Sex, Lies & Magic

Ten

Ten
I came to in a pile of smoking rubble. Fires flickered here and there around me as I surveyed everything through the agony of a coughing fit. Cael and Milo were gone. Holding my head I pulled myself out from under the layers of sheet rock and shards of broken pipes. Everything was eerily silent minus the crackle of the flames which burned the colors of my powers and Cael's.

Voices reached me, but I barely made sense of them. They sounded like Sam and Alex maybe but I wasn't sure.

"Should we call 911?" Alex asked.

"We'd probably end up needing to explain the huge hole where a mansion used to be. We'll take her to Perfect Balance, it's the safest place for her right now." Sam had a plan as always, though this one was better than the last.

"Guys!" I tried to yell but my voice came out hoarse and quiet. Looking up to see where the voices might be coming from I discovered that there was nothing above anymore. I was standing in the basement and roof shingles littered the ground. I reached up and my power trailed from my fingertips to explode like a magical flare.

"Holy shit, you're conscious." Dana laughed peeking into the hole she was a little banged up and covered in dust but otherwise looked okay. Sam and Alex stepped beside her. The only one not coated with flaking plaster and debris was Sam.

"Kind of." I groaned. "What..." I looked around.

"Milo is a fucking Unseelie Sidhe for starters." Sam grumbled.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, Prince Fuck-face's men took him with them through the portal before the house came down. I feel like a moron."

"Don't."

"All this time I was suspicious of Craven. Meanwhile I was the one fucking an Unseelie and literally planning our next move with him."

"It's okay, you just..." I winced and stumbled forward with the pain.

"Yeah, and I sort of didn't get the barrier up around you in time." Sam rubbed the back of her head.

"So I had a house fall on me?"

I certainly feel like that happened.

"Kind of. Look on the upside? Cael probably thinks you're dead."

"I guess that's one way to look at it."

"You didn't go all Wicked Witch of the East. Aside from this whole thing being bust you're at a two fer."

It doesn't feel that way at all.

I took a deep breath and my knees buckled from the pain as spots formed in my vision. Suddenly I found myself once again comatose.

Consciousness returned in bits and pieces, my eyes fluttered opened but I couldn't make sense of my surroundings at first. Light whited out everything completely, I gasped and choked panicking for a moment unable to make out where I was. My damp hair clung to my skin I twitched and water sloshed around me. A fuzzy figure soothed me, pulling me back against a hard chest. I instantly knew who it was by the tingle his touch left behind.

"She's awake!" Craven yelled as he pulled me closer, kissing along my cheek as he practically crushed me. "Don't do that again, in the name of everything don't scare me like that again."

My mouth tasted distinctly metallic.

"What happened?" I croaked through chapped lips.