Page 137 of Twist of Fate

They had come to make certain it was destroyed.

Black-green light erupted in the corridor. The burst slammed into the doorway and threw Keir back two steps. Tyson hit the wall, the metal panel clanging from his hands. Asterius caught himself against the nearest server rack.

A voice rolled through the room, amplified by magic.

“Objective complete. Withdraw to the secondary position.”

The remaining attackers pulled back immediately, one after another. There was no panic in the movement and no attempt to carry their wounded. They abandoned the server room with the same discipline they had shown while trying to enter it.

“Retreating,” Zer said.

Keir regained his stance. “Repositioning.”

“To where?” Luke asked.

No one had an answer.

The last enemy in the room smiled through blood on his teeth.

Then he bit down on something.

Connal saw it and moved, but not fast enough. The man’s body convulsed, black-green light cracking beneath his skin. Connal seized Luke and drove him backward just as the corpse burst into smoke and ash.

The blast wasn’t large.

It didn’t need to be.

It filled the server room with choking grit and a stench like burnt herbs, hot metal, and rot. Luke coughed hard, his eyes watering. Connal kept one hand locked around his arm until the smoke thinned enough to see.

Bodies lay across the grated floor. The server-room door hung broken from one hinge. Beyond it, Hale lay crumpled against the corridor wall, his eyes open and unseeing. No living attackers remained in sight.

For now.

A faint cough came from above them.

Avaneel fluttered down from the top of the server rack, her wings and hair coated in gray ash. Zer held out one hand, and she landed in his palm.

“You are hurt?” he asked.

Avaneel shook her head, coughed again, then climbed onto his shoulder and disappeared into the protection of his hair.

Connal turned Luke toward him.

The fight had given them a breath, and Connal used it to confirm what the first frantic glance could not. His hands moved over Luke’s shoulders and arms before one settled against the side of his neck. Connal’s thumb brushed the bruising there, sending heat through the unfinished bond.

Luke caught his wrist. “I’m alive.”

Connal’s jaw tightened. “I noticed.”

“You looked like you needed the reminder.”

“I need many things.”

Luke’s laugh came out rough and almost broke in the middle.

Connal leaned forward until their foreheads met. The contact was more collision than tenderness, held still for one stolen second amid the wreckage.

Tyson coughed behind them. “I hate to interrupt whatever terrifyingly romantic thing this is, but ‘secondary position’ sounds urgent.”