Page 82 of Beauty At Stake
“Bitch, you don't get to ask questions,” Killian said. “You'll be finding out soon enough that you fucked with the wrong people. Did you really think you could cut apart Fairies and abduct Witches with no one coming for you?”
“You're Witches, aren't you? So, iron doesn't work on you.”
Killian snorted and dove for her.
She darted away.
“Alexa, disengage,” I said.
Nothing happened.
“Worth a shot,” Kill said. “And how funny is this shit, babe? She actually has Alexa operating her security system.”
“Seems imprudent.” I looked around.
“Alexa, escape!” the sorceress called out.
A hidden door popped free of the wall right beside the sorceress. As she dashed through, she called back, “How imprudent is it now, bitch?”
“Oh, you're gonna pay for calling my wife a bitch.” The door slammed shut just as Killian reached it. He looked back at me. “I have to admit it's not bad as far as parting lines go. Such a shame she still doesn't know who she's dealing with.” He punched the wall, and the door cracked in two. “Damn it! This shit is narrow.”
“Move, babe!” I dashed past him and into the dark passage.
I could hear the woman scurrying up ahead like a rat. Doubtless, she heard us too. Kinda impossible to not hear Killian breaking through a wall. There was no light, but again, that hardly mattered to me. I ran after the sorceress, coming to a corner after a couple of seconds. Up ahead, a door opened, silhouetting the sorceress and letting light into the passage for a few seconds before she slammed the door closed. I sent a blast of Light after her.
The door burst outward, and I heard a startled cry. I ran for the exit and emerged just as the sorceress got to her feet. She looked back at me, eyes wide, then pulled something out of her jacket. It looked like a remote.
Seeing it brought a flashback of Korea to mind—chasing a pearl thief. A second pearl thief. The first had been a nice guy. This one—not so much. He set off a bomb so he could escape us.
A bomb!
“Killian!” I shouted as I turned back to the house.
“I'm coming, babe! Fuck this fucking tunnel!” Killian called out.
“Kill, run!”
I heard a beep from behind me, but I didn't give a shit about the woman anymore. I ran for the house. Killian appeared in the exit just as the explosion went off. I grabbed his hand and laleked us away.
Chapter Thirty
Killian and I reappeared in the living room of the sorceress's other house (how many houses did this woman have?). I didn't let go of Kill. I was shaking too much. It had all happened so fast. I could have protected us with a dome of Light, but I didn't think of that until after we were safe. You can have the most powerful magic in the world and still get hurt because you have so much of it, you forget what you've got or what you can do with it. In this case, that may have been a good thing. I wasn't sure if setting a protection dome would have taken more time than laleking.
“I'm all right,” Killian said. “Twilight, can you hear me? Come in, Twilight.”
I let out a shocked laugh and squeezed harder.
“Why did you take so long?” Star demanded. “You were supposed to . . . what happened?”
“The sorceress was there,” Killian answered for us. “We went after her. We even caught her, but then she gave us the slip. Ran out of the room through a hidden passage.”
“A hidden fucking passage? Does everyone have one of those now?” Star drawled. Then, in a more concerned tone, “Seren? Are you all right?”
“We chased her,” Kill went on. “The escape tunnel was narrow. It took me longer to get through. The bitch set off an explosion just as I reached the end. Seren laleked us here, but it was close. As in, I felt the heat of it—close.” He bent his head and kissed my forehead. “I'm all right, babe. Come on, we're good. You were amazing. You got us out of there in the nick of time. Like a superhero.”
That's when I really felt the difference. The freedom of Anu's influence. Nearly losing Killian right after getting free of Anu's magic made it ten times more frightening. Killian. The man who understood me like no one else. My sweet, shit-talking, bad-ass Witch turned Fairy. The one who I could count on to make me laugh. To remind me of my humanity. The one who always said—
“You die, I die, Twilight,” Killian murmured, as if he could hear my thoughts. “That's my line, not yours. You tried to reverse that shit today. Not cool, babe. Don't bite my lines.”
