by Lina Jubilee
We didn’t have twenty minutes, though.
I grabbed either side of Jayden’s face. If both Nash and Zander were right—and Zander visited Jayden’s brain, for Pete’s sake—Jayden needed to get over this distance he put between us and just deal with it. “Let me boost you,” I whispered.
His mouth opened slightly, his eyes so wide behind his glasses, but then they softened, and his mouth went thin. He nodded.
I put my lips to his and it wasn’t just the transfer of my power to him that sent sparks flying through my entire body. It was a long overdue need to feel his lips on mine, feel the weight of his hands on the small of my back as they moved down in massaging circles to cup my butt cheeks.
“Okay, Romeo,” said Zander. “I know that’s long overdue, but it’s not exactly the time…”
Jayden pulled back, startled, stumbling. He nodded at me and then launched himself forward, ripping the largest chunk of earth I’d ever seen him grip out from beneath the swing set, sending the old rusty thing tumbling against the nearest vine.
“Damn,” said Zander. “He should have done that sooner.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek and watched Jayden join up with Chastity, the two of them forcing an elf backward.
“Stop!” yelled Alarik, a dagger held above his head. “If you want your friend unharmed, stop. All of you—I want to talk.”
Everyone did. Even Nash just crouched before his still opponent, his hand on fire, ready to strike.
“Thank you,” said Alarik, lowering his dagger.
Zander growled from behind me. “I should project through his chest,” he muttered. “Confuse him, maybe. Make him think he’s been stabbed?”
“Wait,” I said, resting a hand on Zander’s arm. Alarik stared pointedly across the lawn straight at me.
Darien struggled to get free of his captor—his arms were tied behind him with thin vines—but to no avail. The princess must have taken his powers before they’d left their dimension.
Alarik directed his dagger at Zander and me as he took several steps toward us. My teammates bounced in place, seeming to ask each other whether or not to strike, but I shook my head as the elf dragging Darien fell in line behind his king.
“You were the ghost in my kingdom,” snapped Alarik. “The one in my head.”
Zander scoffed. “And not a pleasant place to be.” He grabbed hold of me possessively. “She’s for Natches, you creep. Not pointy-eared dicks.”
Alarik scowled and I blinked, not really appreciating being talked about like a piece of meat, but also feeling kind of exhilarated at the idea of Zander being so possessive of me just then.
“We’re here to trade,” said Alarik, jutting his chin upward. “Your ice Natch for the Succubus Lips.” His gaze fell on me, and I might have started sweating from the actual smoldering I could feel from the intensity.
Distraction, I reminded myself. Distraction.
“Free him first,” I said, as slowly as I could.
“Aurora, no,” said Zander, but I just tapped his bulging muscle, willing him to listen to me.
Zander, Wade’s there, I thought. Waiting for the chance to strike and get Darien free.
I felt a grunt across our bond—he clearly wasn’t happy with the plan, but he was willing to play along.
Wade’s powers didn’t always come in handy in a battle, but they would in this case.
“And what’s to stop you from retreating the moment I hand him over?” asked Alarik. He pointed the tip of his dagger at Darien’s cheek and Darien spit at him, cursing in Spanish.
Letting go of Zander, I took a few steps forward, reaching for Alarik. “I want to see Roulette,” I said, and I knew in that moment that that was true, and that I was really going with him. “Give him back please and take me to her.”
“Aurora!” said Jayden from behind Alarik at the same time Nash broke the truce and threw his fireball straight at the king. Alarik flicked his free hand behind him and sent a vine blasting in Nash’s direction, knocking him off his feet.
“No!” I screamed, just as an invisible force latched itself to the elf holding Darien and Darien stumbled forward. Wade.
But Wade was quickly knocked out, visible and on the ground. Alarik sheathed his dagger as both of the other elves broke into battle once more. Then he gripped my wrist. “Then come,” he snapped.
I let myself be tugged along, tumbling forward.
