AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Then her hands came up orstarted to, one aimed toward Elodie and one toward Cretan, whostill held Elodie up, both of them strangely still and yet not.Again, the slow-motion effect lent an eerie, unreal, dreamlikequality to the action. Meanwhile, Chance was frozen in time. Allmovement was leaden, as if his mind was still operating at fullspeed, but nothing else was. He knew he tried to shout the word“No!” and tried to start running for Elodie. But he’d barely openedhis mouth or lifted his foot.
Then, without warning, theslowing went away and everything sped back up to normal in ajolting rush. In simultaneous instant, three thingshappened…
The arrow pierced thewitch’s heart. Even from this distance Chance couldn’t mistake theway she recoiled from the sight of Cretan—the arrow taking effectand aversion twisting her features.
But her spells were already released.
One spell struck theminotaur and he disappeared instantly.
The other spell struckChance. There’d been no time to shout, let alone get out of theway. It hit in the center of his chest and blasted him backwardabout thirty feet to collide with a tree with a crack of hishead.
Vaguely Chance was aware ofdropping to the snowy ground and the scent of burning flesh beforehe passed out.
* * *
Elodie’s mind took a solidthirty seconds to catch up with what had just happened. After timeseemed to slow and speed up, all she knew was that she was on theground now and Cretan was gone. The witch had managed to shoot aflash of magic past Elodie into the clearing, as well as sendCretan away, protecting her lover, if only temporarily, while atthe same time being struck by a glittering magicalarrow.
Elodie stared at the woman, who now lookeddown at her chest as though expecting to see a bleeding woundthere. But there was none.
“No,” the young witch—andshe was young, nineteen at the most—gasped around the word,covering her heart with her hand. “He couldn’t.” She looked up,right into Elodie’s eyes, tears slipping down her cheeks. “I lovedCretan. I know I did. That shouldn’t have worked.”
What was she talking about?
But the memories finallyrighted themselves in her head and a detail finallystruck.
Lead. Not gold. The arrow Chance had shot atthe witch was to take away love, not give it.
Before she could move,Delilah was suddenly beside her. “I’ll handle her. Chance is hurt,”she said before grabbing Elodie’s hand. They teleported in a beatof silence before reappearing in the woods where she’d left herfriends standing only minutes ago, though it felt like anage.
Chance wasn’t standing,though. He was on the ground, out cold.
A blackened scorch marksat, still smoking, dead center of his chest, the putrid scent ofcharred flesh heavy on the air. Alasdair knelt over him, handsglowing as he murmured the words of a spell.
Elodie was on her hands andknees beside him before she even remembered deciding to move.Taking one of his cold, limp hands in hers, she rubbed it, watchingwhat Alasdair was doing. Repairing the wound, apparently. Beforeher eyes the flesh turned from white with black edges to white withlittle pink dots inside. Then those dots spread, becoming newflesh. Layers and layers forming until the edges started turningthe silvery pink of scar tissue.
Vaguely, she was aware ofDelilah disappearing, then reappearing with the witch intow.
“What happened?” Elodieasked her friend over her shoulder, not looking away from Chance.Willing him to open his eyes.
“She hit him with alightning bolt,” Delilah’s voice wasn’t grim. She was pissed. “Ishould have predicted it.”
“You couldn’t haveknown—”
“Yes. I could. But thispregnancy—”
“Not with what I can dowith time,” the young witch offered through her sniffles, seeminglyapologetic.
Chance suddenly coughed,the sound racking his body before he took a long, grating breathand opened his eyes. Only he didn’t look at Elodie. He looked atAlasdair. “Damn, that hurt,” he rasped.
Elodie scowled. “That isnot funny.”
Chance pushed himself to sitting, still notlooking at her. “I know.”
Alasdair ignored them both,continuing to heal Chance until all the flesh was pink and new.Then he sat back on his haunches. “If you’d been any closer, thiswould have killed you, but the tree took the brunt.”
Chance rubbed at the center of his chest andwinced. “Lucky me.”
“How can you joke aboutthis?” Elodie snapped. Mostly because the relief that he was okaywas making her snippy. A new sensation for her. Both the relief forsomeone else and the irritable reaction.
