AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Gabriel gave no sign of hearing, but a shield of moonlight formed around him. The spirit warriors bounced off it like balls tossed by a child—and dissolved to nothing. Gabriel seized Jan by the throat with one hand, vising hard enough to stretch the wizard to his toes. With his other hand, Gabriel chopped down on Jan’s grip on Daniel, separating them with the sharp blow. Daniel fell to his knees, cradling his head, and the spirits flanking Nic vanished.
She jumped to her feet, moving closer to Gabriel in case he needed her. He spared her a glance—noted the blood on her arm with a mercury-bright flash of purest fury—and tipped his head for her to stay back. When Gabriel returned his attention to Jan, the wizard let out a garbled wail. Gabriel put his face close to the other man’s.
“Begone,” he growled. “Run home to Lord Elal and tell him that his daughter is my problem now. If he menaces my wife in any way—or attempts to abduct her again—I will consider it an act of war.”
With contempt, he dropped Jan, sending the slighter man staggering back, a look of shock on his face. “Daniel,” he snapped. The familiar’s head jerked up, a rictus of fear on his face. “To me.”
Daniel crawled to Jan, leaning his head against the wizard’s leg. “I’m sorry, master,” he whimpered, tears in his eyes.
Jan wrapped his fingers in Daniel’s hair, yanking his head back. “Bad dog!” he snarled. “Never abandon me like that again.” He glared at Gabriel. “Declare your war if you are that much of a fool. Elal is not afraid of farmers from the swamps of Meresin.”
“You should be,” Gabriel replied. No threat or bluster. A bald promise. “Youwillbe. Now go. If Nic or I sense you anywhere near, I will kill you.”
Jan gaped in outrage, Daniel sobbing at the twisting grip in his hair. “You wouldn’t dare—”
“Try me,” Gabriel bit out. A swirl of moonlight sharpened to a slim spike hovering in the air before one of Jan’s black eyes, and he froze. Gabriel smiled, not nicely. “Have a good journey.”
And he slammed the door in Jan’s face, locking it again.
~16~
Gabriel turned backto find Nic staring at him, green eyes wide and expression unguarded. The altercation with Jan had rattled her deeply. He needed to see to her wound, but settling her shaken spirits came first.
“Nice inn,” he said, removing his cloak and hanging it up. “Good choice. Comfortable room, too.”
Nic’s mouth moved, shaping silent words before she found her voice. “Gabriel, what was—”
He held up a hand to stop her, then pointed at the door. That Elal wizard might be lingering still, or his sentry spirits. He went to Nic, brushing a curl from her temple that had escaped the braid. “Are you all right?” he asked very softly.
She pressed her full lips together and nodded mutely, then leaned her face into his hand.
He bent to kiss her temple, brushing his lips over her ear. Then picked up her arm, pushing up the sleeve to examine the shallow slice in her lovely skin. It still oozed blood but didn’t look deep enough to require stitches. “Can you sense whether they’ve gone?”
A line formed between Nic’s elegantly winged brow as her eyes unfocused. “They’re not so close, I think.”
“Does he have anything watching us?”
“Don’tyouknow?” Nic searched his face, noting his incomprehension. “Nothing is watching us, nor will there be. You ruptured Jan’s grip on the spirits, and drained both him and Daniel down to nothing. He won’t be able to summon anything for days.”
“Excellent.” That had worked even better than he’d hoped. He caressed the underside of her arm, her skin so soft, her magic as delicious as mulled wine. And made himself step away lest he want to touch—to take—more. The image of that poor familiar on his knees, weeping as the wizard cursed him, had left a sour taste in Gabriel’s mouth. No wonder Nic was so wary of him. He didn’t trust even himself with her. “I brought you some things,” he told her, scooping up the packages he’d dropped.
“Things,” Nic echoed, watching him as if he made no sense, automatically taking the cloth-wrapped package he handed her, but not looking at it.
“Clean clothes?” He looked her over. She still wore her fetching but arguably absurd outfit. “I expected to find you already bathed or still soaking in a hot tub.”
“I… I thought I’d let you go first,” she replied faintly. “I know you’re exhausted—or I thought you were—so I figured a hot bath, food, and wine would let you rest, and then I could bathe after.”
A curl of warmth moved through him. She couldn’t hate him entirely, not when she considered his comfort like that. “It’s a good plan,” he agreed. “Let’s do that.”
“What? No. We can’t, not with what happened. How did you do that anyway?”
“Do what?” Since she wasn’t opening the package, he took it back and set it with the others on a table. “How does the arm feel—are you hurt anywhere else?”
She passed a hand over the wound. “It stings, but that will fade, and it should heal clean. How did you use your magic that way—did you actually form those spikes out of moonlight?”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“He guesses.” She recovered enough to glare at him. “You shouldn’t have been able to do that.”
