someone else can.
I finally spy it resting near the bottom of the whirlpool. I was planning on letting them go after a few seconds, but I can’t do that now. Not when they’re so close to the ball and the goal line.
A quick glance around shows me that Cole and Simone have spotted the ball and are racing for it—even as Delphina is diving to intercept me. Keeping the whirlpool going is taking a lot of my energy, and I’m running out of ideas.
I have no choice but to try to get to the ball first.
Luckily, I grab it right before Cole, which gives me the lovely side benefit of being able to kick him in the stomach as I launch myself back into the air.
I’ve got to say, for someone who’s always prided herself on being nonviolent, these last few punches and kicks have made me entirely too happy. Then again, payback’s a bitch, and I’ve had just about enough of being poor, weak little Grace.
It’s time everyone on this field—everyone in this paranormal world—figured out that I’m not fair game anymore. And that I don’t need to hide behind Jaxon, either.
My gaze narrows on the finish line as I race toward my goal. Excitement burns in my chest as I realize I’m going to make it. I’m flying with every last ounce of energy I can muster, and as my goal gets closer and closer, I can’t help the elation bubbling in my chest. I’m actually going to make it.
I’ve barely got anything left in me now, so I have to drop the whirlpool keeping Violet, Quinn, and Cam out of my hair.