Free Felling Kingdoms (Book 5) by Jenna Van Vleet Page A

Pike stretched a grimed hand towards him. He stopped solidly, fingers reaching for him. Pike’s face was furious, and he seized Void, his head the only part not encased in thin metal.
    Gabriel waggled a finger. “I would not lay a Void pattern with my mind if I were you,” he taunted. Pike’s angry eyes became dark once more, and he bared his teeth.
    With a controlled cry, Gabriel lifted his leg off the impaling stone, using Earth to pull the flecks out. Blood instantly gushed down his leg, and he knew he had to move quickly as he bound the wound with a cloth-pattern.
    He shifted to Lace whose face and hair were glossy with sweat. Two women stood around her, one dabbing her head while the other felt her belly. They looked up as Gabriel appeared.
    “Oh, Gabriel,” Lael breathed. “You are wounded.”
    “We have to go,” he stated and scooped the tiny woman into his arms. She was a mess of blood and water, trembling in pain. “What did he do to you?” he whispered vehemently. Lace put her head on his shoulder and released her tension into him as she shook. “I am taking her to Castle Jaden where she will be safe,” he stated in Arconian to the women and zipped to where Pike still stood. He tried wrenching himself free but only succeeding in cutting his neck.
    “Lace, can you make a connection with him?” he asked quietly. She nodded faintly and took a fistful of the Arch Mage’s hair, gripping tightly to make him grunt. Gabriel shot them towards Jaden, feeling the fatigue in blood loss as he bled into his boot.
    “What happened?” he whispered, resting his tired head on hers.
    “He just appeared,” she winced. “And threw me down.”
    “I’ll get you patched up. I can fix this.”
    “I do not need to be fixed.” Her voice rose in pain. “Gabriel, I am going into labor!”
    “What?” he breathed. “Oh my stars. You’re too early!”
    “You are going t’ be a father,” Pike grinned maliciously.
    Gabriel shot a sleepers-pattern into his head, and Pike fell silent.
    Castle Jaden loomed in the distance, and he slid through the wards, racing up to the infirmary, and severing the pattern in the atrium. The yellow-mantled woman at the desk started and quickly stood shouting for help.
    Gabriel remained rooted to the spot, leaning all his weight on his right leg knowing the left would give if he tried to walk. His face felt cold against Lace’s hot hair.
    “Head Mage, give her to me,” a man said as he rushed up.
    “She’s in labor. Bring your best midwife. Someone find Mage Afton and Lewis and do not let them leave her side.”
    Lace reached out a hand for him as the man took her up. “My hips. My hips are too narrow for this.”
    “We can manage it.”
    “No,” she said, her voice filled with tears. “I want you there.”
    “Head Mage, you need to sit,” someone said behind him.
    “I will be right there,” he said. “Take her.”
    Gabriel fell back into a chair as healers flooded into the atrium, staring at the unconscious Arch Mage incased in metal. “Send for the Secondhand,” he said, and someone to his left rushed off.
    A blond man knelt before Gabriel and took up the left leg, ripping the fabric of his trousers on both sides. “Hello, Head Mage,” the man in his middle years said cordially, reaching fingers inside the wound and pinching something. The bleeding slowed dramatically. “I’m Ailin. You Classed me last week. You took quite a wound here.” He peered in and set a white pattern inside, removing his hand as he realigned the severed artery. “Alright, just a minute more.”
    He set multiple white patterns, and the muscles reconnected with a sucking sound. Gabriel watched the man work carefully, impressed with his grasp of healing despite being a Gaelsin. Once the skin sealed, Ailin gripped above the knee and bent the leg back and forth. He clamped his hand on the thigh tightly. “Feel t’at?”
    “I do.”
    “Wondrous well,” Ailin nodded and gripped the back,