Zander’s projected form appeared in front of us and Alarik hesitated, then cocked his head and pushed forward, the spectral version of Zander offering too little resistance. “I’m sorry,” I said to him, turning to look behind me at the real Zander plowing ahead, though he could do little with hand-to-hand combat in this situation. I need to get Rou back, I sent to him over the bond.
The elf king took me across the street to where his portal shimmered. Gasping, I took in the sight of a lush, green forest bathed in sparkling moonlight on the other side of the portal.
“Brace yourself,” said Alarik. Before I could react, he let go of my arm and bent down to fling me over his shoulder, resting a hand tightly on the center of my ass as my torso slumped over his back like a sack of potatoes.
The three other elves stepped in behind us and Alarik turned around, potentially nodding to two Nelians who stood on either side of it here in this lush forest world, their arms extended outward, their faces scrunched tight as they focused. I assumed he nodded because I couldn’t see him from my vantage point draped over his shoulder. Without straining my neck, all I could see were dirt pathways, bountiful shrubbery, and Alarik’s tight, tight ass. Elven attire seemed to leave little to the imagination.
A sound like a generator overloading and popping broke out as the elves holding the dimension open—apparently—lowered their arms and the portal snapped together, dissipating into nothingness. “Your Majesty,” said one as they both kneeled. The battle-worn elves who had followed him to our front yard followed suit. “We await your orders,” said another.
“Scout ahead,” said Alarik, his muscles suddenly growing tense beneath my abdomen. “And check behind us as well. And be cautious,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “We should be far enough from Alanna out here, but…”
Someone was clearly paranoid.
The elves peeled off in all directions, leaving this supposed king and me in the middle of the path. He stood there nonchalantly, as if he didn’t carry a human woman on his shoulder.
“Can I be put down now?” I asked, my voice a little muffled on the leather-like material of his jerkin. “It’s not like I have anywhere to run.”
Instead of replying, Alarik hesitated, then bent down, lowering my feet to the ground and shifting my body so I slid to standing. I stumbled, and his hands went tighter around my back to steady me.
A little squeal escaped my lips, more from the surprise of the feel of the dirt beneath my feet—it was softer than any dry dirt had business being—than anything. But even to my ears, the little sound seemed dirty.
The slight smile that quirked his lips revved something up in me that had no business getting going right now. None.
Fuck, though, this asshole was gorgeous.
I shoved at his chest, as much to snap myself out of it as to paint him a clearer picture of where things stood. “You can let go now,” I snapped.
He did, but slowly, dropping one hand from my back and moving the other up to lightly take a strand of my hair in his grip. “Like starlight,” he said, running his thumb over it in gentle motions.
I stepped back, tugging at the hair to get it out of his grip. “My hair?” I asked, incredulous. It was dark, but it wasn’t as dark as night. And it didn’t have any bright spots in it. Unless I’d missed some gray hairs coming in early…
He shook his head just slightly. “All of you. Bright like a spot of succor in endless darkness.”
I pet the hair he’d fondled absentmindedly. So he was a poet as well as physical perfection. Nice to know.
�
��Maybe I should call you black hole, then,” I said. “Since you destroy everything around you.” It wasn’t the cleverest retort, but I was no Wade.
And my patience was wearing thin.
He found it amusing. “As I said, a bright spot.”
If he liked his women to sass him, sure. Exhaling, I crossed my arms. “Where’s Roulette?”
Alarik tensed like a jittery bird and held a finger to his lips as he looked this way and that.
I wanted to snap at him that he could take that finger and shove it, but his anxiety soon transferred to me as a rustle shifted the trees beside us, a chill of cold air blasting my way. I ran my hands up and down my exposed arms, shivering.
A voice cried out from ahead and Alarik withdrew his dagger from his sheath, reaching a hand around my front to stand between me and the cause of mayhem.
A bloodcurdling scream sent more shivers down my spine. “What was—?”
