Page 23 of Faeheart
Elias turned in my embrace, his eyes now glowing with golden light. When he spoke, his voice overlapped with mine, the words coming from both of us simultaneously.
“If you threaten one, you threaten all.”
The leader raised her staff defensively. “W-What is this magic? This isn’t?—”
Elias and I moved as one, our hands weaving patterns in the air that neither of us fully understood. Ancient symbols appeared, burning with blue-white fire. The attackers scrambled backward, their coordinated assault dissolving into panic as the symbols coalesced into a swirling vortex between our outstretched hands.
“This is old magic,” I heard myself say, though the voice didn’t sound entirely like my own. Something was speaking through us, using our bodies as conduits. “Magic that still remembers when the realms were one.”
Elias’s body pressed against mine, our energies fusing completely as the power built to a crescendo. The leader of the attackers flung spell after spell at us, but each one dissipated harmlessly against our combined aura.
“Retreat!” she screamed to her followers, but it was too late.
With a sound like thunder cracking the sky, the vortex between our hands expanded outward, engulfing the courtyard in blinding light. I felt Elias’s consciousness merging with mine, our thoughts and memories flowing together until I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began. Through him, I felt Caden too, his vine-like energy weaving through both of us, grounding the wild power that threatened to consume everything.
When the light faded, the attackers lay scattered across the courtyard, unconscious but alive. The magic had stripped them of their strange and unnatural corrupted power, leaving them as ordinary witches once more, and not the strongest ones at that.
I swayed on my feet, suddenly exhausted beyond measure. Elias wrapped his arms around me before I could fall, both of us barely remaining standing.
“What... what did we just do?” he whispered, his voice trembling.
I looked up into his face, seeing him truly for the first time. Behind the perfect facade was someone just as lost and searching as I was, someone who’d been hiding his true self for so long he’d almost forgotten it existed.
“Something impossible,” I replied, my fingers tracing the line of his jaw without my conscious permission. “Something beautiful.”
But before either of us could say anything else, my head swam and my vision tunneled in. Both of us dropped to our knees, our arms still wrapped around one another. I got one last look at those beautiful brown eyes before my world went dark.
Chapter 9
Elias
Iwas sitting on the edge of Wild’s bed, his ginger hair disheveled after the incident. He’d been slipping in and out of consciousness for the past twelve hours, our combined magic having taken the largest toll on him. Even when he was asleep, I could feel him there, his thoughts racing as his brain tried to make sense of everything that had happened. Now and then his mind slipped back to the fae realm, bringing on far sweeter memories so he could rest. Most of them were sexual, and I did my best to ignore them. I wasn’t sure I was quite ready for a front-row seat to that just yet, no matter how curious I was.
“Water,” Wild croaked, his green eyes fluttering open once more. “Please.”
I reached for the glass on the nightstand, my hand trembling slightly from my own exhaustion. As I helped him lift his head, our fingers brushed, sending a familiar spark of connection between us. Through our bond, I felt his gratitude mingled with a flicker of amusement.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. The infirmary was quiet. Most of the other students who’d been injured in the attack were now stable enough to return to their dorms.
“You,” Wild murmured after taking a sip. “Sitting there all concerned. Never thought I’d see the day Elias Thorne would play nurse for me.” His lips curved into a weak version of his usual smirk. “Though I have to say, the outfit’s disappointing. I was hoping for something with a shorter skirt.”
Despite everything, I felt heat rise to my cheeks. “You’re insufferable, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told.” He winced as he shifted position, the movement sending a ripple of pain through our connection. “Where’s Caden?”
“With Atlas in the next room,” I replied, setting the glass down. “He’s recovering faster than either of us. Professor Blackwood thinks it’s because of his dual nature, half-witch, half-dryad. Something about having multiple magical channels to distribute the strain.”
Wild nodded weakly. “And the attackers?”
“Gone. The Elder Council arrived an hour after we... after what happened in the courtyard.” I hesitated, unsure how to describe what we’d done. “They asked a lot of questions, and none I could really answer.”
A shadow passed over Wild’s face. “Did they say anything about why they were after you specifically?”
I looked away, focusing on the moonlight filtering through the infirmary windows. “Apparently, my father has been... involved with their group. They call themselves the Purity Front.”
“Catchy name,” Wild muttered. “Very fascist chic.”
“They believe in magical segregation. Keeping the realms separate. Preventing ‘mixing’ between different magical races.” The words felt bitter on my tongue. “And my father is one of their primary financial backers.”
