Page 7 of The Fake Divination Offense
Before I can apologize to Alexo, the attacker guy whips his hands out in a wizard offensive stance, a green spell glowing in arcane ropes between his splayed fingers.
The crowd is watching. Dead silent.
While the instrumentals for “Taste” pulse from the stage.
I foresee an uncomfortable conversation with the team’s publicists in my future about what it means toprofessionally represent the team. On top of the already uncomfortable conversation I was going to have with the team manager tomorrow.Great.
I lift my hands in an attempt to placate the guy. “Just back up, all right? We don’t need to—”
“Youback up,” the guy snarls. He’s upper-middle-aged, not dressed at all for a night out at a bar, in frumpy jeans, a wrinkled T-shirt, and an old beat-up jean jacket. His black hair’s greasy, his teeth are bared, and he looks every bit ready to release this attack spell on me.
I step back and bump into Alexo—and my eyebrows pop in surprise. I figured he’d bolt after Ipicked him up.
But he’s still here, and when I move into his space, he doesn’t retreat. Just stays there, his warmth bleeding into my lower back and side, and I instinctively lean closer to that heat.
“Alexo,” the guy snaps. “Get over here.”
Alexo doesn’t move.
The guy’s glower goes murderous when it drops from me to Alexo. “We’re leaving.Now.”
“Maybe we should ask Alexo if he wants to leave with you,” I say through my teeth.
Fuck bullies, I swear to the gods.
The guy spreads his hands, that green spell stretching, intensifying. “He’s leaving with me. Now. He’smineto order around.”
Oh, he didnotjust call Alexohis. Not in that tone of voice. Disrespectful asshat.
A growl rumbles in the base of my throat, my upper lip flinching in an involuntary snarl.
The crowd shifts and a few people draw closer to me, and I know without having to look that it’s Seb and the rest. Does this bar have security people?
But maybe… maybe Alexoisthis guy’s, in some way?
I risk letting the guy out of my sight to look down at Alexo and make sure I’m not reading this situation wrong. That’s the last thing I need, to keep someone from leaving with their friend, however much of a dick he is.
As I turn, all the ways I could be messing up right at this very moment come crashing through me.
Because cameras start going off. It’ll be all over socials in no time, how Orok Monroe, Urzoth Shieldsworn’s tank for the Hellhounds, used his strength and violence to trap a guy at a bar. I can hear the reporters now:That’s how he chooses to embody his god? He let these alleged brutalities happen at Camp Merethyl, but he channels Urzoth for abar fight?
But that all goes translucent with the way Alexo’s gazing up at me.
This close, I can see brown freckles clustered in with the rose-gold glitter across his nose, his lashes made impossibly long by mascara.
He doesn’t look afraid or annoyed that I’m stopping him from leaving. He looks intrigued. Studying me, eyes bouncing over my face.
“Do you want to go with this guy?” I ask him, a little of that growl still in my voice.
His wonder freezes. “I’d have to go with you instead?”
What? I throw my hands up, but to him, it’s supplicant. “Of course not. Just—is this guy bothering you?”
Wow. Next I’ll ask if he comes here often or if it hurt when he fell from the heavens.
Alexo stares at me again, studying,studying, before his lips part in a small huff. And with a triumphant smile—there’re those dimples again,fuuuuuck me—he nods.
“Yeah,” he says, and he drops his gaze to the guy. “Yeah, he’s bothering me.”
