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"Nah," Arman says as he shakes his head and sits back down in his leather armchair. "I don't need a relationship with the witches. Eliminating them is the only way we'll have lasting peace between the factions."
My face puckers at his approach to leadership.
"But you just told her—"
"I told her what she wanted to hear so she would leave and suspect nothing," he says with a smug, satisfied grin. "She can run back to her coven and tell them things are peaceful again. They'll be sleeping on beds of false trust when we kill them in their slumber."
I cringe at his words and hope he is too busy monologuing and looking off into the distance to notice.
"And you know what?" he says with a devious smile, like he just thought of something entertaining. "I think I'll kill her first."
"What? Why?"
"Because she seems too eager to get involved with the vampires."
I hold it together and force myself not to react. Even when Arman calls in his top henchmen and puts a hit on Blair's head to take effectimmediately, I still don't let myself so much as flinch. And when Arman doesn't get the response from me he's looking for, he gets bored and dismisses me.
I race out of the den and toward Blair's apartment. I have to warn her that she needs to get out of the city before Arman sends his goons to kill her. Vampires are fast, and we can move silently when we want to. They'll come for Blair and then kill the other coven witches, and before any of the other supernaturals know what happened, the coven will be extinct.
But Blair doesn't listen to my warning.
As soon as the words fly out of my mouth, a look of stubborn defiance settles on her face. I was afraid she would react like this.
"I can't leave Boston," she protests. "And I can't abandon my sisterhood."
"You don't have a choice. Arman is coming for you. He's sending his men to—"
"What do you expect me to do? Just run out of my apartment with the clothes on my back and leave my whole life behind?"
I want to tell her that having a life at all is the important thing right now, but she won't listen.
"Blair, you're indanger," I reiterate as calmly as I can. "I raced here as fast as I could to warn you, but Arman and his men are coming for you. If you wait to run, it'll be too late."
"I'mnotrunning away," she says, putting her hands on her hips.
I've never met anyone so difficult to protect. Not that I've ever actually tried to protect anyone before. Usually,I'mthe predator, not the protector.
"The lunar eclipse is in a few hours. I'll used the enhanced celestial energy to cast a binding spell over Arman and his men."
"You can do that?' I ask, wondering why she didn't lead with that. "If you can take them down then what was the point of that private meeting? Why bargain with Arman if you can just stop him? I didn't think your magic was powerful enough to take the whole clan on."
"It's not. I can'tstopthem, at least not permanently. I can only pause them for a bit, and only because the lunar eclipse gives me a boost of celestial power. I can bind them and freeze them to buy some time to figure out what to do."
"How much time?"
Blair shrugs, which isn't reassuring.
"It depends on how powerful they are. Binding spells aren'tone size fits all. The more powerful the people that are being bound, the less time the spell will hold them. And sometimes it's just luck."
"Luck?"
"Yeah, sometimes the magic just fizzles out early or lasts longer than expected—it's not an exact science."
"So, you're telling me that you can cast a spell over the entire clan, and you don't have any idea how long your binding spell will last, or who will come out of it first?"
"Pretty much," she answers seeming much more aloof than the situation warrants. "But it should at least hold them for the night. A few hours would give me time to come up with a plan by morning."
That sounds overly ambitious to me.
