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“Okay, Fain.” Now that I had backup, I shifted into interrogation mode. “Where’s your boss?”
“Luca isn’t my boss.” She jerked up her chin. “What I do, I do for the cause.”
A shudder tripped down my spine as I wondered if Moran was hearing—or giving—similar speeches.
“Oh, goddess.” I leaned back against the SUV. “This should be good.”
“Yes.” Fergal’s voice dripped with disdain. “Tell us about this righteous cause you serve.”
“For too long, humans have held the upper hand. We have been forced to live in shadow while they?—”
With a practiced twist of his wrists, Fergal snapped her neck, and she hit the dirt in a pile of limbs.
“There’s no reasoning with the indoctrinated,” he explained, then went rigid with vampire stillness.
“You killed her,” Arden whispered through the window she must have cracked during the fight.
The otdrels we had killed fell easily into the category ofcreaturerather thanhuman.
Witches weren’t human, black witches especially, but we sure looked like them.
Shuttering his expression, Fergal nodded once to me. He crept back into the shadows to hunt for more witches as Arden raised her window and slumped out of sight.
Just as I was crouching to search the body, a tall man burst from the shadows and aimed his wand at the SUV. I didn’t think. I threw out my arm toward him, expecting an arc of deadly magic to shoot from my hand and strike him dead. But that trick belonged to the Hunk, not me, and nothing happened.
Except for me looking deranged for the split-second before old reflexes kicked in.
My one advantage was he had to touch the SUV to damage it. That suited me just fine. Since I had to make contact too, either through my wand or my hand, he was doing half the work for me by coming to me. All I had to do was make sure I tagged him before he contacted the metal.
As I drew on Colby’s power, letting it burn through me as I fought for control of it, the witch in front of me lunged. I didn’t see what happened next. Everything went loud and white and then black and silent.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
After I regained consciousness, the only reason I didn’t ground Colby for the rest of her life was because she had burned herself out helping me. I was still toying with the idea of banning her from Super Mystics during release week when Asa touched my arm.
Reflex tightened my fingers where I cradled an unconscious Colby across my blistered palms.
“She’ll recover.” He tucked her blanket around her. “She just needs rest.”
Asa had carried me to the SUV and laid me across the bench seat after I blacked out mid-fight. I was sitting up now, mostly under my own power, but my brave little moth girl hadn’t woken yet.
“How do you feel?” Dad stood beside Asa in the doorway. “You smell…”
“Crispy,” Asa supplied. “Your hair is fried at the ends, and your nailbeds are scorched black.”
“I taste barbecue every time I swallow.” I had flakes on my tongue too. “Pretty sure the barbecue is me.”
“Your familiar’s magic is pure, but mine isn’t. She was burning through it—throughyou—to help you.” A thoughtfulexpression settled across Dad’s features. “Perhaps that explains how she reached you. There’s a possibility her ambient magic is eroding the bindings I placed on you.”
If her power had been bashing against the block from her side, trying to get through, it could have done catastrophic damage to Dad’s spell. Especially now that it had been breached once.
“That’s…not great.” I shut my eyes, hating how my earlier thoughts aligned with his. “That means the Hunk could break through at any moment.” I hated to ask, but I didn’t see another way. “Can you bind me again?”
“Not without undoing the original spell.” Dad shook his head. “We can’t risk it.”
“The Hunk needs only seconds to devour you.” Asa, for once, agreed with Dad. “It’s too dangerous.”
“We might not have a choice.” I blinked away the sting of tears. “Eventually, I mean.”
