by Ella M. Lee
Eventually, Nicolas returned with two of the Water Clan guards. He appeared to be arguing with them in low tones. I looked at Daniel, alarmed.
“What’s going on?” I asked, still feeling groggy.
Daniel sighed. “Typical Nicolas. He wants to finish this thing with Derek himself, so he’s ordering the security team back to the clan house.”
“Can he do that?” I asked, surprised. “Does he have that authority?”
Daniel shrugged. “Technically, the security team is managed by Arturo, one of Water’s pinnacle members, but no one says ‘no’ to Nicolas.”
I studied Daniel with wide eyes. Pinnacle member was a serious title. There were usually only three pinnacle members in a clan. Commanders themselves, they were the advisors to other commanders and the guideposts and guardians of the clan, usually old and experienced and incredibly respected. That Nicolas could order around the staff of a pinnacle member was telling of his role within the clan.
I recalled a memory of him telling me Water’s council was made up of the three pinnacle members, the chairman, and eleven other powerful commanders. I stopped, thinking about how vaguely he’d described his own participation.
“Um,” I said carefully, “Nicolas isn’t a pinnacle member of Water, is he?”
I thought I had probably heard the names of Water’s pinnacle members before, back when I was part of Flame, but I couldn’t recall any of them right now.
Daniel smiled. “No, no. But… if any of the current pinnacle members died or stepped down? He’s a clear choice for next in line.”
I turned my eyes on Nicolas. So much more about him made sense now that I knew exactly how high up he was within Water. Nicolas, who had been made a commander in record time, who advised the council on when and where to meet, who could stare down Derek, who needed an unshakeable reputation among his peers. Nicolas, whose Water magic was beautiful and enviable.
Right now, he was listening patiently to the two security guards, all of them occasionally pointing to the two unconscious mortals who ran this restaurant. He cast his eyes in my direction and looked me up and down. I smiled tentatively, still unnerved by his position in the clan.
When he finished his conversation, he came to me and Daniel, beckoning Ryan over to where we sat.
“Teng, Keiji, and Collin are getting the two Meteors back to the clan house for further questioning,” he said. “Even if they don’t confess, the circumstantial evidence of Derek attempting something in collusion with them is pretty damning. He was sloppy about this, amazingly sloppy. I love it. Anna and Michael will fix things here with the restaurant. The damages aren’t too bad, and it should be easy to smooth things over.”
“And us?” Daniel asked.
“Time to go corner Derek,” Nicolas said, his wolfish smile appearing once again. I noticed that he had used my words from earlier.
Daniel helped me stand, and I swayed, blinking blearily. He and Nicolas exchanged a look.
“I can’t,” Nicolas said, presumably answering Daniel’s thoughts. “No time. She has to come with us.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
Nicolas reached his hands out to me. “Can you handle my magic right now?”
I nodded hesitantly.
He offered his hands to me, palm up. “Don’t use it—that will exhaust you—but having it in you should clear your head.”
I put my palms on his and gasped as his magic flooded into me. He’d given me much more than the first two times. Daniel tightened his hands on me, holding me up. I blinked several times to clear my vision, breathing fast. Nicolas’s magic writhed and slid under my skin, lovely but wild.
“Oh,” I said, about to remove Nicolas’s ring.
He held up a hand. “Keep it. It’s probably safer with you for now. Ready to go?”
“I’m okay,” I said, touching Daniel’s fingers with mine, trying to dislodge them.
The magic had energized me. Once I had pushed it back and bound it into ropes, I could walk without stumbling and think without feeling like my brain was operating underwater.
Daniel held my hand as we followed Nicolas and Ryan out of the restaurant and back into the sunny day. I listened while they discussed plans for getting back to the car and driving to the meeting location. We didn’t have a lot of time to spare if we wanted to beat Derek there, which was Nicolas’s plan, so we hurried toward the hotel.
