Their End

Chapter 7 | Pack Magic Consultant

REMI

“I think I know what to do!” Sammy announced as she came into my office.

“You know how to put out the flame?” I exclaimed. “Oh, thank goodness! King Aedean is really not happy it’s taken this long.”

“Oh, no, not that,” she said, dropping into the seat across from me.

“Ugh!” I groaned. I pushed my hands through my disheveled hair again. Fifi and the flame were like a sword hanging over our heads at all times.

“But I think I know what to do to get us closer,” Sammy said confidently.

“It’s been two years,” I reminded her. “You’ve made four trips to the Summer Fae Palace, and we’ve read every word we could translate about the flames. I basically know the Fae language now.”

“Such a handy skill,” she brushed me off. “And we’ve read all their legends. We are getting closer. The more magic Fifi eats, the more she smokes.”

“Because the fire is burning more,” I concluded.

“Do you remember the thing we read about immortal objects?” she asked.

“Mostly,” I nodded.

“Well, that wasn’t the first time I’ve heard them mentioned,” she said. “The immortal flame was just the one I found the most evidence about. There is so much magic in this realm, and I always thought it was strange that we guarded this knowledge so heavily. I hated being so restricted, which is why I left my coven. I think I need to keep researching magic. The flames were put out before. There is a way. And maybe there is more out there we don’t even know about yet.”

I sat back in my chair and folded my arms. “You want me to what? Make you our official Pack Magic Consultant?”

She shrugged. “Don’t really care what the title is. You already gave me the room off the library to move my workshop into.”

“Why ask me and not Calder and Cullen?”

Sammy raised her eyebrow, and I had to concede. While my mates had gained a lot of respect for Sammy and accepted her as part of the pack, they weren’t entirely happy about the flame and dragonborn she had brought into our lives. While the kids loved Fifi, she was a handful. And the fire inside her was a problem.

While Sammy’s magic had become a normal part of life for us, she had to be careful around Fifi. Occasionally, Gentry dragged his mate out to train with him and my mates. They would have Sammy try to hit them with her magic while they tried to get to her. Fifi would crash their training and try to catch Sammy’s magic with her mouth. She didn’t care that she would get a stomach ache until the fire somehow died down afterward.

“I even know what I’ll do first,” she added. “Officially.”

“I’m all ears,” I nodded.

She grabbed her messenger bag and pulled out a large pouch from inside. She dumped the contents onto my desk. Silvery blue light shined over the surface of the hand-sized pieces. “Are those Fifi’s scales?” I asked, grabbing one.

“Yeah. She sheds these everywhere,” Sammy smiled.

“They’re beautiful,” I noted, turning over the hard scale in my hand. They were surprisingly light.

“They aren’t just pretty to look at. They are practically indestructible,” Sammy said confidently.

“How do you know?” I wondered cautiously.

“Tests,” she shrugged. She pulled out a notebook and passed it across the desk. I flipped open the leather cover to reveal meticulously documented notes. “Remember Gentry’s chipped tooth a few weeks ago? I had him try to bite through one. We learned two things that day. Wolves can’t bite through the dragon scales, and werewolf teeth do not heal themselves.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised. This was just how she operated. I flipped through the pages. She had recorded all the tests she did on the scales, including small drawings and diagrams with well-articulated conclusions. I gasped when I got to the last page of the journal. “Is that?”

“Dragon armor,” Sammy smiled confidently. “I have enough of these stashed away to make a few prototypes. I want us to be prepared for anything that comes our way in the future. Calder and Cullen are strong on their own. Ryker does a great job with the pack warriors. But you can only do so much against magic.”

“Wow,” I breathed. The plans Sammy had drawn out in her book were incredible. “You really think you can do this?”

“What’s the point in having more magic than should be physically possible if I don’t use it? This is just the beginning,” she told me.

“What do you mean?”

She slipped a folded-up piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to me. I unfolded it and scanned the page. The words all seemed like made-up fairy tale relics that were named to sound ominous and powerful.

“Like Immortal Flames?” Calli snorted.

“What is this?”

“That is a list of magical items I want to locate and retrieve. I want to find them, figure out exactly how they work, and see if they can be used to our advantage,” she explained.

“If they can’t?”

“Then we protect them. Just like the Summer Fae kept the ember under lock and key. We keep them out of the hands of magic users like Voldigoad and my mother,” she said, squaring her shoulders. She was serious about this.

I picked up the dragon scale again, rubbing my fingers over the soft surface. It was like someone had polished the thing until it reflected light like a mirror. What Sammy was proposing could end in disaster. What would other packs, or even other races, in the Supernatural Realm think if they found out we were collecting and hoarding magical objects? Potentially dangerous magical objects.

Something had changed in the realm when we killed Voldigoad. It wasn’t obvious at first, but it was there if you paid close enough attention. Who knew when things would get flipped upside down again?

“I need to talk to Cullen and Calder about this,” I said carefully.

“I figured,” she nodded. She pulled one last thing out of her messenger bag.

“You came prepared,” I laughed as she handed me a small presentation booklet. I saw similar ones when I visited the Carlisle family business with the twins.

“I figured your megalomaniac mates might appreciate a formal proposal,” she smiled.

I rolled my eyes. That hardly described them, but I could appreciate the teasing.

“I’m not asking for a handout,” she continued, more serious now. “I want to do my part to help the pack. Just because Voldigoad is gone doesn’t mean we’ll never face another threat. Let me do what I’m good at to help make this pack unstoppable. Those stuffed-up old bags on the Elder Council won’t have anything to complain about when their Alphas have one-of-a-kind transformative dragon-scale armor.”

I smiled brightly. This felt… right. This felt like something we needed to do. We had hit a wall with all things dragonborn, immortal, and flames. Maybe we needed to broaden our magical horizons to find a new lead. “Maybe if you stop making slices of cake float through the air from the kitchen to your bedroom, they’d stop being so put out,” I laughed. Calder had dealt with a particularly disgruntled Council member only a week ago when a slice of chocolate cake had flown right into the back of his head.

“Hey, I’m telling you. There is no better post-orgasm treat than a huge slice of cake eaten right off those gorgeous abs they work so hard to maintain,” Sammy laughed back. We both couldn’t contain our giggles.

I gave her back her list and notebook and tucked the proposal into my top drawer for later. “So, how long until we can see this armor?”