Page 11 of Wicked Enemy
I skidded to a halt next to Frank in the circular room that had become a battlefield.
The moment I became visible, Levi’s sharp gray eyes snapped to me.
At first, he almost looked surprised to see me. Then a calculating expression descended on his features as he flicked his gaze between the six of us.
Dread washed over me like a cold wave.
But before I could shout a warning, the ceiling above us came alive. Metal spikes formed on the previously smooth surface and shot down towards us. Acting on instinct, I threw up a wind shield above me.
Next to me, Frank screamed as one of the spikes grazed his arm when he didn’t manage to jump aside fast enough.
“This whole building is made of metal,” I snapped at my colleagues. “He led you into a trap.”
Magic whooshed around me as everyone desperately tried to shove the new wave of spikes aside before they could strike. I reached for my sword, only to find my hip empty. We had been off duty, so none of us was carrying a sword. And we couldn’t win in a ranged fight against Levi in a room full of metal.
I sprinted forward, intending to force Levi into close combat. But as soon as I moved, he started concentrating his attacks on me.
Sheets of metal flashed through the empty room as Levi hurled them at me from an angle. It forced me to back sideways across the room and away from the support of my colleagues. I slapped my hands together over and over again, barely able to raise walls of wind and water fast enough to push the metal aside.
“Retreat!” Frank called from somewhere close to the stairwell. “Do it now while he’s distracted.”
Part of me wanted to growl that the only reason Levi was distracted was because he was currently busy battering me with relentless attacks.
“Eve!” Frank yelled while the rest of them scrambled towards the stairs. “Pull back. We need to wait for reinforcements.”
“I’m trying,” I ground out between gritted teeth while I raised shield after shield that barely made it in time.
Boots thudded against the steps somewhere behind me and to the left. I couldn’t spare the attention to look, but hopefully the sound meant that my colleagues had already escaped and gotten to safety. It was my fault that Levi was free to attack us, so I should bear the cost of that anyway.
Levi’s attacks were forcing me to keep backing away until the whole room, and the King of Metal himself, was between me and the stairwell, but there was nothing I could do about that since I could barely manage to block his metal walls in time.
Cool night air smelling of the river that flowed right below the open windows washed over me as I tried desperately to stop Levi’s onslaught. But he just turned slowly so that he was facing me the whole time while he forced me around the room. There was no anger on his face anymore. Only an impassive blank mask that somehow hurt more than his vicious words from earlier.
I raised my hands, getting ready to touch my palms together again to summon another water shield, but before I could, something cold and hard wrapped around my wrist.
A yelp slipped from my lips as a band of metal snaked around my wrist, quick as a viper, and then yanked my arm upwards. I whipped my head up and found that Levi had pulled down metal from the ceiling above me.
That quick look was a mistake.
The moment I took my attention off Levi, he struck from all sides.
Metal shot up from the floor and wrapped around my ankles as well, trapping them to the ground, while another band slithered from the ceiling and snaked around my free hand. Panic pulsed through my body as my other arm was yanked upwards as well. Then the metal hardened, leaving me standing spreadeagled and completely immobilized with the King of Metal before me.
Steel sang into the suddenly eerily silent room as Levi slowly drew the massive sword he kept strapped along his spine.
Another night wind whirled in through the open window, the dark water two stories below making it feel colder than usual. Or perhaps the shiver that raced through me had nothing to do with the wind at all. I yanked against my restraints as Levi began to advance on me, but they didn’t give an inch.
My heart pounded in my chest as Levi stopped two strides away and raised his sword. His gray eyes were as unyielding as the metal he commanded when he locked them on mine. I drew in a shuddering breath. Cold steel met my skin as Levi shifted his sword and rested the point at the base of my throat.
“If you’re going to kill me,” I snapped, suddenly feeling more angry than afraid, “just get it over with.”
He flicked his wrist, using the flat of the blade to push my chin up and force my mouth closed again. I glared back at him. For a few seconds, he only watched me with that expressionless mask still on his face.
“Do you really think these people deserve your loyalty?” he asked at last.
It was not at all what I had expected him to say, so all I managed to press out was, “What?”
Removing the sword from my throat, he used it to point towards the now empty stairwell. “They ran.” He motioned up and down my trapped body with the blade. “And let you hang.”