I took deep breaths, trying to further calm the magic within me. Water magic was more relaxed than Flame magic, but it still had a pressing desire to move all the time. I understood now why powerful Water magicians like Daniel and Nicolas chose to let their magic rest within nets around them. It was probably easier to handle if given the leeway of even a small playground.
The drive to Derek’s meeting place was not long. Nicolas brought us swiftly through narrow roads that led up the side of a mountain. Daniel studied his phone and occasionally made road suggestions, which Nicolas would take, veering quickly.
Our ride ended at the top of a winding driveway. In front of us was a white house, multileveled and expensive looking, although it now seemed overgrown and dilapidated from disuse. Nicolas crawled the car around to the back so that it was out of sight.
He parked and closed his eyes. We all waited several moments while he searched for visions. He pointed to the house.
“Go,” he said to Ryan and Daniel, who got out of the car. “I’m right behind you.”
Ryan was wearing a block-sync ring on his right hand, all his magic dark and dormant. Nicolas wanted to keep Ryan’s presence a secret.
Nicolas watched them for a moment and then turned to look at me, his eyes serious and intense.
“Lamb,” he said, “I’m having a hard time seeing what’s going to happen, but I know I need your help.”
Chapter 27
“What?” I asked, startled.
What could I possibly offer Nicolas with both Daniel and Ryan here?
“You’re going to be bait,” he said.
My eyes widened. “I… Do I—”
I was about to ask if I had a choice, but then I realized it didn’t matter. I wanted to help Nicolas. Sure, it was dangerous. Sure, I’d already had a concussion and several injuries today. Sure, I’d known these people for all of a week and had never worked with them before. None of that mattered right now with Nicolas looking at me hopefully.
Maybe Ryan hadn’t done as good of a job as I had thought when healing my concussion.
I wanted to impress Nicolas, and I was fairly confident that I could. I just had to trust that he wouldn’t let me die during my sudden fit of bravado.
“I’m not going to let you die,” he said. His tone implied my thoughts had offended him. “Daniel is here. Do you think he’d let you die?”
I sighed. “What do you need?”
“Derek will be able to detect me immediately because I’m not wearing my block-sync,” he said. “That’s fine. He and his lieutenant will approach the house, notice me, and come around back in an attempt to leave. But… he’ll see you waiting, and that will entice him. He likes messing with me, and he is too arrogant to let this opportunity go.”
“So Derek maybe tortures and kills me while you three wait inside,” I said. “Okay, got it.”
Nicolas gave me an exasperated look. “He doesn’t want to kill you, not yet. He just wants to take you from me. I’m not going to let that happen.”
“There seem to be a lot of what-ifs in this plan,” I said.
“Wait here,” Nicolas said. “When Derek grabs you, I need you to be clever. He knows nothing about your skills, and he won’t know you have my magic in you with that ring on. Keep yourself alive, assess what’s going on, and do what makes the most sense. Our goal is to overpower Derek. Daniel will handle his lieutenant. Ryan will do whatever is needed, including calling in backup, if required. He knows me and will be able to make those decisions himself.”
Nicolas’s calm gaze told me he had zero doubts about his p
lan, but I was not so confident. Still, I nodded skeptically.
Nicolas reached out and took my hand in his. “No fear right now. I need you focused. Center yourself again. Everything will be fine.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said, with a fair bit of uncertainty, trying to bring myself into a calmer state.
“Stay here, lamb,” Nicolas said. “I’m going to ward and shield the car. Expect Derek to shatter the shield in about three minutes.”
He threw himself out of the car, leaving me no more time to ask questions or voice concerns.
I could see that working in Nicolas’s group—if I ended up joining it—would be arduous and trying. I was starting to regret my decision to stick with Water Clan, but only a little.
I liked Nicolas’s brazen attitude, liked that he had the fearlessness and self-assuredness to enact this operation on the fly, liked that he thought he could pull this off. He had foiled my group’s assassination attempt, after all. How poorly could this really go?
