Chaos Tryst Read Free Page A

Medveds were all bears. Ari would have struck herself on the forehead if she had a hand free. Who could forget that?
    Sleep. She desperately needed some.
    Focus, woman! Ari mentally shook herself. You haven’t had any rest, you’re facing off with a bear, and the fact he’s a Faeble makes those teeth and claws all the more dangerous… He does have really pretty eyes though. Kinda dreamy and…aw, c’mon!
    Her lack of focus had given the bear the opportunity to rise onto hind legs. Ari threw her staff above her head and braced herself. The bear’s claws came down on her hands, the pressure painful. She looked up to find him smiling as he clamped his paws over her hands. He had her caught.
    They struggled, forward and back, in an unwitting imitation of a waltz. One, two, three. One, two, three.
    Perhaps it was the contact of skin to paw-pad that caused the magick to coalesce. Ari couldn’t be sure but she watched in awe as chaos magick swirled to life in a three-dimensional octagon-like thing between them. It hung in the air, bobbing in time to their impromptu dance. As suddenly as the magick formed it stopped and split into eight disks. The disks shot out, breaking into fractals—the pattern repeating—at varying distances before reversing. Sucking back into themselves, the disks imploded into nothingness.
    Ari and the bear both sagged beneath the weight of relief.
    BOOSH! The chaos magick exploded. A dizzying tumult of rose-colored particles surged in all directions. The force shattered the stained glass window above them in a rain of brown, red and green shards. Only the bear’s body and the thickness of his fur protected the pair.
    Good riddance, Ari thought as the last of the glass hit the stone floor. Seizing the moment, she pulled down on her staff for leverage, planted her right foot on the bear’s belly and ran up the front of his body. Reaching his head she kicked him in the chin. He released his hold on her hands as she swung over the top of her weapon and landed a few feet away with the staff held firmly in her grasp.
    The creature charged but Ari used what she’d learned from her first failed attempt and slid between his hind legs, staying low.
    Clear of the bear, she ran toward one of the statues gracing the foyer. Hoping she’d timed it right she slammed one end of her staff into the sculpture’s base. The wood extended in the effort, pole vaulting Ariana Golde, Triumphant Returner, through the opening left by the shattered stained glass and outside to freedom.
    Only the prudence of holding on to her staff stopped Ari from giving the bear a mean ole one-finger salute in parting.

Chapter Two
    “We must go.” Maks growled at his brothers. He’d started to pace, rubbing his sore jaw as he moved. They were losing the girl while his elder brother, Dmitri, flailed on the floor.
    “Toes,” Dmitri said, “I cannot feel my toes. Are they still where I left them, Kostya?”
    Konstantin, the youngest of the three, stared at Dmitri for a moment, his brows drawn up into an inverted V. “Mitya, you think of toes when it is your balls you should worry over.”
    Dmitri moaned again and continued to roll from this side to that, his hands firmly cupped over his groin. “I know my balls are here, Kostya.” He wheezed in Konstantin’s direction. “They are screaming at me. It is my toes I have lost all contact with.”
    Konstantin looked at Maks in concern and Maks gave him a blank glare in return.
    “Maks,” Dmitri said from a new angle on the floor. He’d folded himself into a fetal position, a comical pose for one so broad shouldered. Maks pressed his lips together. He would not scoff. He would not. His brother was in pain. He had never seen his, quite literally, bigger brother react to an injury in this manner. Dmitri was stoic in most situations—the apotheosis of masculinity. Why was he rolling around like his bike had been stolen and he’d taken a beatdown for it? Besides, they were losing the