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Laurence bares his teeth, and the gesture is all wolf even when they stay blunt and very human. He’s lived so long among shifters that the gesture feels as natural as breathing, particularly when a group of unknowns is threatening his family, his pack, his child.
Anna doesn’t quite hide behind him, she hasn’t done so for years, but she is wary. She knows that even though her magic is powerful she is just a child, and having it doesn’t mean she can control it. Laurence is so, so grateful that the lesson stuck and that she is not about to put herself in danger because she thinks herself unstoppable.
She will let him take charge, he knows. But he also knows that she won’t be cowering away. Her fighting stance and the fierce set of her eyes assures him of that, as well as the soft, pulsating glow that’s starting to pool between her palms.
His own magic surges, steel-gray dominating the usual green, as he prepares to do whatever needs to be done in order to protect his child.
(The odds are against them, he’s aware. There are at least thirteen people and all of them are adults, most of them a shifter of some kind. His battle magic is good, but not that good, and Anna’s barely trained and only twelve years old. If Börl, Arden, Naomi and the others don’t come soon, things will get ugly.)
(He needs to buy enough time.)
(He will.)
And then, before he can even start, Anna yelps. Screams.
Laurence swirls around and freezes, unable to react in time.
A portal had opened right behind Anna. A thin, spindly hand had shot out of the swirling darkness and snatched her by the arm, dragging her away. She struggles and blasts a burst of concentrated magic into the portal, but it doesn’t stop. Laurence is moving towards her, but the distraction costs him and one of the shifters tackles him to the ground.
“Dad!” Anna screams, scared and desperate, and Laurence struggles harder with his captor. He manages to push him away just in time to look up and catch her terrified dark eyes fill with tears as the darkness swallows her whole.
“Anna!”
His magic explodes.