Allison’s face blanches at the thought of a crazed delphic mage knowing that she’s onto him. This is exactly why I have to talk to him. He's the reason for those looks, for the prejudice against our kind. If he continues with this crazy plot then there’s no way I won’t get taken out in the crossfire, especially when he believes I’m his destined queen. The entire thing sounds like a crazy bad dream.
“He’s not going to hurt anyone I know, not if he wants me to be his queen. Please, he might me insane, but he’s not stupid.”
“Wow, I'm so flattered by your words, Elise. Truly.”
All of us whirl toward Alagan’s cruel voice, flinching. Instead of his schoolteacher’s uniform, Alagan is wearing a tight fighting suit made of hard leather plates of black armor. His storm gray eyes blaze in contrast, as does his similarly colored hair, braided perfectly to keep it out of his eyes. A long, gruesome looking sword is strapped down the length of his back, and various other daggers are hooked along his body. If he didn’t look like a king before, he certainly looks like one now. He’s practically a painting from the old texts made flesh, as if he had stepped right off of those fading cream colored pages. He watches me with that same predatory stillness that he exhibited the other day, his mouth set in a cruel twist.
I don’t know how it happened, but I had ended up in front of all of my friends, pushing them back toward the steps, my hand still on Demetri’s arm. “What do you want, Alagan?”
He closes his eyes, as if savoring the way I spit his name. “Ah, Elise, I’ve waited centuries to hear you say my name.”
Demetri’s arm strains under my palm, the only indication of his rage. Discomfort comes off my friends in waves, slamming into me. I don’t know why I’m suddenly feeling everyone's emotions so strongly over the last few days, and smelling things I shouldn’t be smelling. I can practically taste the desire and arrogance coming from Alagan.
My skin crawls at that purring tone. “Stop that, I’m not yours.”
His eyes snap open, a fire of rage flickering there before an easy grin replaces it. “Not yet, but only because you don’t know the whole truth.”
“Yeah? And I suppose you’re here to enlighten me?” I ask, edging halfway up the stairs, urging my friends to continue the slow ascent.
He watches us move, amusement on his face as he begins flipping a dagger. “You came to give me a piece of your mind, did you not?”
Maybe the steady minded people behind me were right to say that this was a bad idea. Too late now. “Something like that.”
He rolls his eyes. “Say it with conviction. I abhor all of the beating around the bush of this era.”
This era? How old is this male? At first glance I’d guess between twenty eight and thirty, but the slow aging of delphic mages. . . He could be centuries older than his looks let on. Could he have been training for this, waiting for this over centuries? The thought makes my blood turn to ice, filling me with dread. If that’s true he’s even more powerful, more experienced than I thought.
“Explain it then, Alagan. Out with it.”
He grins, flipping the blade, pointing it up at my friends who had made it to the top of the steps. With that single flick of his wrist, the doors seal with phrenic magic, spitting a silver glow. I look between them, and the man below me, a feeling of being caged setting into my bones.
“First, there’s the matter of your friends. They’ll be a nice addition to our army, don’t you think?” He asks, studying his nails.
“Don’t you touch them,” I growl, stepping forward.
Golden magic writhes along my arms, and I pray to god that the light show is enough. I’m not sure that I can summon anything stronger than this. Not right now, not after completely draining my well throughout the week. He watches my hands with rapt attention, his mouth practically watering. He doesn’t want to rule with me as his queen. He wants to possess me. The thought brings a snarl to my face.
He takes two steps toward me, laughing. “I’m two hundred years old, Elise. I’ve had lifetimes to devote to magic. You’ve had months. That’s it.”
He steps further toward me, burning the grass beneath his feet and cooling it with water all at the same time. Earth rises around us, rumbling the ground beneath our feet so badly that I stumble to one knee, wind whipping my face. A dome of rock covers the stairs, keeping us away from prying eyes. Even while using all four of the earth's elements his eyes glow with silver phrenic magic, keeping the doors sealed. This massive display of power rocks through me, but I force the fear down, down, down. Now isn’t the time to fall to my knees and weep. To declare him my king and allow him to haul me away.
Because he’ll kill my friends either way. Worse than that. Take their bodies hostage.
“This is a bit archaic, don’t you think, Alagan? That I have to kill all my friends before I can be with you?” I spit with as much venom as I can muster.
He smirks, still advancing, and the near god-like glow in his eyes makes me swallow hard. “Oh, Elise. You’re young, you’ll get over it.”
