Broken Warrior (The Weavers Circle 1)

Clay reached over and took one of Dane’s hands in his. Dane squeezed it tight in both of his. He needed this. Needed to hang on to the belief that they would be safe, that Dane would be able to use his new gift to heal them all when the time came.

“I don’t disagree with you.” Baer stopped and scratched his bearded jaw. “But how the hell are we supposed to do that?”

“Cor,” Grey said, and Clay nodded.

“He’s not dead. I wish he was, but I think he had time to get out of the barn before it collapsed. He’s been alive too long, fought us too many times. He mentioned knowing another one of my incarnations.”

“He could have been fucking with your head,” Baer suggested.

“Maybe, but what if he’s not? What if he really does know us from previous battles? Maybe the pestilents can return home and heal. Stop rotting.”

“Then getting rid of him means getting rid of a valuable source of information for the pestilents.”

Dane’s hands tightened around Clay’s, his heart picking up its pace as he followed the puzzle pieces his lover was snapping together in his mind. “If you guys have spent centuries killing off hordes of them, they have to protect the leaders who have faced you and survived. They are the ones that give the pestilents an edge over the Weavers who have to start from scratch each time they’re reborn.”

“Okay, so killing Cor means disrupting the pestilents enough locally that we might be able to sneak in a new Weaver or two before the pestilents can replace Cor. Or worse, one or two of their own wizards,” Grey said. He spread his hands in front of him. “How?”

“I don’t know,” Clay admitted with a sigh. “But I know that we will need to have our powers under control. I’m…I’m still struggling.”

“Clay, we’re all figuring them out,” Baer said with a laugh.

Clay shot the man a disbelieving smirk. “You managed to call the squirrels in for an attack while you were mortally wounded.”

Dane snorted. “You even made a Wizard of Oz joke.”

“Yeah,” Baer sighed. “I was out of my mind. I wanted the birds to attack so I could go all Tippi Hedren from The Birds movie, but they were pissed at Clay shaking the earth. Only the squirrels were willing to listen.”

Grey groaned loudly, but Clay pressed on. “Do you think you can now shift from animal to animal without shifting back to human first?”

“Not right now, but yeah…I think I’ve got it figured out.”

Clay nodded and looked over at Grey. “You’ve been dipping into minds for weeks now. Two days ago, you had a flock of delivery men clucking in the front yards like chickens, and you didn’t even break a sweat.”

“True, things are making more sense, but I’ve yet to see how I’m going to be of any use from the standpoint of my powers.”

“I have a feeling they’ll come more into play when the pestilents bring in their own wizards to fight us.”

“What about your powers?” Grey arched one eyebrow at him. “Feeling up to a battle?”

“No,” Clay said.

Dane’s blood ran cold at that single word. Clay was the strongest of them. The man was an immovable mountain. How could he not feel that he was strong enough?

“But the vines? And the trees throwing pikes at the barn? That was amazing!”

“I lost control.”

Dane shifted to the edge of the love seat so that he could more clearly see the worry written on Clay’s face. Not that he needed to. He could feel it along with the growing sense of failure and fear twisting inside his lover.

“What do you mean?”

“The vines started out under my control when they attacked in the field. The trees as well. But at the end, the power broke free from me. It was attacking and I couldn’t stop it. I-I was terrified that Baer and Grey were going to get hurt in the onslaught. It took everything I had to pull the power back.” Clay released Dane’s hand and looked at his empty palms turned up toward him. “Every time I tap into it, there’s just so much, and it’s trying to swallow me whole. Like being dropped in the middle of the ocean and I’m being sucked down. How am I supposed to control the ocean?”

Dane had no answer to that shaky question. He looked up at Baer and Grey. The redhead was staring at him with a look of open concern, but Grey seemed more speculative. Was the Soul Weaver reading something in Clay’s thoughts, emotions, or just his aura? Please let him have an answer for Clay.

“Right now, I’m the weak link in our chain—”

“Our very short chain,” Baer teased.

“I will get a handle on my powers. I swear it.” Clay looked up and pinned Grey and then Baer with a hard look before he sucked in a deep, cleansing breath. “In the meantime, we need to figure out a way to take the fight to the pestilents. We need to eliminate Cor and as many of the pestilents that are currently in the area.”