Rooming with the Wicked

30 | team eleven

"Don't worry," Haze said," we manag—"

Fuzzy's jaws closed around his unprotected hand.

In the split second before Haze grabbed Fuzzy by the ear, his eyes turned pitch black. Then Kenas' gigantic form blocked my view as he charged at the three other shifters surrounding Haze. Judging by Fuzzy's yelp a second later, Haze won that battle.

Kenas shoved Aidan out of the way as he was about to bite Haze's injured hand, grabbed one wolf by the hind leg, and pulled him backward. The shifter struggled until my half-giant roomie finally pinned him to the ground by pressing one foot on his shoulder. Growling ferociously, the wolf snapped at nothing but air until some sort of realization seemed to set in that they were not getting out of that.

With blood dripping from his hand, Haze hopped over Fuzzy and held him in a headlock. The other brown wolf aimed to sink their teeth into Haze's calf, but with a quick sidestep on my demon roomie's part, the shifter jumped right into Kenas' waiting arms.

With Syn wrestling with Wolf Number Five, Aidan was the only one not currently losing to someone on our team. And he was fuming. Lips pulled back in a snarl, he ran at the only team member who likely wouldn't be able to fight him off with superhuman strength or reflexes.

Me.

Jaydis dropped to the ground right next to me and I heard the bowstring being drawn before I saw the tip of a silver arrow aimed right at Aidan. "Don't even think about it," Jaydis said, for once not playful whatsoever. His stance was relaxed, but the muscles in his arms were steady and taut.

Aidan skidded to a stop, his wide white eyes darting between us. When they settled on me, I knew he was past caring. Well, this time I wasn't about to give him the opportunity to attack first.

I uncapped the Crescetra, and once Aidan came at me again, threw the orange liquid in his path. Most of it landed in a puddle on the ground, but the moment he ran through it, it latched onto his paws and stopped him in his tracks. Literally.

"What's that?" Jaydis asked, eying the orange goo with what had to be scientific interest.

"A fun little science project," I said smugly.

That entertaining hyena laugh of his broke the tension instantly. "I think you and me need to start a study group for alchemy."

Seeing their team leader incapacitated, the other shifters stopped struggling and surrendered. They didn't look particularly happy about it, but who could blame them?

"Oh, I almost forgot." Jaydis lowered his bow and shrugged a black backpack—my backpack—off of his shoulders. "Figured you might want this back."

"I... Thank you." Losing the potions would have been unfortunate but otherwise unimportant, but my nightlight and binoculars...not so much.

After forcing Haze to let me apply some water rua ointment on the bite wound on his hand, we stuffed our glowing bundle of flags into Jaydis' quiver and started further down the mountain.

Hearing Aidan continue to struggle, I stopped to turn around. "It dissolves on contact with water," I said, nodding in the general direction of the stream. When he just tilted his head and stared at me, I shrugged and continued after the others.

"Dang," Jaydis said, "I would have loved to see him suffer a little longer."

Honestly, same, but maybe a little goodwill would help me figure out why the hell he had it out for me.

"Now that the crew is back together," Jaydis continued, rubbing his hands together, "you guys ready to win this thing?"

He didn't have to ask twice. With less than eight hours until the tournament was officially over, we had to get our heads in the game. Hiking through Ardua alone wasn't exactly a cakewalk.