Vail growled and tightened his grip on her and didn’t release her neck.
“Or not,” she muttered and tossed an apologetic look at Fenix. “Just give him a little longer.”
Fenix paced away from them, stopping at a point where the desire they were both feeling didn’t bombard him or fill him with a need to sweep Evelyn into his arms and kiss her until she submitted to him. He was trying to focus on the mission, but gods it was hard, felt as if the entire universe was challenging him and it was only a matter of time before his resolve crumbled.
“I think we should find the mage who cursed me and Evelyn.” He started pacing, trying to work off some energy, hoping the motion would help him remain focused. “I don’t want her to die again and I don’t trust that whatever Archer did to her has changed anything. If she dies, she’ll forget everything. The curse will activate.”
His gaze collided with Evelyn’s and he could see in it, and feel in her, that she wanted the curse broken too. It wasn’t only important to him. It was important to both of them.
“Shouldn’t we be focused on getting Aryanna away from Archangel?” She looked as if she hadn’t wanted to ask that question and he had the feeling she had only said it because it seemed like the right thing to do—focusing on the greater good rather than just the two of them.
He had been living a life of hell since they had been cursed and while he was worried about the world just as much as she was, he was more worried about letting this chance they had slip through their fingers. If Archer’s intervention did mean that the curse wouldn’t kill her, as it already had, then they had time to find the mage and fix their problem.
They might never get another opportunity like this one.
So he was taking it.
“I don’t think that’s going to happen without waking her and we don’t know how to wake her.” He looked from her to Rosalind and Vail, and thankfully the elf was done sucking on his mate’s throat and arousing her. “You saw her. She’s in some kind of sphere of magic or something and Archangel can’t break it, and I don’t think we can just teleport into it and whisk her out of there. Archangel would have tried that.”
“True.” Rosalind slipped from her mate’s lap and set her empty drink down. She tapped her chin, her expression growing pensive as she stared at the endless blue sky. “A sphere of magic.”
She wandered a few steps from her mate and then back to him, and idly stroked his hair as he gazed up at her.
“Would another spell free her of it?” Vail settled his arm around her waist and she shrugged.
“Maybe. But what spell?” She broke away from him again, moving towards Fenix, and then stopped dead. “We could ask Archer.”
“Hell no,” Fenix barked. “Team up with the warlock who wants her for himself?”
“I don’t think Archer wants her,” Evelyn murmured and he sensed her nerves. Because she was defending Archer? Fenix knew that despite what Archer had done Evelyn still didn’t consider him the enemy and he only hoped that didn’t bite her on her arse. He didn’t like the male, wanted him dead, but he wouldn’t view her with scorn because she could see the good in him. She placed her mug down on the tray and shook her head as her brow furrowed slightly. “I think Archer wants to free her because she’s asking it of him. They’re connected and she’s speaking to him.”
Rosalind arched an eyebrow at that. “Speaking to him? That doesn’t sound good. A powerful sorceress trapped for millennia in a big ball is speaking to a Crow. This can only go badly.”
“Very badly indeed.” A deep male voice rolled around them like thunder.
Fenix swung left and then right, his senses reaching out as he tried to locate the owner of that voice. The chair Vail had been sitting on toppled as he stood sharply and growled, and Rosalind muttered something beneath her breath in a strange language as she came to stand between Fenix and Evelyn.
Evelyn locked up tight.
Fenix looked at her and then in the direction of her gaze.
The air there rippled and Archer lunged out of it, appearing in a swirl of violet sparks on a collision course with Evelyn.
And then his dark eyes landed on Rosalind.
And he grabbed her instead.
Chapter 32
It took Evelyn a moment to catch up as Archer shot past her, but the second she did, she sprang into action. On the other side of Rosalind, Fenix twisted and lunged for Archer.
He disappeared in a swirl of violet sparks.
Together with Rosalind.
Vail roared and shoved Evelyn aside, his eyes wild as black spots coloured his amethyst irises, his head swinging left and right as he scoured the garden. Evelyn’s heart thundered, her blood rushing in her ears as guilt swallowed her, and she exchanged a look with Fenix, sharing his worry as the elf growled and snarled and prowled forwards.
Evelyn couldn’t believe Archer had snatched Rosalind.