Obsidian Son (The Temple Chronicles Book 1) by Shayne Silvers Read Free Book Online Page B

stairs three at a time, whipping up all sorts of nasty to dish out on this bitch. But all my power was invisible. No pretty shape-shifting for the wizard. No one could see all the beautiful raw energy surrounding me, dancing from my fingertips, awaiting my command like a one-man rave party. As I breathed in more power, my senses magnified. Smells contained tastes, my vision was sharper, able to pierce more of the darkness, and the tactile feedback of my fingers sliding down the mahogany stair rail was as euphoric as a lover’s lips brushing an earlobe. But no one could see a damn thing for all my hard work.
    The world was unfair. Gunnar had a fucking outfit, and he still looked cool.
    “Sic her, Gunnar!” I yelled as I threw pulsing blue lights into the air around her, hoping to confuse her or ruin her night vision. Then I let loose a hurtling streak of fire towards her beautiful rack, hoping to mar her perfect nudity.
    Her face began to stretch, her tongue momentarily growing longer before a flicker of hesitation crossed her eyes and she became normal again. What the fuck ? My fire struck the wall behind her, neatly slicing through a framed movie poster as she effortlessly sidestepped and unleashed a screaming yellow ball of her own fire at me. I ducked behind a divider, and the ball slammed straight through it, shards of wood and glass biting into my arms and neck. A particularly long sliver of glass sliced deep into my forearm, which instantly welled up with dark, thick blood. I grunted in pain as my whole forearm flushed with heat.
    Oily fire rained down upon a table behind me, igniting a small stack of precariously balanced books. She was some flavor of shape-shifter, but with much more control than even Gunnar had. Freaky. And I still didn’t know what she had been about to shape-shift into. A demon of some kind by the looks of it. That wasn’t good. Demons were hardcore. But I didn’t have time to call for backup, despite the rules. If it was a demon, I would deal with it and apologize later.
    From the shadows, Gunnar abruptly appeared in his Underdog undies, shattering through yet another glass divider to grab the woman by the throat. But his long ivory teeth snapped together with a loud empty clack as Raven dodged him and then used his momentum to throw him through yet another of my oh-so-expensive glass dividers. She grinned, slinging balls of slimy fire from her fingers after Gunnar, but he was already gone, melting back into the shadows of my store like a wraith. The fire slapped into a window, the glass spider webbing with cracks before finally shattering into the street.
    I gathered my will and threw a battering ram of force straight at her smiling face. She leapt impossibly high into the air to dodge my attack, but the force caught her feet, sending her cartwheeling into the shadows with a groan of pain. I heard an immediate growl, the snapping of jaws, and then a sharp piercing whine as I saw Gunnar fly directly into the brick wall, the impact knocking a cloud of dust from the rafters high above. He struggled to his feet with another whine, shook his head, and then let out a piercing howl of rage that made my forearms pebble with gooseflesh.
    Now he was pissed. Gunnar’s icy werewolf eyes latched onto mine and I took a reflexive step back, wondering if his head had been knocked loose enough to now see me as a threat. But he simply stared. I held up a finger, and motioned him to circle around the edge of the store. He slipped back into the shadows without any acknowledgement of my plan. I hoped he understood, because it would take both of us to take down this monster.
    Raven cackled again. “Is this all you’ve got? And I had heard so many tales of the legendary Temples. You’re putting up even less of a fight than your parents did.” My vision went red so suddenly that I almost froze, thinking she had cast a spell of some sort on me.
    But it was just rage, an emotion that I was very, very comfortable