Page 111 of Inflamed By an Incubus

“Oh, you… bloody wanker!” Rosalind hollered and fought harder, her eyes fixed on her mate’s back. “It’s okay, gorgeous. Just hold it together. Breathe.”

Archer blinked, his expression laced with surprise as he stared at Vail as the elf fought to recover from the blow Archer had dealt him, as if he was as stunned by what had happened to the elf as everyone else was. He eased back a few steps and pressed his right palm to his forehead as he muttered something beneath his breath.

“Vail, honey, come to me.” Rosalind kept fighting her invisible bonds, her voice soft and laced with affection as she coaxed her mate. “Come here. Come away from that big mean Crow.”

Archer slid her a look and twisted away from everyone, his muttering growing more intense. What was wrong with him? Evelyn wanted to ask him that, but she feared the looks everyone would give her and the fact they might misinterpret her words, mistaking them for concern.

Which they totally wouldn’t be.

God, she was lying to herself now.

“I… Crow this… Crow that,” Archer snarled and looked over his shoulder at Rosalind, his face a black mask and a dangerous light in his eyes. “Call me Crow one more time…”

He didn’t need to finish that threat.

Archer looked from Rosalind to Vail as he continued to struggle against whatever spell Archer had hit him with and then his black eyes shifted to Fenix.

Her heart lunged into her throat as sparks of white lightning chased around his fingers, growing stronger by the second, and he narrowed his eyes on the incubus. Fear seized her and she couldn’t stop herself from reacting as he raised his hands to strike.

She leaped between him and Fenix.

Chapter 33

Evelyn’s blood rushed in her ears and she squeezed her eyes shut as she braced herself, waiting for the spell to hit her instead, willing to take the blow to protect Fenix. She would be reborn if she died. He wouldn’t.

Only the expected pain didn’t come.

Evelyn cracked one eye open.

Archer stood where he had been, his hands by his sides now, no magical light chasing around them as he stared at her.

His eyes were brown again.

Something deep inside her said this was her chance, the moment a secret part of her had been waiting for, and she couldn’t waste it.

“I know you’re not a bad man,” she whispered and swallowed to wet her dry throat as she gathered her courage. She shut out Vail and Rosalind as their eyes landed on her, and tried to shut out Fenix too as he stared at her back, his disbelief a tangible thing inside her. She knew she looked crazy, or perhaps foolish, but she had to go with her gut, and her gut said Archer wasn’t as evil as everyone was making him out to be. “You saved my life.”

Archer’s face softened.

And then hardened again when Fenix barked, “He did it to further his own agenda.”

She ignored that and kept her eyes on Archer, willed him to focus on her and shut everyone out just like she was.

“All those times you protected me,” she said as her mind filled with countless patrols where he had stepped in to shield her, taking blows meant for her, and the fact he had saved her life in the Fifth Realm. “Were you really going to kill me when the time was right for your plan?”

A flicker of regret lit his dark eyes and he shook his head, then nodded, and then his face screwed up and his jaw clenched.

And all the tension flooded out of him and he looked right into her eyes.

“I always intended to lift the curse first.”

Those words would have wounded a weaker soul, but Evelyn could see in his eyes that he meant well, that he had wanted to make sure that she would come back from death with her memories this time, able to continue her life, and that it had been the best he could offer her.

And she saw something else too.

He hated himself for it.

“You really do know about the curse then.” She knew he had mentioned it before, but the thought that such a powerful warlock knew about her affliction nourished the tiny seed of hope in her heart, making her believe there was a chance she could be free of the curse.

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