The elf king hissed at me—not rudely but with a twinge of desperation. His eyes narrowed as he scanned our surroundings.
Out of the frying pan and right into the fire, apparently.
What did Alarik have to fear here in his own world? He barely had to fear the Natches in mine. The elves never stayed long, but they certainly wreaked enough havoc that it hardly seemed to matter that they’d retreated. Entire sections of our city had been made uninhabitable by their vine growths.
“Your Majesty!” cried a lean and tall elf as she ran up behind us. Damn, she’d made me jump. She’d been too quiet. “Was that Cassius?”
He nodded. “Gather the others,” he said, his eyes not moving from the spot in front of us where the commotion had started. “Take my consort to the haven.”
She grabbed my arm.
I blinked. Me? His consort? “Excuse me?”
But they just spoke over my head.
“Hurry,” he breathed, but she barely got me a step away when the ground began to shake and the bushes before us parted.
A giant, mouth-breathing pig-like thing burst through, its tusks covered in blood.
“Run!” hissed Alarik, and he extended his hand toward the creature, sending a twisted, speeding vine out from his palm.
As the elf woman dove, shielding me and dragging me to the side, two other voices rang out as more elves returned to our position. They seemed to be shouting out a battle cry with far more fury than anything I’d seen them utter on Earth. More vines went flying as one jumped atop the warthog’s back and grabbed it by the ears.
“What’s he doing?” I asked the elf warrior woman beside me. But she was already on her feet, her eyes flicking between the battle and me, her legs bouncing as if itching to jump in despite being ordered to watch me.
“Go ahead,” I said. “Unless that giant pig says otherwise, I’m not going anywhere.”
She hesitated, looking at her king. He cried out as something soared past us, dropping his hand to cradle his arm and cutting off the flow of vines from his direction.
“Your Majesty!” cried the elf woman, and she no longer needed to be told twice to get a move on. I slipped back into the cover of the bushes, observant, but eager to get out of the path of the battle. Even if I’d had hand-to-hand combat skills, I didn’t know what I could do in this situation.
Fuck, I wish I had Nash or Jayden or even Zander—
“Finally!” shouted Zander over the bond. “I’ve been trying to reach you since you vanished. I’ve been talking in your head—your boost is still working, so I didn’t even need you to think about me for it to work, but you haven’t been focused enough.”
Well, excuse me, I thought. Been a little busy.
He grunted across the bond. “That was a really stupid thing you did—”
Can you still reach Roulette? I asked.
“No,” he said. “I thought maybe your boost was wearing off already, but I didn’t know. We were in mid-conversation—I told her about Darien’s return—when she mentioned a princess and it cut out.”
Alanna must have taken her powers away, I thought. And even if you have yours, they can’t reach through the nullification Alanna does to a person—I’ve noticed that before.
“Shit,” he thought. “Where’s this princess now?”
A great, echoing pig squeal rang out behind me and I turned to find the giant warthog ridden by an elf and being redirected—from heading in the opposite direction to being turned around and headed straight for where I lay.
“Shit!” I muttered, pushing down for the moment the panicked soft cries of “Darlin’?” in my head. I stumbled to my feet.
“Aurora,” called out Alarik, raising a hand and lowering it as if to tell me not to move.
Not to move? When that thing was about a minute away from tumbling straight through me?
Alarik’s arm was bleeding, his other hand still holding on to the wound tightly.
What had wounded him anyway?
The elf woman who’d abandoned me moved to support her king, but he gently batted her away and stood on shaky feet.
“Brother,” said a voice, though it was deep and resounding, not at all the light tone of Alanna. An elf man broke through the forest flanked by four other elves, including another woman grabbing hold of Alanna by both arms.
Alarik gritted his teeth, cursing, and as the princess was forced to move closer, the remaining elf shooting out vines from his hand stopping all at once.
So her presence had removed his abilities.
Zander? I called out in my brain. No surprise that he was cut off, too.
“You’re no brother of mine,” spat Alarik to the elf man.
