Page 27 of Live Like Legends

Elise pushed out her bottom lip in a pout. “Awe, so you guys aren’t going to demonstrate this burning light by having sex in front of us?”

I rolled my eyes. “Haha, no.”

She stuck her tongue between her teeth and looked over at Nick. “Hmm, what a shame. From how pretty boy was dancing with you at Leviathan, he made it pretty clear he liked being watched.”

“I never…” Nick started his cheeks turning a small shade of pink, but the sound of multiple footsteps interrupted him.

Five or six Enchanters walked in behind Zane in a single file line. They all stayed silent as they waited for his instruction. The men and women before us all had different tattoos decoratingtheir skin and even though none of them were flexing, I was pretty sure they could throw around any of us. Not that I would give them the chance.

Reese pulled at the collar of his shirt as if he was stressed out. “Damn, they are more disciplined than us.”

Garrett raised an eyebrow at him. “There are still some days that I wonder how you got into The Skies.” His shoulders moved as he started to chuckle.

“That place doesn’t have standards, I figured that out a while ago. Keep up.” Elise rolled her eyes as she surveyed the Enchanter in front of us. “What is this all about, witch?”

Natalia let out a low sigh. “They are here to help with the issue at hand. Me simply throwing my magic at you isn’t going to help it seems; you need something that feels like an actual threat. Something that causes you to trust yourself along with trusting one another. As much as the power is physical, this is still a mental diabolical in its own right. Like you said, when you saw that you’d burned through that mattress, you felt like you could burn the world…”

“In a good way.” Nick chimed in, always looking for the best in me it seemed.

Natalia smirked, winking at him. “Yes, in a good way. You want that same feeling, do you not?”

I bit my lip, already getting antsy for that high again. “Fuck, yeah.”

The High Priestess pushed her mass of braids over her shoulder and sauntered over to Zane. They both left the recruits in the middle of the room while Natalia also grabbed Garrett. She made sure they were all placed in the corner of the room while we all simply stared at one another.

Natalia’s regal voice echoed. “Neither side is fighting to kill, but I’d never want you to hold back.”

Nick and Reese looked at each other from across the room, when I noticed one of the Enchanters, a girl with freckles that littered her face, zeroed in on me.

“You heard your Queen.” Zane’s booming voice rang out and a bright blue ball of light flew from the freckled face girl’s fingers straight into my stomach, flinging me against the wall.

“Woah, woah, fucking…” Reese shouted before he was slapped in the face by a spark of magic and then picked up by a gust of wind from nowhere and thrown against the other wall. He grunted and grabbed the side of his face.

I saw Nick running over to me and I wanted to shake my head, because no, I didn’t need him as much as I appreciated his efforts. He didn’t get within a foot of me before a rope of magic the color of ivy wrapped around his ankle and jerked him back. I looked over at Natalia who gave me the most nonchalant look back, as if sayingwe shouldn’t be surprised.

The freckle faced girl came charging at me, but I pushed out my hand, releasing dark shadows towards her. She had electric pink sparks coming from her hand and she grabbed onto my shadows, wringing them out like a wet rag before discarding them. My mouth dropped open slightly and my shoulders tensed up when I heard a thud.

“Fuck, this is fucking bullshit,” Elise yelled, another thud coming as her back hit the wall again. A male Enchanter with a shaved head besides the one long braid cascading down the middle of his head, pressed his body weight against her. She worked her tail out, preparing to slice it through the backs of his thighs, but another Enchanter came up and grabbed it, twisting it around their arm until she yelled out.

Beetee ran up behind them, jumping on their back and I had to blink twice before I realized that maybe she didn’t need to shift into a full snake to produce snakelike elements. Two of her canines protruded like fangs as she sunk them into theEnchanter’s neck. They howled in pain, releasing Elise’s tail and giving her an opening to successfully cause the pain she was hoping for. The male Enchanter holding her up threw her to the ground, but not right before she was picked up by another and slammed into the ground again.

A bolt of magic came at me again, but I sprung up from the ground, swerving away from it. The freckled faced girl threw bolt after bolt, and I shot out multiple shadows, dodging them. I let my shadows slither on the ground as I spun around and evaded the grasp of an Enchanter. I kicked my foot out and connected the end of my boot with her stomach. My shadows wrapped around my target’s feet right as she was running towards me, ceasing her movement.

The shadows moved quickly, but there was a spark in them as if they were their own little thunderstorm. I was so close to her, I reached out and grabbed her throat letting my well-known darkness begin to encapsulate her completely. She didn’t look nervous or scared. She almost looked like this was what she was hoping for. Before her fingers could be completely taken over, she shot out bright white sparks from her fingers and removed my shadowy holds as if they were nothing.

My mouth dropped open in shock, but I was propelled to the side when a body threw itself against mine. I skidded across the floor, hissing in pain. I’d felt worse, but fuck did that hurt. I pushed myself off the ground, blowing curls out of my face, when a body came up behind me. My arms were yanked behind me, and the feeling of immobility started to make its way through my body.

“Let me go,” I demanded.

The female Enchanter tsked. “We both know I can’t do that.”

I heard grunts and yelps of pain around me and there was this feeling of agonizing dread. What if I couldn’t do this? Whatif I was only worth something when I was being lied to and thought I was something I wasn’t?

Nick and Reese were thrown together, colliding shoulder to shoulder before they fell on

the ground. Nick’s sword clattered in one direction and Reese, even though his face looked pained, was already moving to use his bow again.

Puffs of dark magic became the focus of my attention. I looked down and saw it swirling and moving up my legs, wanting to help me. I tried to shift my weight, tried to move my knees but I couldn’t. I looked over at Natalia who had this look in her honey-colored eyes, like she knew this would work but just needed me to do my fucking part.

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