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“I think that’s good enough, darling,” he murmured. “May I touch you?”
I gritted my teeth. “This isn’t your battle, Dom. I don’t need saving.”
The vampire barked a laugh. “No kidding.”
Dom’s laugh caught me by surprise. I turned to face him, my magic weakening the slightest amount at the look in his eye. It wasn’t anything I’d chosen to do consciously. It was like my magic was reacting to my emotions.
My magic had taken over when I was so full of fear, I’d felt like my life had been threatened. Now, as that fear waned, my magic was softening.
“But...”
“I know, Trixie. I know.”
Dom must have sensed my hesitation because he reached for my wrist, rested his hand on my skin gently. His touch was cool, but somehow it warmed me from my core.
Dom lowered my hands slightly as my magic waned further, fading from that blinding white power to a golden glow, then eventually to wisps of silver that evaporated as I let the elf slide to the ground.
Dom removed his hands from my skin, and suddenly the prickle of the rain seemed colder, more frigid than before. I shivered, soaked to the bone, but I couldn’t move. I could only stare at my hands.
They no longer felt like basic hands that I’d spent years and years training to keep magic away. My fingers felt like weapons all over again, dangerous machines that could hurt someone. I’d been in that situation once before, and I wasn’t eager to return to it. I’d spent my life working against it.
“Oh,” I gasped. “I could’ve killed him if you weren’t here.”
I looked up at the elf. He was halfway to unconscious, slumped on the ground, his head bobbing. He was clearly alive, but his eyes weren’t open, and he wasn’t making a move to get up.
“You wouldn’t have killed him.” Dom’s voice was even, smooth, dangerous like a razor blade. Like he wasn’t at all affected by what had just happened in front of him. “I’ll take care of this. Go inside.”
“You’re not—” I glanced over at Dom. “You’re not going to kill him, are you?”
He gave a little sniff that sounded almost like disappointment. “You don’t want me to, right?”
“Correct,” I said, trying not to stutter. “He was trying to blackmail me. I was worried for my safety. The magic just came out of me on an impulse.”
“He tried to what?” Dominic snarled. “Did he put his hands on you?”
“Just stop, Dom. I’ve already done enough damage. Let him go.”
This time, it was my turn to put my hands on Dominic’s expansive chest. I pushed him gently back. The reporter must have been able to sense that we were talking about him. Or maybe it was the way Dom’s fangs descended the slightest amount once again, this time giving him a look as if he was on the hunt. It seemed like that spooked some life back into the elf.
The reporter scrambled to his feet, disappeared down the far end of the alley, leaving his camera and phone behind. Dom watched him go, flexing his fists as if it took all his self-control not to go after him.
“It’s okay,” I reminded Dom, my hands still firmly on his chest. I gripped his shirt tighter. “Dom, it’s okay. Let it go.”
“It’s not okay.” Dominic walked over, stomped on the camera.
It didn’t just shatter, it was obliterated into ash. Then he did the same with the phone. It was a display of strength that very clearly reminded me that Dominic wasn’t just a man capable of protecting me—he was a vampire capable of killing people, human or otherwise, with one slice of his fangs.
I shuddered, took a step backward. Now that the danger had gone, and I was no longer worried that Dom was going to murder a man in cold blood, I suddenly felt a wave of nausea rock through me. I collapsed to my knees, dry-heaved, one hand holding me up against the brick building.
My vision went blurry, faster than before, and this time I didn’t stand a chance of maintaining consciousness. The last thing I knew was the icy prickle of water pelting my skin, the bone-weary exhaustion that had come from that amount of magic leaving me, and then, blissfully, the grip of strong arms pulling me out of the darkness and into warmth.
Chapter 8
Dominic
I’d pictured the witch in my bed before. But in every other instance of that image, it’d been different—it’d been a fantasy. And for starters, in all my fantasies, Trixie had always been conscious when I laid her on my mattress.
The reality of this moment was much different.
