Page 110 of Inflamed By an Incubus

And maybe now he was getting what he deserved.

She hated herself for thinking that way as he cried out again, his face screwing up in obvious pain as he clawed at his head.

“Remind you of anyone?” Fenix whispered out of the corner of his mouth to Rosalind as he appeared between them and the witch levelled a black look on him, giving Evelyn the impression he had been comparing Archer to Vail.

Just how dangerous was the elf? His mood changed frequently, and whenever it darkened, his eyes did too, gaining splotches of black that made her think about all the reports she had read of what Prince Loren had called the tainted.

The same Prince Loren who was his brother.

Vail strode towards Archer, an elf on the warpath as his fingers flexed and the tiny black scales of his armour rippled over them and formed talons at their tips. He was going to rip Archer apart. She had to do something.

As much as he had hurt her, she couldn’t let Vail kill him.

But getting between Vail and Archer felt like suicide to her.

He had hurt his own mate just this morning, proving how violent he could be and that in the midst of a fight he found it hard to distinguish friend from foe.

Archer teleported again before the elf could attack him, the world falling eerily quiet and the air growing thick with tension as everyone waited for him to reappear. Just as she thought he wouldn’t, that he had found a way to escape Rosalind’s spell, he dropped out of the air forty feet away, crashed into a wooden bench and rolled off it to hit the grass. His glasses ended up crooked, the right side of them halfway up his forehead, and his heavy breaths shifted the green blades as he lay motionless.

And then everything about him righted before her eyes. The blood on his face disappeared, his glasses repaired themselves, and even the dirt and slashes on his long black coat vanished.

He shoved himself up onto his feet and snarled at Rosalind.

“Let me go!” Archer shoved his hands into his hair again and clawed it back, his black eyes wild. “I cannot be here. She doesn’t want me here.”

“Where does she want you?” Rosalind said, her air casual. “You are talking about Aryanna, aren’t you?”

Archer bared his teeth at her. “She must wake. She must rise.”

Rosalind looked from Vail to Fenix and then Evelyn, her eyebrows high on her forehead and a look in her eyes that asked if they were seeing this too, and then her blue gaze settled back on Archer. “Did you forget to sip your anti-psychotic elixir this morning? Got a spell in there that will help with the madness? Maybe if you told me about it, I could help you.”

His eyes narrowed on her.

She went flying, sailed backwards through the air like a rocket and slammed into the sandstone wall of the cottage.

And remained there, five feet off the ground and spreadeagled against the stones.

The petite witch struggled, her face twisting and contorting as she tried to move, but nothing she did helped.

“Put me down,” Rosalind gritted.

“Let me go,” Archer countered and staggered towards them, shaking his head from time to time.

Rosalind looked as if she was considering it.

“I don’t think I weakened him at all,” Fenix hissed and cast a worried look at Vail. “You up for this?”

“It’s the spells,” Rosalind bit out as she struggled against her invisible bonds. “You did weaken him and now they want to protect him. I’m not sure draining his strength was a good idea. We’re playing Russian roulette with dangerous spells. The gods only know which ones will come out to defend their host.”

Archer wasn’t in control of the spells he knew? That didn’t sound good.

Rosalind stared at the back of Vail’s head when he eased his feet further apart, adopting a warrior’s stance. “Vail… stay where you are.”

Vail launched at Archer on a vicious growl. A strange turquoise light shimmered over Archer’s eyes and Vail grunted as a hundred tiny lacerations suddenly appeared in his armour.

Blood burst from every one of them.

The elf stumbled a step and dropped to his left knee. He pressed his right hand to the grass as he bent over and breathed hard, his wild blue-black hair falling to caress his sweat-dotted brow.

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