The fear at my back is near crippling, all of my friends feel trapped against those doors, feel death creeping up like a slow moving bullet. But at the same time there's a sense of power rippling down the stairs, nudging me. I glance back at them, and step back until my body is touching their outstretched hands. Power floods into me, breaking whatever damn I had put up these past few weeks against siphoning from everyone and everything around me. Probably broken by fear, by desperation. The golden glow coming from my skin amplifies tenfold, forcing Alagan to squint his eyes.
I step away from them, my power well full, and snap out my hands. The approaching fire from Alagan’s power is blown back by a gust of wind, extinguished. He narrows his eyes as I stalk down the stairs, power brewing within me and behind me. Earth magic explodes from Aden as pillars rise into the sky, slamming against the dome again and again. The sound is deafening, but I continue forward. Demetri’s phrenic magic attacks the binding on the third year doors as I conjure a flaming sword in my palm.
Alagan’s grin returns as he unsheathes his own, a brutal black iron weapon engraved with an ancient language I can’t read. Without hesitation, I leap off of the final stair and swing, putting the full force of my delphic magic behind it. Alagan meets me without flinching, and the resulting sound is a sonic boom that shakes the dome. We break away, dancing around each other, both of us have a feral sort of amusement on our faces.
“This is what you were made for, Elise. You can feel it too,” he purrs before advancing again.
I lose my smile as we trade blow after blow, not only dodging each other, but also the falling debris from Aden’s assault on the dome around us. It feels like a choreographed dance, us flipping and rotating with a grace I didn’t realize I possessed. It makes me remember what professor Elphane had once said.
They have the ability to steal another's magic power, borrowing it in a fight with all of the mastery of the original wielder.
Am I unknowingly learning everything Alagan’s throwing at me? Siphoning not only magic, but knowledge? If so, I’m grateful because I’d be dead right now without it. He faints one way, and I follow before realizing it was a trick. He spins, his sword only a blur through the air before bringing it down on my open left side. It slices through my skin easily, quickly, and I don’t even have time to scream before I fall to my knees.
My eyes drop to the open wound, gushing blood flows over my hand despite me holding pressure. I duly recognize a screaming voice from behind me as phrenic magic hits Alagan in the back, forcing him to stagger forward. His power flickers as rage overtakes his features. No, I think to myself as he turns toward the stairs, the full attention of that power focusing there. I stagger to my feet, the fire sword flickering dully as if the magic is leaving my body as fast as my blood.
Gripping the sword with two hands, I lunge, and the world moves in slow motion. Alagan brings his hand up, a white light blasts from it toward the third year building,
one five times stronger than anything Demetri had summoned in response to my wound. My sword descends from its arc too late, cleaving through open air where the beam had been a second before. In that same moment, my magic sputters out, the sword disappearing as I fall toward the ground. Alagan catches me in his arms, falling to one knee to do so. I want to move, to get away, but my body isn’t mine to control anymore. Not after so much blood loss.
His eyes meet mine, again the soft grey shade they were when we had met. White magic glows along his hands where they lay against my stomach, and a faraway part of me realizes that he’s healing me. A boom echoes across the space, and the earth magic assaulting the dome stops abruptly in response, but Aden had done enough damage. The wall of rock around us shudders, fissures cracking from top to bottom, crawling along the structure.
Our eyes are still locked, my body still refusing to head to me.
Dull screaming fills my head as Alagan leans down to brush his lips against mine, that glowing healing magic flowing between us. My eyes roll back into my head as his lips move against mine, and I surprise myself when I respond eagerly, moving my own against his in return. The magic filling me is intoxicating, mouthwatering. But it’s dark, so, so dark. Midnight black inside me, but soothing as it caresses every deep secret part of me. Something even better than what Demetri can supply. He. . . Demetri’s name sparks me to remember myself, but when I rip my lips away, it’s too late. Alagan knows I enjoyed it, writhed within that kiss. Thrived within it.
A sensual smile covers Alagan’s features as I scramble away, not even noticing as rock falls around us, so close I’m sure I’ll be crushed at any moment. It’s like we’re in this impenetrable bubble, a space for two connected souls, connected by that dark magic, by what he made me feel when he possessed me with his mouth. I swallow down my guilt, trying to push away the thoughts of kinship, of. . . of longing.
Alagan stands, and when he begins moving toward me again the sound turns back on. My head whips to the stairs, and a breath of relief flies out of me. A shield of phrenic magic protects my friends, weak and cracked, but still there. But Aden is lying beneath Demetri, lying too still to be alive. Horror coils in my gut. Did he take the blast for everyone else?
