Iron and Magic

They would’ve killed her tonight. Elara wasn’t sure how she knew, but she felt it with absolute surety. Thinking about it raised the hair on the back of her neck. She had training both with guns and with bladed weapons. She had brought neither.

Elara reached for the underwear she’d laid out, put it on, and slipped into a dark-blue gown. She ran a brush through her hair on autopilot.

They’d almost killed her.

That’s how fragile it all was. One moment she brimmed with power. The next the tech crashed into her and all her powers were gone. She had grown too complacent. There was a time when she never would’ve left the safety of her people without a gun.

It was the call. It had muddled her thinking.

Elara opened the door and walked into her bedroom.

Hugh sat on a chair, naked to the waist. A four-inch gash ran down his side, curving toward his spine. Another cut, about three inches long, carved its way down his back, over his shoulder blade. Nadia and Beth had already washed his wounds. Now Beth sat next to him. She saw Elara, picked up the needle holder, and plucked the surgical needle from the plastic holder.

Beth’s hands shook. She was a gentle person. She would run at a monster and kill it with her sword, but when it came to humans, Beth could barely defend herself and D’Ambray scared her. Elara never witnessed him being mean to Beth, but there was something about him that deeply unsettled the young woman.

“Thank you, Beth.” Elara stepped out, wiped her hands on a towel, and took the needle holder from her. “Please check on the child and Alex for me.”

Beth retreated into the hallway and took off.

Hugh’s cuts weren’t too bad. She’d had a lot of practice in suturing wounds. This time wasn’t any different.

Nadia slipped through the door, carrying a platter with a glass of greenish liquid on it. She offered the glass to Hugh.

“Drink,” Elara said.

Hugh studied the glass. “What’s in it?”

“All-purpose antidote.”

“There is no such thing.”

“You’ve been stabbed, and we have no idea what was on that sword. This will help fight off several common poisons.”

He squinted at the glass.

“I realize that you can cure all your ills when the magic hits, but we don’t know when that will be, so drink. I have to keep you alive until the magic wave comes.”

He tasted the liquid. “It’s foul.”

Her voice was cold and detached. “Don’t be a baby, Preceptor.”

Hugh drained the glass.

“Any news on Alex?” Elara asked.

“He’s still sleeping. Malcom says he’s stable.”

Nadia took the empty glass and left the room. They were alone.

“Arms,” Elara said. They had already tried to get him to lay down on the table and he refused. The look in his eyes told her there was no intelligent life there.

Hugh raised his arms, locking them on the back of his head. His big biceps flexed. The carved, defined muscle on his chest stood out under tan skin. His dark blue eyes grew warm and inviting. He was thinking about sex and watched her like she was naked. It was distracting as hell and he knew it, which was exactly why he was doing it.

Elara sat on a low footstool, gently lifted the edge of the wound with sterilized forceps, punctured the edge with the needle, and rotated her hand to neatly slide the needle through the skin and muscle.

He didn’t move. No grunting, no indication at all that something painful was happening. She concentrated on making even knots.

“Had a hard time stabbing that guy through the armor?” Hugh asked.

Elara didn’t answer.

“Happens to the best of us.”

She was almost done.

“The next time aim for the back of the neck or the inside of the thighs.”

“I managed.”

“Yes,” he said, a smile waiting on his lips. “Yes, you did.”

“What?”

Hugh just looked at her.

“What’s so funny?”

“You and your murderous spree. Do your people know that you’re bloodthirsty?”

Elara snipped the last bit of thread. “Don’t you think we have more pressing things to discuss? Like who are they? What do they want? Why are they killing people?”

“Those are good questions. In fact, I was going to get answers to those questions, except you killed the people who had them.”

Elara stopped. “I was trying to help you stay alive, you ungrateful ass.”

“Did I look like I needed help?”

She glared at him and moved onto his shoulder.

“What did you think they were going to do to me?”

Dickhead. “Remind me, which one of us is cut up?”

“Okay,” Hugh said, “I’ll give you the guy with the broken nose, his eyes swollen shut, and his right hand hanging by a thread. He still had one hand left. He might have pounded his remaining fist on my chest as I dragged him off. But why the guy with the cracked liver? He was on his knees hacking his blood out.”

The light dawned in her head.

“I set these guys up, so we could question them, and every time I left one breathing, you killed them.”

She did kill them. That was dumb. Wow, that was dumb. Not one of her brightest moments.

Hugh cocked an eyebrow at her. “What happened to my calculating ice bitch? Were you actually so worried about me, you couldn’t think straight?”

He was openly mocking her.

Elara stood up and leaned in close. With him sitting and her standing, she was slightly taller. “Yes. I was worried about you. I killed fourteen creatures. You only had to take care of three men, and I had to finish two of them for you and poor Cedric had to help you with the third. That fight didn’t go well for you, did it?”

“Really? This is what you’re going with?”

“If you died while you and I were alone in the woods, your people would assume I killed you. They don’t know that I don’t need a crude chunk of metal to take your life. If I wanted you dead, I would eat your soul. It would taste bitter and rotten, but sacrifices must be made.”

Hugh bared his teeth in a feral grin. “How about now? Take a little bite of my soul, just for fun.”

She squeezed her eyes shut for a second and looked down, to the source of all life below. “Please give me strength to not kill this man. Please.”

“Why don’t you try?” Hugh offered. An inviting heat lit his eyes. “It might be fun.”

Oh, it would be fun. He looked so good in the light, every line of his torso strong, every muscle defined. She liked it all, his crazy blue eyes, the stubble on his square jaw, his broad shoulders, his chest, his flat stomach… She liked his size, the arrogant way he sprawled in her chair, the power in his body, but even more, the power in his eyes. Everything about him said strength and she needed strength tonight. She craved it, craved him, being wrapped in him.

Elara remembered the way he looked at her in the dream, with an almost feral need.

No. Not this man. Anybody but him. Not only was he too dangerous, but she could barely stand being in the room with him.

And she still felt stupid. That was okay. In a minute they would both feel stupid.

“Fine,” Elara ground out, finishing the last stitch. “I did kill them. But what about you? Did you forget how to talk?”

Quick steps approached, and Felix appeared in the doorway. Cedric slunk in behind him and sat in the doorway.

“In all of that dazzling display of swordsmanship, couldn’t you have found two seconds to manfully growl, ‘We need them alive?’ or ‘Don’t kill him?’ You’re supposed to lead your soldiers. Don’t you issue orders, or do you just telepathically broadcast your battle strategy?”

Hugh glared at her.

“Let’s ask Felix,” she said.

The big man startled.

“Felix, how do you know when Hugh wants you to do something?”

“He tells me,” Felix said.

“Ah!” She clapped her hands together. “He tells you. Imagine that. So you are able to communicate with actual words rather than grunts and snarls. What happened? Why didn’t you tell me you wanted them alive after I killed the first one? It took me like three minutes to slide the sword into that second guy. I had to lay on it.”