Page 34 of Captured in Love
“I’m so sorry,” I tell Nora. A glance at the poor Icelander caught in that fucking spell deepens my shame. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
She touches her lips with her fingers and blinks up at me, her eyes a little hazy. “It was amazing. But yeah…priorities.”
Priorities?I rub my palm over my face. These witches will be the death of me.
I look over my shoulder, aware that I haven’t checked our surroundings for too long. I probably would have heard someone approaching, but if witches can perform invisibility spells, maybe they can dampen the sound of their footsteps, too. To protect Nora and Levi, I need to be on my guard.
Nora stands and turns to the bridge and the portal on it. “This is still crazy,” she says. “I feel a lot better, but these Ballendial witches have had months to prepare the traps in this place. Like, if I saw anyone else attempting this, I’d assume they’d lost their mind.”
“You say this every time we do a job.” Levi smirks and spreads his arms. “And we’re still here.”
She sends him a grumpy look but takes the first step onto the bridge. “I need you to promise me something.”
A quick flash of guilt crosses Levi’s features, then disappears again. “Yeah, anything.”
She squints at him. “You can’t tell my family any of this.”
He laughs, and she smacks his arm lightly.
“I’m serious! Dad would have an aneurism, and Elliot would take it as permission to do crazy shit of his own.” She peers up at me. “You, too. I need your word.”
I nod my acquiescence, but another wave of unease washes through me. This little bubble we’ve been living in these past two weeks is incredible. But how can we remain like this after the competition is over? When real life returns to normal, Nora won’t be able to bring her vampire boyfriend to her family dinners. I can’t imagine a world where both Levi and I would be welcome in her father’s home.
I shake off my thoughts and follow the witches right up to the portal in which the now silent burned man hangs like some grotesque marionette. My first impulse is to take Nora and carry her far from here so she won’t have to see this, but she puts on a determined expression and stares right up at him.
I don’t want to be the one to say it, but I’m not sure the man will make it. The damage to his naked body is so extensive, even my stomach turns at the sight of it. I can’t imagine the agony he’s in. I’ve seen and experienced my fair share of suffering over the centuries, especially in various wars, but this spell rivals the worst of human inventions in how vicious it is.
Nora swallows thickly. I suspect she’s about to be sick again, but she faces us, her expression somber.
“How do you want to do this?” she asks Levi.
He steps forward. “I’ll have to use your magic. Like we did in Egypt, yeah?”
Nora nods and offers him her hand. “Take what you need.”
I stand beside them, wishing I could help. But this is witch business, and there’s nothing for me to do. Yet again, I wonder if there’s a place for me in their world.
Then Levi glances sideways at me. “I need you, too.”
Twelve
Levi
Nora’s handis warm in mine as we face the burning portal together. Raphaël stands next to us, like I’d asked him to, ready to catch Einarsson the moment the spell releases him. I don’t want to add to the man’s injuries by having his burned body smack on the rough flagstones.
“Ready?” I ask Nora, even though I’m nowhere near prepared for what I need to do next.
She nods and closes her eyes.
I shut mine, too, and sink into my core of magic. Nora once told me she imagines hers as a well from which she can scoop out liquid magic, but mine has always been untidier. A ball of glowing light that shines bright when I’m rested and fed.
Right now, it’s pulsing with power, thanks to the incredible effect of Raphaël’s blood. After I healed Nora’s feet, it had been dangerously depleted. If witches found out what an effect vampire blood has on us, they’d hunt down all remaining vampires in the world and keep them as their own personal sources of magic juice.
Nora’s power flows through our connection, so strong and heady my entire body relaxes at the familiarity, then tenses in a whole different way. This is so intimate, I can barely wrap my head around it. The trust she shows me every time we do this is incredible. She opens up her entire being to me, baring her innermost sanctum. Her magic is insanely powerful, and I’m not even sure she realizes what an amazing witch she is. What an amazing woman.
“I love you,” I mutter, my eyes still closed.
They’re the truest words I’ve ever spoken, and I couldn’t hold them back if I tried. She needs to know how much she means to me.
