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I lift my hands, curling my blackened fingers into fists, pulling on my Element as I do. The ground resists me. Faery’s not as malleable as the mortal realm. I strain, pulling harder, the muscles in my forearms and biceps knotting. Two huge stone fists rear up out of the ground. I bang my knuckles together. The Stonefists smash into Loyal from either side.
His scream is audible even over the flat hiss of the sand.
My Stonefists break the whirlwind now that I’m not pumping any power into it. The sand falls to the ground around Loyal with a soft hiss.
He’s hunched over, shaking from the battering the Stonefists have delivered.
I don’t hesitate. I choose us.
I line up on the side where he’s clutching his broken hand to his chest, step back to give myself momentum, throw out my right fist to distract him, and snap a roundhouse kick to his temple.
He goes down like a tree falling. I hear the rip of silk as he sprawls on the sand.
Don’t wear a silk suit to a kickboxing fight.
The Empyrean’s eyes don’t focus on Loyal’s face so I can’t see if he’s out. But a sudden surge of sound—voices calling my name and Dwight David crooning about the power of the glow—tells me the inner dome ward is down.
My boys wrap me in their arms a second later.
I burrow into Charlie’s chest. “Check him. Make sure he’s breathing.”
Charlie passes me off to Gabe, who strokes my face with his warm palm. The stabbing pain in my head eases. I open the well of magic inside me, which I held in reserve during the fight, and feed it to Gabe even as I work from within. My vision begins to shade in, shadows and then colors, until I’m staring at the beige and rose and deep blue hues that compose Gabe’s beautiful face.
The burning eyes in my mind close, and the disorientation of seeing out of my own eyes and seeing from above whisps away like the sands.
“Hey, baby boy,” I whisper.
“Hi, baby girl. Watching that took ten years off my life.”
“A century off mine,” Darwin murmurs, pressing in against my side. “I need to hold you, teddy bear.”
I stretch up onto my toes and kiss Gabe before turning into Darwin’s arms. “I’m okay,” I tell him.
He wraps me so tightly in his arms he lifts me off my feet. Gabe sandwiches me from the back and they hold me suspended between them.
“Feeling small and crushed in here,” I grumble.
“You looked like a giant out there. How the fuck did you know where he was to kick him like that?” Darwin asks.
“I’ll tell you later.”
“I would also like to know the answer to that question,” the Liusaidh says.
I could lie. I’m not an accomplished liar like Da, but I can control my face and body well enough to lie to this woman. I don’t owe anything to anyone in this room except my boys.
But I also don’t see why I should have to.
I wriggle out of Darwin’s arms enough to get my trainers on the ground. I turn to face the dark-eyed elder. My boys huddle around me.
“Did I break any rules?” I ask her. “Did I use any power other than what resides inside me to win the fight?”
“No,” she says crisply. “I saw no infraction. I felt no interference. But if you are to handfast to a prince of this court, then I would like to know what you are capable of.”
“Given that I’ve been here for a day and already been challenged to a duel, I’d say it’s in my self-interest that this courtnotknow what I’m capable of.”
She smiles, her cheeks rounding like apples under those dark eyes that remind me of Doctor Prince’s. “Very well. I’ll expect you for tea tomorrow. Darwin will escort you.”
“Yes, Liusaidh,” Darwin says from behind me.