“I will be once your sister and I wed,” said the elf man. He was tall and handsome, perhaps a little broader in the shoulders than the other elf men around him. He gazed at the captive princess—and he didn’t look cruel, as I expected. He seemed… loving. She looked pointedly away, though, so I couldn’t tell what she thought of him. Though being dragged like that was probably a clue.
The giant pig squealed again and pivoted slightly, the tension in my shoulders easing somewhat as it seemed less likely it’d plow right through me.
Instead, the rider aimed the warthog beside me, behind me. I glanced over my shoulder. Mere feet away, hidden behind a canopy of trees—there was a cliff. I hadn’t noticed it at first.
“Of course, she’ll have to forgive me for only spending some of my time with her even after the ceremony,” said the man confronting Alarik. “Her powers are extraordinary, but alas, I don’t think I can truly be so selfless as to give up mine for eternity to be in her presence always.”
The warthog struggled a bit, trying to fight its way backward when it seemed to realize where it was headed. It started spinning in circles as the elf man on top narrowed his eyes and tugged the creature’s ears harder. The movement kicked up some wind and I stumbled back.
“You’ll never wed my sister, Xerxes!” cried out Alarik. “You’ll never use that as an excuse to be king—”
“I love her!” said Xerxes, tossing his shoulders back. “I’ve always loved her and you know it!”
Alarik choked on a wry chuckle. “It’s just so convenient to you that if I died and she became queen, that as her husband, you’d rule at her side, then, right?” He turned to his sister, though she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Because we both know she’s more likely to do what you say than to obey her own flesh and blood, her rightful king.”
At that, Alanna’s head snapped up. “I asked Xerxes to stop, Alarik. Really, I did—”
“I don’t care!” shouted Alarik. “You always disobey me because Xerxes has ideas. Xerxes would be a better king.”
“I’ve never said that!” snapped Alanna.
Apparently, things were more volatile on their home turf than we’d ever thought.
I lost track of their squabbles, though, as the giant warthog let out what could only be called a death knell and went charging—again straight at me—as if determined to flick the elf on its back down t
he cliff behind me and to bring me with him for good measure.
“Aurora!” shouted Alarik, but I was already running deeper into the forest, continuously skirting the cliff’s edge as that wayward pig seemed to anticipate my every movement.
It was fucking chasing me now. I’d never done anything to it.
I skidded to a stop at the very edge. “Shit!” One foot went flying off and I grabbed on to the nearest thing above my head—a vine twirling through the tree tops, maybe left there during the elves’ initial battle against this creature, as it hardly seemed at home naturally growing out of the tree above it.
It worked, but my arms wrenched and I screamed. My body was still sore from the battle earlier—had it really been this morning? I wondered if I’d ever see another day. If I’d ever see Zander and Nash and Jayden again.
The warthog skidded to a stop right in front of me, bucking its head, and the elf man went flying, his screams echoing as he descended down to the misty fog and the tops of the trees below.
The warthog’s breath made the air grow hot above my head.
“Your Majesty!” said someone, but I couldn’t look to see who.
A man cried out and Alarik appeared atop the creature’s head, stabbing a dagger into its eye.
It shrieked and bucked, stumbling down over the cliff.
“Your Majesty!”
“Alarik!”
Panicked voices echoed numbly from behind where the pig had been. As the pig stumbled and started drooping, Alarik jumped off and grabbed the vine I was clinging on to right above my head, his body sliding into place behind mine.
I cried out at the impact of his weight, though he was lighter than I’d expect from a finely-toned man, even if he was less bulky than Nash or Zander.
“Hang tight,” he whispered in my ear.
I chortled wryly. “You think?”
But my laughter cut short as what could only be described as a ripping sound echoed out above me.
The vine.
“Oh, shi—” I started, but the rip grew louder, then stopped as the vine broke free, Alarik’s injured arm wrapping tightly across my breasts, his other still clinging to the vine above us as we began falling.