Page 110 of Love Bleeds
If I cast my magic out to Crimson now, it might not last through the explosion. But I had to do something. I couldn't just... Iwouldn'twatch Nicolai hurt Crimson.
I searched the room for some way to tell the time, but there was none. The blast might be seconds away or it might be several minutes yet.
The neurons in my brain fired at light speed.
I was one door down from the meeting room--a door which was closed, but likely not locked, since vampires had come through it only a moment ago.
Nicolai and Crimson were maybe twenty feet down the hall. I needed Nicolai closer to me rather than Crimson, needed him closer to the bomb.
Think, Luke. Think!
If I could just slip my captor's grasp for a few seconds...
If I could just repeat that little trick I’d used on Talon earlier, when he was trying to keep me from Crimson, but I’d been infuriated then, and not really aware of what I was doing at all. I grasped for the energy inside of myself again, finding it more easily now than I had before. But what to do with it?
Back when I’d shoved Talon off, my skin had glowed, so I closed my eyes and pictured my magic flowing into my skin, along my arms where I was being held.
“What are you—?“ Suddenly, my captor yelped. His fingers loosened, but didn’t let go. Not good enough. But maybe… I gathered all my strength to hit his groin with my elbow. Vampire-strength or not, that had to hurt. He howled, finally letting go of my arm. I bolted for the door to the meeting room.
It opened without resistance.
Thank God.
The meeting room wasn't empty. Four or five vampires stared at me as I barged in. I couldn't tell exactly how many, didn't have time to count.
And did it really matterhow manylions were in the den I'd just thrown myself into?
What mattered was that Nicolai came after me, holding Crimson by the neck as if he was a fox cub. Crimson struggled in Nicolai's grip, snapping at his fingers, but the vampire lord seemed unimpressed.
We were never going to beat him.
Not by conventional means anyway.
But he'd made the mistake of underestimating nerds.
As Nicolai stepped into the meeting room, I ducked low and focused on my chakra. I could almost feel the magic flowing through me now, boosted by the blood I'd had. I didn't know if it was going to be enough, but it had to be. My skin warmed. Even without looking at myself, I knew that I was glowing. I had to cover more than just myself, though.
My head began to hurt as I tried to put a delta into the river that was my magic. It didn't cooperate easily. Honestly, I should probably have practiced this before heading into a life-or-death situation, but there hadn't been any time for that.
Someone grabbed me, a rough hand pulling me to the side, but I barely paid them any mind. My eyes were trained on the fox in Nicolai's hold.
As if sensing my gaze, the fox stopped trying to leave bite marks in Nicolai's arm and looked at me instead, and then he stilled. He knew what I was trying to do, and he was trusting me to do it.
I swallowed. This was it. Crimson depended on me to save him, and I wasnotgoing to let him down.
Never again.
A prickling sensation started up somewhere in the back of my head as my magic split and the fox began to glow.
Finally.
I exhaled, sagging in the grip of whoever was holding me in place. If I'd had to support myself, I would have fallen to my knees too. My head hurt and my muscles burned as if I'd been exercising for hours, even though I couldn't remember the last time I'd engaged in any physically straining activity.
But it was all worth it.
If only for that look of pure shock and confusion on Nicolai's face the split second in between my bomb going off and the blast hitting him.
The force of the explosion washed over me, the noise making my ears hurt almost as much as my head. I closed my eyes against the bright yellow and orange of the flames as they engulfed me.