Hopefully I wasn’t completely wrong.
I sighed, sitting back, vaguely annoyed by the magic swimming in my veins. I tried to keep from looking around myself. I didn’t want to seem like I was expecting Derek to show up. It was raining now, and the drops made tiny sparks where they hit Nicolas’s shield, beautiful but distracting.
If I let myself think too closely about the part Nicolas wanted me to play today, I felt very anxious. Derek was tall and muscled and a powerful magician. I was really hoping Nicolas was right and Derek’s plan wasn’t to snap my neck quickly along his way to escape.
I just had to get through this and Nicolas would take me home.
Home.
I had just called his clan house my home. I didn’t know how I felt about the fact that I could so quickly reorient myself to a new life. But when I thought about how protective he’d been today and how competent he and his group members were, it was hard to be too upset. If I had to start over somewhere, wouldn’t it be better to do it with them?
I had closed my eyes for what I thought was only thirty seconds when the shield around the car shattered into mist.
I opened my eyes just as the car door opened, and I was pulled out and sent tumbling out onto the wet ground. I was momentarily distracted by the feeling of water on my skin. With magic in me, it was practically pleasurable, a feather-light spiraling touch of intense sensation.
When I looked up, I was met with Derek’s furious green eyes.
Fuck.
That brought me down to earth. I scrambled back quickly, but he grabbed me, hauling me to my feet, my back to him. His hands were huge, one around my neck and the other locking both my wrists together behind my back. I struggled, but he shook me violently.
Nicolas? Nicolas! I thought. Where are you?
I tried to land a kick behind me, but Derek dodged it. I tried again and connected the slightest bit with his shins.
“Feisty,” he growled in my ear. “Quit it, or I’ll break your neck.”
“Fuck you,” I rasped, barely able to speak around the grip of his hand on my throat.
He dragged me toward the house, stopping twenty feet from the back door. I looked up, and my eyes were met with Nicolas’s cold gaze.
He stood in the doorway, one hand resting casually on the frame, his lazy smile in place. He looked exactly like the deadly commander who had captured me and threatened me and toyed with me.
Nicolas Demarais, world’s best actor.
Daniel was slightly behind him, poised and ready for a fight. He, too, looked calm and composed. I noticed the position of his feet and knew that he was prepared to move in a second. Ryan was nowhere in sight, for which I was grateful. At least Nicolas had him in reserve somewhere.
“Of course,” Derek said. “No one is ever able to screw up my plans quite like you.”
“I have many talents,” Nicolas said calmly.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and took a step closer. I could see what he was doing: setting himself up with more space, clearing the doorway, giving Daniel room.
But Derek saw it too. He shook me violently. “Another step and your pet stops breathing.”
“Ha,” I said. “Like he cares.”
I didn’t know if I could rattle Derek, but I was certainly going to try. Nicolas had left me with very few instructions, but my plan was to get clear of Derek as soon as possible so that Nicolas could take over.
I was taking a risk by annoying Derek, but I didn’t think he would kill me instantly in front of Nicolas. That would leave him with absolutely no leverage, and he wouldn’t want to be in that position. But making someone angry and frustrated could cloud their judgment or distract them, so I wanted to do anything I could to bother him.
It also seemed to unnerve him, to hear such frank assessments from me, a mere mortal slave. He was breathing hard, tense.
“Shut up,” he growled.
Nicolas’s eyes went to mine for a moment, and I got a distinct hint of approval from his calm gaze. He was standing in the rain, hair glistening and dripping slightly. Daniel still hung behind him in the shelter of the doorway.
“You picked the wrong hostage if you wanted to walk out of here,” I said to Derek. His hands tightened on me. “Go ahead and kill me. Save Nicolas the time and energy. Maybe he’ll even thank you.”
Nicolas wouldn’t kill me, or so I now believed, but Derek didn’t know that. The last time he’d seen us together, Nicolas had shown me no mercy at all for the smallest transgression. I hoped that had made a lasting impression.
