“I am asking.” She held his gaze steadily. “I’ll never ask anything of you again, if you’ll promise this.”
His lips twisted wryly at that. “A positive outcome—if we survive, I’ll be spared your many demands.”
“Yes, you will,” she replied gravely, not taking the bait.
“I’ll try.” Sidestepping her, he held up a hand to fend her off. “That’s the most I can promise. Don’t ask me for more than that,” he added harshly. Then he spun, searched the sky, and let out a bark of a laugh. “Dark arts fuck me. I should have known.”
“Who is it?”
Jadren cast her an oblique look, seething with dark emotions. “Your life is safe, sweet Seliah. Mine…” He laughed again, looking to the sky. “Well, it was always worthless anyway.”
“Don’t say that! I—”
“Selly!” Gabriel’s voice rang through the trees. A flash of silver and Nic in her alternate form landed in a small clearing ahead, Gabriel improbably on her back. He leapt to the ground, rushing toward them.
Selly exclaimed in wordless relief, ready to embrace her brother. But his trajectory changed. As he ran he extruded a silver sword of moon magic, his expression fierce and terrible, magic palpably streaming from him as he charged at Jadren.
It happened before she could react, her mind dully far behind what her eyes reported. Gabriel—a violent storm of motion unlike she’d ever seen from him—pierced Jadren through the heart, pinning him to the tree behind him.
She might have screamed. Absurdly, Jadren laughed a third time. He looked down at the sword impaling him, the bright blood darkening his black shirt, then raised his gaze to Gabriel’s. “Fairly done, Lord Phel.” He twitched a hand as if to salute, but couldn’t lift it. It fell weakly to his side. He said something more, words too quiet for her to hear, then collapsed, like a wax doll, held upright only by her brother’s sword.
Now she screamed.
~ 22 ~
Selly’s screams drowned out everything, all sense, all rationality. Gabriel heard them, but couldn’t seem to look away from Jadren’s unnaturally pale face, his hair bright against the waxen skin, darker blood spattering him. Jadren’s last words echoing in his mind.
Then Selly pushed past him, reaching for the sword to pull it out, crying for Jadren to wake up. It broke Gabriel’s heart and he pulled her away, lest she harm herself. She turned her fury on him, a whirlwind of fists and feet, flailing at him and screaming denials, hurling curses at him. He tried to contain her, but that had never been easy when she was crazed like this, especially without hurting her. With a despairing heart he realized she’d lost her mind again, not knowing him or that she’d been rescued. They’d brought her back from the mists of insanity only to lose her again. He wrapped his arms around her, talking to her soothingly, urging her to silence. They weren’t that far from House El-Adrel and he’d just killed the lady’s son. They were far from out of danger.
Something butted him from behind, hard enough to make him stagger. Nic, her faceted eyes flashing with demand. Oh, right. Grateful that he didn’t need to spare a hand to touch Nic, that their bond let them work together without having to physically touch, he drew on the silver webbing that connected her to him, pulling her through to her human form, making sure she would manifest wearing clothing appropriate for trekking through the woods. Including boots. He’d once forgotten to give her shoes and she’d hid the fact from him, both pieces of that particular incident enough to make him grind his teeth.
Nic appeared fully shod in good boots, glaring at him in purest fury. “Put her down!” she snapped.
He was so shocked, so taken aback, that he did so. Selly immediately stopped fighting, hurling herself at Jadren’s bloody corpse, sobbing as wildly as she’d been struggling a moment ago. “Help me,” she cried to Nic, tugging ineffectually at the embedded sword.
“Oh, honey,” Nic said, going to her and stroking Selly’s shorn hair, kissing her tear-drenched cheek. “I’m so sorry. So very sorry.”
“He tried to kill him,” Selly sobbed. “Gabriel, he—he…” she broke off into heartbroken weeping.
“I know, my darling. I know.” Nic glared daggers at him, a keen-edged counterpoint to her softly soothing voice. How could you? She clearly demanded with her gaze. “I thought we were going to wait for explanations,” she said aloud.
“What explanations?” Gabriel demanded, feeling supremely and unfairly abused. “He bonded her and look at Selly, she’s clearly out of her mind again. We don’t know what all he did to her, but there’s no doubt he deserved to die.” Though a niggle of doubt did worm into his heart. Those last words… “My only regret is that he died so quickly.”
“I am not out of my mind!” Selly stopped struggling to withdraw the sword and faced him squarely, burning with righteous rage, her silvery magic boiling in a way he recognized very well. Tears flowed down her cheeks, her short hair waving in wild, uneven curls. She looked older somehow, no longer the little girl in a scrawny, coltish body. “Jadren saved me,” she said, dashing away the tears. “He sacrificed everything for me. He bonded me because he had to get us out of that place.”
Uneasy, Gabriel did his best to assimilate that information. Behind Selly, Nic stood with arms folded, emerald eyes hard, clearly conveying an “I told you so” of epic proportions. Unable to face her righteous judgment, he focused on Selly, searching for words. He had nothing.
“That’s right,” Selly snarled. “You tried to kill the man who saved me. Now pull out that sword so he can heal.”
“Selly…” Nic wrung her hands, regret dampening her magic. “The sword pierced Jadren’s heart. He’s dead.”
Behind him, Jadren coughed, a wet, horribly hacking sound. “Not quite,” he grated out.
Feeling as stunned as the expression on Nic’s face, Gabriel turned in slow disbelief. Selly let out a glad cry, spinning around and embracing Jadren, showering his face with kisses. It wasn’t easy, what with the sword embedded to the hilt in his chest, but she nimbly dodged it.
“Off, you feral creature,” Jadren said, his voice weak. “Make yourself useful and pull this fucking thing out of me.”
“Right! I’ve been trying.” Laughing and crying at once, Selly fastened her hands around the hilt, braced herself, and pulled, budging the sword only slightly.
