Page 37 of Heartless Enemy

Font Size:

Page 37 of Heartless Enemy

But I wanted Eve to know. Iwantedto share this part of myself with her.

Opening my mouth, I got ready to tell her the rest of the story.

Cold dread washed over me.

No. I couldn’t.

“Anyway…” I cleared my throat and instead quickly said, “No, we don’t need any tents because there’s an inn halfway between Malgrave and Helmark.”

Eve looked like she was about to ask something, and part of me wished that she would. Wished that she would push for an answer so that I would be forced to tell her. But she didn’t. Because she understood more than most how painful the past could be, and especially if you weren’t ready to talk about it.

“Oh, that’s good,” she said instead, and gave me a small smile. “Because you’re right. Sleeping out in the wild really isn’t high on my list of things to try before I die.”

I chuckled, relieved that I could put off this conversation a little longer, and then raised my eyebrows at her. “Does that mean you’ve never been outside Malgrave?”

“No, I have. I’ve been south. To Castlebourne. But never north.” She shot me a curious look. “I take it you have?”

“Yeah, I’m…”

Once again, I was given an opening to share. And once again, I panicked and changed the subject. Fucking hell, why was I such a bloody coward?

“I’ve been to that inn before,” I said instead. “And if we keep up this pace, we should reach it before nightfall.”

“That’s—”

Releasing the reins, I slapped my hands together and yanked up a metal wall right before a storm of magic could crash into us. It hit my shield instead, making the metal buckle in several places from the sheer force of it. And that meant only one thing. Other dark mages.

While shoving the metal wall towards our attackers, I threw my leg over the saddle and opened my mouth to tell Eve to get down from her horse as well. But there was no need. She had already jumped off and drawn her sword and was halfway across the grass by the time I landed on the ground.

The metal slammed into defensive magic across the grass. I let it drop and instead summoned a sheet that I flung towards the right.

Now that the wall was gone, I could see our attackers clearly.

There were five of them, and all of them were men. They were standing just a few steps in front of the small copse of trees to our left, which meant that they must have been hiding in there and waiting for us to get closer so that they could ambush us.

The two people on the ends yanked up shields of water and wind to block the metal sheet I had hurled at them. A boom reverberated across the grass as the magic collided. The moment that the shields were gone, the three people in the middle shot lightning bolts and a fireball at me.

So, one wind mage, one fire mage, one water mage, and two lightning mages. And five against two. Not the greatest odds, but not by any stretch impossible either.

Surprise flashed across the guys’ faces when the magic disappeared to reveal Eve charging them at full speed with her sword drawn. They were no doubt used to other dark mages, who preferred to fight from a distance, or to normal people, who didn’t fight at all. Not to a trained constable whose first instinct was to force close combat.

I threw another metal wall to block the magic that they suddenly scrambled to shoot at Eve instead. Embers swirled in the cold air as the fireball smacked into my shield, followed closely by two lightning bolts. Dropping it, I raised another to block the combined wind and water attack. Water sprayed out around it.

Then she was there.

Alarm pulsed through the row of attackers as Eve swung her sword at the wind mage’s head. I summoned a sharp sheet of metal and shot it at the other four.

Warmth spread through my chest as I watched Eve fight while I hurled attack after attack at them too.

This was yet another thing I loved about that little spitfire. She didn’t need me to protect her. She was dangerous and lethal and could more than hold her own in a fight. Even in a dark mage battle.

The wind mage and one of the lightning mages were scrambling to get out of reach of Eve’s sword while also trying to shoot attacks at her. But every time they tried to touch their hands together, Eve was there, swinging at them and forcing them to jump back.

Next to them, the other three were getting distracted by the melee as well. I used that opportunity to shoot a hail of metal spears at them while I strode closer. The water mage and the fire mage managed to block or push my attacks off course at the last second, but the lightning mage didn’t have any defensive magic, and the others had been too late to protect him.

Shock pulsed across his narrow face as the spear sunk deep into his chest. He coughed blood onto his shirt and then toppled backwards. It made the second lightning mage whip around towards me, leaving the wind mage to deal with Eve alone.

I threw two more spears while continuing to stalk towards them, managing to skewer the distracted lightning mage through the heart as well, and then changed my attack to wide sheets instead. The water mage had been so wrapped up in blocking the spears that he didn’t notice that I had switched attacks until it was too late.




Top Books !
More Top Books

Treanding Books !
More Treanding Books