Page 34 of Mated to the Enemy
Beside him, Jessica gasped as the sole occupant launched themselves free of the out-of-control vehicle moments before the Magi reached out with his own hand. A nimbus of green shimmered into being around the vehicle in the shape of a hand, and the Magi slammed the vehicle down on the rogue mage with earth-trembling force.
Klaue thought that would be the end, but a bright orange-red blade filled the space over the mage’s head, cutting through the steel of the vehicle like butter and splitting it into two halves that fell to either side of him. Then he renewed his assault on the Magi. The air was filled with deadly energy. Red, green and the occasional blue as well.
“Is he going to win?” Jessica asked from where she lay next to Klaue, her voice sounding subdued as she witnessed the full might of what a magic battle looked like.
Klaue wasn’t sure. Then the second figure, the one from the SUV, stepped forward, and he felt a buoying of his spirits. “Yeah, I think we have this. Keep crawling that way,” he told her, pointing deeper into the bush. He got up into a crouch.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jessica asked, clinging to him tightly. “Please. Klaue, I...I don’t want you to get hurt.”
He smiled tightly. “I have to help.”
“Can you use magic?” she asked, surprised.
“No, he admitted. “But that can’t stop me.”
“So what the hell are you going to do?”
To his surprise, he cupped her face, kissed her forehead and winked at her. “Something stupid, I’m sure.”
Then he stood up, grabbed the nearest sapling in one hand and heaved. The entire root system wrenched free of the ground and he whirled it around his head, getting a feel for the balance. Then with a wild yell, he charged the mage.
The noise distracted the mage for a second. He held up one hand to block the incoming attacks from the Magi, then focused on Klaue, and lifted his right hand, spinning it in gentle circles, then flicking it away.
“What the…ack!” Klaue felt himself lifted from the ground as a miniature tornado spun up around him, then the next thing he knew, he was flying through the air, landing hard on his back in the brush. At least one stick poked him somewhere none too polite before he came to a halt.
Getting to his feet, he prepared to charge again, but there was no point. The mage struck the Magi hard, stomping a foot which sent a rippled earthquake out to his left, toppling Kvoss, the figure from the car.
Then he clapped both hands over his head, and bright red smoke filled the air for hundreds of feet in every direction.
Klaue thought he heard footsteps heading toward the gate, and a moment later—at a muttered word from the Magi—the smoke evaporated. Klaue caught a last glimpse of the mage as he disappeared into a rent outside the gates just before a blue rope erupted from the Magi’s hands, aimed at the mage. Instead, it found empty air.
Not waiting to see more, Klaue rushed back to Jessica’s side, helping her to her feet. She clung to him, obviously shaken by what she’d just seen. He couldn’t blame her. Klaue had never witnessed a mage fight before, and he had new respect for what his ancestors had been forced to deal with during their fight against the Mage Council.
“Are you okay?” he asked, holding her tight in his protective embrace.
No sooner had she nodded her head, then the Magi approached, fury writ on his face. “You never should have broughtherhere,” he hissed, his eyes full of anger. “She is trouble. I warned you she had the taint about her, and you ignored it. You’re just lucky nobody paid the price today. But this is the last time I will protect her.”
The Magi sliced his hand angrily across the air and a rent appeared, a seam in the fabric of reality. With one last glare at the pair of them, the elderly, frail shifter stepped through it and disappeared.
Klaue frowned at the space where the Magi had disappeared. Now how the hell was he supposed to figure out how to ask Jessica to stay? That display of hostility would make anyone think twice, even after what had just happened. But how could Klaue let her continue? He couldn’t, it was plain and simple. The second she set foot outside the gates, she would be dead.
“Klaue?” she asked from at his side, looking up at him with wide, glazed eyes.
“Yes?”
“Can I go back to the House now?”
Oh. Apparently he wouldn’t need to convince her after all.
