Atomic Mage by Garrett Carter (short books for teens txt) 📕

the barge would be a gamble that he didn't want to take.

He could stay connected to Kaz easily, ready to stop him from escaping with their only mode of easy transportation through the thickly forested jungle.

He reasoned a lengthy enough distraction though was all it would take for the young man to shove off with the craft.

So he stepped off the barge, forcing the slaver to follow him into the tree line.

Trailed by a suspiciously compliant Kaz, Cade followed the feeling to what he assumed was a small slaver scout camp for his target 100 miles upriver.

Kaz's objections to the contrary notwithstanding.

He found a faint path that curved around a bend in the thick jungle as he and his charge came across a small camp in disarray.

A few dead bodies littered the ground, mismatched armor covering the fly and maggot covered corpses.

Cade looked around the destroyed camp finding a pile of four bodies the slowly fading rage was coming from.

Lifting bodies with his power he saw a pitch black-furred tail revealed as he lifted the first body.

Bracing to defend against an angry and wounded jungle cat that had gotten into the camp he continued his corpse removal.

Looking over the corpses he was removing he invariably found throats slashed, eyes missing, and one with a massive hole where its windpipe used to be.

"Didn't know what hit them" Cade mused as he lifted the last body, a particularly large one with his guts hanging out, his abdomen torn to shreds.

As he got to the bottom of the pile he was surprised to find that the large jungle cat he expected to find was in fact a short black-furred cat woman laying on her side.

Finding her as the reason he was here Cade was further surprised to find her still alive even if just barely.

Kneeling next to her he started looking over her injuries, deciding to stabilize her and see what happened here a day's ride from his new home.

Scanning her injuries a quickly as possible he found the most serious to be her bowels that had been perforated by three arrows.

Removing the three broken arrow shafts in her gut while healing the damaged intestinal tissue elicited a weak yowl from the delirious cat woman.

He almost leaped back from his patient, ready to fend off her lethal claws.

The panther woman remained still though, clearly out of it.

Cade blew out a breath and glared at Kaz who was attempting to hide his mirth at his flinch away from the clearly unconscious woman.

Applying a less than gentle smack to the back of Kaz's head with a small branch Cade got back to work on the panther woman's injuries.

The damage repaired he began the process of killing off the gut bacteria that was slowly eating the woman alive.

Focused intently on his task he had all but forgotten his unwilling companion on this little excursion.

His inattention cost him as Cade was violently reminded that Kaz was there.

His upper back was suddenly drenched in a foul-smelling liquid as a hot burning sensation followed the horrible rotten egg smell.

He grunted in pain as what he assumed was acid ate through his shirt quickly and began to eat into the flesh of his back.

He threw off his shirt watching the fabric melt under the power of the corrosive liquid.

Healing the chemical burns and lifting the suicidal slaver off his feet took less than a second.

"That was a mistake, Kaz." Cade said as he turned around and looked into the terrified eyes of the man who had just tried to turn him into a puddle of good.

The skin of his back was healed but the searing pain felt like it was still there, eating away at his flesh.

He was not so proud as to deny his next actions might have been a little petty but the asshole had been a pain in his ass since he had captured him.

Deciding turnabout was fair play he began breaking down the bonds holding Kaz's body together from the bottom up.

As Kaz screamed in agony, his disbelieving expression locked on Cade's mostly neutral one, as his feet melted into a pile of foul-smelling goop gave Cade a modicum of petty pleasure.

As Kaz continued to scream Cade decided he had better things to do after a few moments of viewing Kaz's execution.

Tired of the screaming from the murdering slaver he scrambled the boy's brain and let the partially disintegrated body drop with a small sigh of relief, glad to not have to watch his back any longer.

Turning back to the cat woman Cade felt a razor-sharp-clawed hand grasp his throat.

Looking down from his kneeling position he found a golden eye looking at him as she weakly struggling to turn his way.

Grasping the clawed hand with his power, he dropped into the woman's mind and was intrigued by the mindscape he found himself in.

A dense jungle going through what Cade felt was a rage-fueled hurricane was laid out before him.

Taking a few steps toward the tree line Cade was taken a little aback as he came upon what he assumed was the woman's mental shield.

Prowling toward him were ten huge black panthers, tall enough to look him in the eyes.

Hee used this tried and true method of walking through them to be met with growls and claw swipes.

Jerking back instinctively he gave a short chuckle and reached out with a mental hand on each of the mindscapes defenders and forced them to the ground.

The giant cats fought fiercely in