“Is that what you were aiming for?” Nicolas called. “Walking out of here with her? Or angling for a trade—you let her go, I let you live?”
I adjusted my stance under the guise of struggling, making the slightest motions possible, trying to get my balance. I blinked rain from my eyes. Right now, Nicolas and Derek were sizing each other up coldly, but I wanted to be prepared for any moves they made.
“I was hoping to avoid you entirely,” Derek said. “But this is fine too.”
“What exactly were you meeting Yulia and Alexander for?” Nicolas asked. “What are you planning?”
“No,” Derek said, laughing slightly. “It won’t be so easy to get the information you want, even with your mind tricks.”
My eyes went to Daniel. He was watching me. His chin dipped the slightest bit, and I had seen enough of his intense looks this week to know he was offering me encouragement. Every couple of seconds, his eyes flicked upwards, and I knew he was listening behind himself.
A moment later, he put his hands together in front of him. To most people, it would have looked like a casual gesture, but not to me. Daniel had shown me this position when we had trained together. He was transferring his weight because he expected an attack from behind.
Five seconds later, hands closed around Daniel’s neck. Daniel grabbed his attacker and hurled him over his shoulder, through the doorway, and out into the open space between us.
This short, rather burly man with curly hair must be Derek’s lieutenant. He wasn’t incompetent. He was on his feet in a flash, but Daniel was faster. He shot from the doorway at the man, knocking him off to the side and leaving the twenty feet between Nicolas and Derek clear.
As much as I wanted to track Daniel, I followed him with my eyes for only a second before refocusing on Nicolas. I had my own problems to deal with, caught between Derek and Nicolas.
Nicolas, I thought. I need my hands free. Help me out here.
Nicolas laughed lightly. “I thought I’d seen everything, but now you’re hiding behind a mortal woman? I shouldn’t be surprised—colluding with Meteor and now running away when you’re caught?”
“You know,” Derek said, “I almost left without bothering to stop for you, but then I saw this one.” He shook me harder than before. “I just couldn’t resist taking something of yours again.”
Nicolas had been right about him. It eased my mind that Nicolas could so easily predict his opponents.
As graceful as any dancer, Nicolas swept his right foot in front of him in an arc on the ground. From that arc spread his stunning magic, bubbling up water from the ground to meet the rain and freezing it into a solid sheet.
Ice.
Not just any ice, but perfectly smooth, sleek, glossy ice that shone like a mirror in the sunlight.
I shifted my weight so that my center of gravity was over my feet. I wasn’t on skates, but I could work with ice. My sneakers had great rubber treads, and I knew this surface far better than Derek probably did; I used to spend every other morning crashing into it during practice.
I cut my eyes to Daniel. He and his opponent both had shields up, and the sparks of their magic crackled as they used it on each other. Daniel was herding the other man farther away from us—they were almost around the side of the house—likely in an attempt to keep out of Nicolas’s way.
I told myself Daniel was okay. He was incredibly capable and impeccably trained. Nicolas hadn’t spared him a glance, which told me exactly how much he trusted his young protégé.
Derek was attempting to melt the ice around us, but Nicolas had made a thick sheet of it and was reinforcing it with a magical underline—a type of self-healing and self-replicating spell. Derek was simply making the ice more slippery by adding puddles of water to it.
Nicolas’s eyes hadn’t left me and Derek. Although he looked calm and serene, I could see precisely how uneasy he was, especially after seeing how relaxed he had been lying next to me this morning.
Thanks, I thought to him, raising my eyebrows. I smiled. It really is spectacular.
I still needed my hands free. I could certainly get away from Derek and tip the scale in our favor if I could use them. Nicolas was hesitating because of me, and I wasn’t about to be the reason that Derek escaped. I regained as much balance as I could, and now I needed to use it.
I scoffed. “Oh, Derek, so scary with your evil mastermind routine.”
“What did I tell you?” Derek hissed.
