Page 60 of Keeping His Mate
Suddenly, a scuffle coming from the Hexrin house draws my attention. “Jobaki, you cannot!” Tibik shouts as he chases her onto the main path. She stops in the center, her chest heaving.
What are they doing? This is not part of the plan. We did not discuss the use of Jo’s powers at this stage.
“I can!” she yells back. “I can end this!” Her gaze locks onto Bzzsil Chi and the few guards remaining at his side. She lifts her hands to her chest, her palms pressed together, and her eyes pinched shut. When she separates her small hands, a glowing orange orb appears between them.
Bzzsil Chi has not noticed her, however. His focus is locked on Elle-noor’s limp frame as he struggles to haul her up.
Tibik shakes his head as he yanks her hands apart, making the orb sizzle and fade away. “You are not strong enough for this!”
I do not pay much mind to the Hexrins, but since Kay-teh has been honing her enchantment skills with Jo, I have heard that tensions between Jo and Tibik, the leader of the coven, are high.
Jobaki stumbles backward but doesn’t fall. She looks frazzled, but only for a moment, because then her expression calms, and becomes something chilling. Calculating. “I do not answer to you, Tibik. You would do well to remember that.”
She takes a breath, pats the front of her tunic down, and creates the orb again. It grows bigger as she expands the space between her hands, and when it is the size of a small boulder, she opens her eyes and smiles.
“I will not have it!” Tibik shouts, reaching for her hands again. The moment he grabs hold of her, Nalba races out from behind a nearby tree, ducking her shoulder into his rib cage and tackling him to the ground.
“Noooo!” I hear Jobaki shout as the three of them go down together, and I see her hands instinctively turn outward to protect her face. But the orb does not fade. This time, it shoots from her palms like a beam of light bouncing off the surface of the water and hits Nalba in the chest. Nalba screams as she’s shot backward into the air, her body slamming into the wide trunk of a tree. She slides down, boneless, and her head smacks against a rock the moment she lands.
“Nalba!” Jobaki cries out as she crawls over Tibik and races to her side. “Oh goddess, no!” Tibik, along with several others, crowds around Nalba, and gently lift her body before carrying her out of sight.
I… may have just lost my friend. I have no time to let that sad thought take root, however, because Bzzsil Chi still has a pistol trained on my Elle-noor.
CHAPTER 27
ELEANOR
Standing slowly, Bruvix emerges from behind a bush, firing his pistol at the guards facing in the other direction. They go down, one after another, until three of them lie in a heap all around us. “Let her go, Bzzsil.”
Bzzsil scrambles to his feet and pulls me in front of him, pressing his pistol against my cheek. I let out a pained moan as I feel the steel scraping the edge of the open wound. “I have lost nothing,” he spits back. “Your clan is falling. You wish to save her, and yet, with a pull of my trigger, I can take her from you. I hold the power here.”
“I know you do not wish to kill her,” Bruvix says, dropping his pistol to the ground and lifting his hands in surrender. “She is worth too much alive.”
“I am not opposed to bringing her back with some bruises,” he says with a chuckle, tapping the barrel of the gun against the side of my head. I grit my teeth when he hits a bruise, trying to hide my pain from him as much as I can. When I unclench my jaw, the gag dips down beneath my bottom lip. It should be a victorious moment, but yelling isn’t going to do me any good right now.
“Those will heal,” he adds, then he pauses. “Though I suppose I should be wary of scarring. Wouldn’t want a pretty thing like this to end up maimed and hideous like you.”
Something inside me snaps, and I see nothing, and I feel nothing... nothing but the depth of my own rage as it rips through me. “He...is not...hideous!” I shout through ragged breaths before bringing the heel of my boot down hard on Bzzsil’s bare toes. He yelps in pain, dropping the gun away from my head. I take the opportunity to shove my elbow into his throat, the spot where an Adam’s apple should be, but on Bzzsil Chi it’s just fleshy gray scales that are slick and greasy. Disgusting.
The gun falls from his hand and lands on the ground with a soft thud. I quickly kick it away and run. My wrists are still tied, but luckily, my feet are not, and I run faster than I ever have in my life toward Bruvix. My home. My future. Nothing else matters but him. I don’t need anything as long as I have him by my side.
He opens his arms as I get closer. His expression full of longing, love, all the things we haven’t said, along with all the things we should’ve before this very moment––it’s all there in his navy-blue eyes, sparkling like the sea.
“It’s okay,” I try to tell him with my gaze. “Everything will be okay. We have time, and we won’t waste it.”
My fingers brush against his as soon as he’s within reach, but something...changes. His eyes widen with horror and instead of pulling me into his arms, he presses his palm against my chest and shoves. I land on my back the same moment I hear the gun go off.
When I lift my head, I see Bruvix on his back, his legs twitching and his hand covering his chest. I scream as soon as I see the blood.
Crawling through the dirt, a near-constant sob escaping my lips, I place my hands on top of his and press down. “I-it’s okay. We can stop the bleeding.” I duck my nose into the crook of my arm to wipe the snot away while keeping my hands pressed firmly into his chest. “It’s okay!” I tell him, not even sounding convincing to my own ears. “You’re going to be okay.”
His teeth are gritted, and his breath is shaky as he tries to hold on. His eyes meet mine, and he relaxes his jaw. Then his whole face relaxes, and his lips curl up into a smile. “Elle-noor,” he says in a hoarse whisper. He coughs, and I can feel my heart sink as his skin begins to turn a pale shade of gold.
“It’s okay, Bruvix. Don’t talk,” I tell him. I have no idea what else to say. There’s so much I wanted to tell him. So much I was finally ready to say. Our life together was just beginning.
His eyes roll back in his head, and I worry he’s passed out. “Bruvix!” I shout, moving my hand off his wound to shake his shoulder. “Stay with me, Bruvix!”
He doesn’t wake, and blood still pours from between his fingers.