Page 68 of Mated to the Enemy
Kasperi stared at her. “You’ve had that the entire time and you just now show it?”
She smiled. “You never gave me a chance. Now, where is Klaue?”
The shifter shrugged, then pointed. “Probably somewhere over there.”
She followed his finger to the center of the fight, where four or five shifters were battling with the mage. Somehow, the magic user had the energy to take them all on and still send things her way. If he wasn’t trying to kill her, she’d have felt important at that.
“Get everyone out of here!” she commanded, shouting as the sounds increased, the fighting growing more frenetic. “Take those who are hurt.”
Kasperi wanted to protest, but he saw the set of her jaw and nodded, taking off.
Jessica squared her shoulders, and then like an idiot, ran straight at the fiercest of the fighting. Magic was being thrown around at a breakneck pace, and the constant flashes fried her vision over and over again, but she was coming closer and closer. Then she saw him. Just like Kasperi had said, Klaue was at the center of the fighting, directing his men as they tried to bring the mage down.
They weren’t winning. She saw two bodies on the ground nearby. One was rolling back and forth, the left side of his body badly burned. The other…she looked away. The other wasn’t moving at all, and never would again. Another casualty of her personal war.
She opened her mouth to tell Klaue she was there, but the mage chose that moment and gestured violently with one hand. Green flames rose up, cutting her and the bodies off from the living shifters. Jessica cursed and tried to force her way through, but the pendant grew too hot, and she could smell her skin burning this time.
“Fuck you!” she cried out in frustration, stepping out of the flames. Maybe she could get around them!
Running to her right, she passed the hurt shifter and saw the edge of the flames, just past the dead one. Almost there. She could make it.
But just before she got there, the fire shifted, and blocked her away again. Frowning, she glared at it, hearing the mocking laughter as the living thing followed her. She kicked out in frustration, her foot hitting something metallic lying near the dead shifter.
Looking down, she saw the outline of a pistol in the grass. It was hooked to a strap at the base that was still looped around the dead shifter’s arm. She bent down to free it, blocking the view of the weapon from above, even as another blast of blue slammed into her shield. Jessica shrieked in pain as the pendant grew so hot it burnt her skin, and then exploded.
She was defenseless.
Klaue must have noticed, because she heard his bellow over the cacophony as he called her name. There was no time. One more attack and she was dead.
“I have you now!” the mage cackled.
Jessica finally pulled the strap free of the burnt flesh, flicked the safety off and put her video game training to use. She flung herself to the side, pistol in both hands as she tracked the mage in the air. He was hovering almost right on top of her, warding off everything Klaue and his men could give with one hand, the other focused on her, blue coiled in his palm.
Almost at the same moment he extended his arm, she saw him at the end of her sights and squeezed the trigger.
The bullet sliced through the air and slammed into the mage’s palm, though she’d been aiming at his chest. Blue energy erupted around him—and something else. She watched it fizzle and die as particles of…something, drifted down from the sky, sparking every time they encountered magic.
The mage screamed at the backwash, and the sudden black mark expanding out from the middle of his hand. He flung himself backward in the air, and gestured sharply. A rent appeared and he disappeared into it, still howling in pain. The crack in reality disappeared, and Jessica sagged, sighing hard. It was over.
It was only then she realized the howls hadn’t stopped.