I fling my hand out as a large chuck of rock hurtles for the stairs, phrenic magic strengthens the shield before it hits, and it holds firm. After ensuring their safety I turn back to Alagan, who I know is now standing in front of me, waiting. No sword in his hands, no ill will. No sense of destruction in his posture.
Our eyes lock and I can’t look away from him. His skin glows brighter to me, his eyes appear softer, friendlier, and my fingers ache to touch him. What has he done to me? But his eyes are a mirror of my own, filled with the same longing, the same uncontrollable feelings, mixed with surprise and confusion. A feeling clicks in my chest as I stare at him, solidifying whatever this is between us in a final sort of way.
Fear fills my chest as my body begins to shake.
Instead of focusing on it, I throw my hands into the air, golden light arching out of them like lightning. It shatters every remaining part of the dome into rubble little bigger than mist. It falls around us, coating everything in red clay like the aftermath of an explosion. Shouting comes from far away, as does the sound of pounding feet.
Alagan takes two steps backward, the bond between us pulling taut at the distance, and his eyes widen. We watch each other, both of us feeling a beautiful sense of devastation at what this is. I step forward, a strange sense of need writhing within me, but he steps away again, disappearing. He was there one step and then gone the next, only a wisp of phrenic magic left in his wake. I fall to my knees, gasping at the sudden feeling of loss, clawing at my chest, trying to rip out this bond, this horrible bond. Something that hasn’t happened in millennium, and only applies to delphic mages so destined for each other, so compatible, that it’s out of their control.
Somehow, some way, Alagan Jacobsen, the two hundred year old evil delphic mage, is my fated mate.
Epilogue
Teachers and students alike rush into the space, looks of shock and panic coating their faces. They notice the students huddled on the stairs first, rushing to their aid as Demetri drops his shield. A bulky looking male professor grips his arms as he fights and claws to get to me, to make sure that I’m not still cleaved in two from that blow Alagan had made. Allison is lying across Aden’s chest, sobbing as white light pours out of her before fading into his skin.
My mate.
My mate.
My mate.
It echoes through me, forcing everything else to sound more like static, far away and unfocused. The world tilts as I slam into the ground, my fingers still twitching toward a space Alagan no longer inhibits. The longing eats at my insides, peels apart my skin, breaks my bones. It’s almost unbearable, and my stomach roils, my whole body shaking.
Someone drops to their knees beside me, rolling me over to face their worried face. It’s Aden, a bruised looking, almost dead looking, Aden. But he’s alive. The word clangs through me, forcing me to blink up at him. The only sign I can give him of my relief. His hands scour the flesh under my torn shirt and come back bloody even though the skin is smooth, healed completely.
Someone tugs Aden to his feet and he fights them, a wild expression on his face. It’s Allison, tears sliding down her own cheeks as her eyes devour me, trying to see the injuries. I want to tell them that I’m fine, but I can't find my voice.
Mate.
Mate.
Mate.
The world spins as I force my forearms underneath me, my knees onto the rubble below me. My body trembles with the effort, still aching fiercely for the male who had disappeared in that mist of magic. Through sheer force of will I climb to my feet to face my friends, to clutch their forearms. Allison glides her glowing right hand along my body, confirming what I already know to be true. I’m fine, completely healed, when my body should be cleaved in two.
A force plows into my back and I stagger, almost falling to one knee before turning. Demetri is there, and his hands come up to hold either side of my face, gently, sweetly. The touch brings me back to reality, switching gravity and sound back on. It hits me full force, the screaming. The teachers asking us one question after another, about what happened here. Demetri and I ignore them as we hold each other, locking eyes as our foreheads fall against one another.
“You’re alive, you’re okay,” Demetri murmurs over and over again against my skin.
My hands wrap around his back as I absorb his soft voice, his magic. His presence calms the raging beast inside me, the urgency I have to find the one person I’d rather die before loving. Before wanting. My chest fills with it, forcing all other emotions and urges to take a back seat. If I focus all of my energy on Demetri, on this connection we seem to have, I hope it is enough. But my mind whispers what I’m afraid may be true.
It’s only enough for now, enough until he leaves my side. . .
And. . .
And. . .
I’m not sure if it will be enough to keep me from him.
The End
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A Charmed Mind: Mage Paranormal Romance (Illusions Academy Book 1) Page 14
