Alison laughed. “No worries, kid. I’ve got a very precise swing.”
Christina threw her pitch. Her mouth fell open in disbelief when the girl smacked the ball in the exact direction where she’d predicted. Alison was halfway to first while the ball still arced high in the air. Christina laughed as she hurried to the outfield.
“To second, Aidan!” she called out to her son, who was running toward the far reaches of the yard, long, thin legs pumping, his eye never leaving the flying ball.
A sliver of anxiety cut through her sense of fun when Saint called out sharply as Aidan neared the tall hedges.
She realized too late what the boy planned. Aidan crashed through the hedge after the ball, his thin body squeezing through what looked like an impenetrable space. She knew there was nothing on the other side of the bushes but a small spit of sand and Lake Michigan. Those tall hedges represented the eastern-most boundary of Whitby, at least in Christina’s mind.
And maybe, when it came to magic, a consensual belief that a certain thing consisted of a boundary was all that was required…
She ran past second base and kept going even as she heard Saint call out in his deep, ascendant-rich tone behind her, ordering Aidan to come back. With his supernatural speed, he was just ten feet behind her when she crashed through the tiny opening between the hedges. She was so concerned for Aidan’s safety that she ignored the scraping branches on her face and bare limbs in addition to Saint’s barking command for her to return.
What she saw on the other side of the hedge struck her like a physical blow. What happened next occurred so quickly, it later became a blur in her memory.
“Aidan,” she screamed, but the thin body of her son remained unmoving in the arms of the tall, muscular, chestnut-haired male Christina had seen on the subway. He wore a long, thick, black leather coat and gloves, despite the summer sun.
Javier Ash.
Ash snarled at her like a rabid animal, exposing his fangs.
In the distant part of her brain, Christina saw that the Scourge revenant’s pale, usually flawless cheek was mottled by a web-work of dark purple blood vessels. Aidan had left his mark on the monster before he’d been knocked unconscious. She remembered what Saint had said about her touch, how she’d felled the Scourge revenant without having any notion of her power.
She flew at Javier Ash.
“Let go of my son,” she seethed, fist cocked to strike.
Ash obviously recognized the threat of her. He leaned back, hissing as he avoided her fist. The abrupt movement caused him to slip in the sand. Christina took advantage of Ash’s instability and snatched her son. She yanked until Aidan’s body fell against her and spun, sensing that Saint was directly behind her.
Saint grabbed instinctively for Aidan’s limp body when she shoved him in his arms. A large shadow fell over them. At the exact moment Christina released Aidan to his father, Ash hooked his leather-covered forearms beneath her armpits.
And she was being lifted, the ground soaring away from her at an alarming rate.
“Saint,” she screamed, experiencing a moment of total disorientation as she rose through the air, flying when her feet had just been on the ground. She glanced back and up, shocked to see that she and Ash were clutched in the bony claws of a huge nightmare bird, the same bird Christina had seen take flight in the subway tunnel. The animal shape taken by—
“Teslar,” Saint bellowed, his eyes blazing as he looked into the air above her. He handed Aidan to Fardusk, who had just raced onto the beach. Saint took a running start and leapt, his facial muscles rigid with fury and the great exertion of his impossibly high, flying jump. Christina reached for him—a beautiful, avenging angel—but Ash jerked her back against his body.
And her angel had no wings.
Saint’s grasping fingertips brushed fleetingly against hers.
“Better luck next time, Saint,” Ash taunted in a rough, snide voice.
Saint let out throat-ripping roar as he fell away from her. His wild, desperate gaze never left her face as he plummeted to the earth. Christina never looked away either. Not even when her struggles caused her to slip in Javier Ash’s hold. The revenant cursed viciously and readjusted her, trapping her arms next to her body with his squeezing, steely embrace, forcing her into immobility.
Only when she could no longer see any of the small figures gathering on the beach, only the gray, choppy waters of Lake Michigan, did she look up again.
She saw the underbelly of the blood-red bird and a pair of beating, leathery wings that encompassed a twenty-five-foot span when spread. The deadly bird—Teslar—dipped its head and pinned her for a moment with its blue-eyed stare.
Christina felt heat rise beneath her skin.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Aidan lay in his bed in the coach house, his hand clutching Saint’s tightly. A purple bruise had formed just beneath the skin on his right temple where Ash had struck him.
“Javier bashed him a good one, but he’ll suffer no long-term damage,” Fardusk proclaimed after he’d finished examining the boy.
“But what about Mom?” Aidan muttered, the wild concern in his aquamarine eyes cutting at Saint.