Page 18 of Sea of Love

He was only seeing that now? Elettra felt impatient.

“It is like the boots. I made you think I burned them. In similar fashion I made you think me a little witch. They were not and I am not. Release my arm.”

Shelton jerked her closer and gave her a hard shake. “Why?” he roared in her face.

No answer came to her. She could only think of Kember’s halfling, and how pitifully she had used her father’s gifts. Of seeing Summer kneeling beside the diamond crypt, and how the tears in her eyes had made them shimmer like rainbow stones in the rain. Of the look on the Fae king’s face when she had finished informing him that her bloodkin intended to steal his kingdom, murder him and his family, and enslave the mortal realm.

Shelton had no right to look at her now, with his heart in his pretty eyes, and his body pressed to hers, and the heat and smell of him filling her nose. Not while he shouted his anger at her.

Elettra spread her fingers, drawing to her hand every speck of crystal from the ground around them. The sparkling ball felt good in her palm, and even better when she let it form a glove over her hand.

“Cyrus,” she heard Summer say, “Please, let her go. Now.”

The Templar turned his head. “I will have–”

Punching Shelton in the face with her crystal fist removed his hand from her arm nicely. Elettra watched him reel back and fall down. It did not knock him out, but she hadn’t hit him with all her strength. That would have made a hole through his face. Still, she had made her point.

Turning her back on him felt very good, too.

“We must get to the city,” she told Summer, who looked oddly pale. “The woman–”

Elettra’s head snapped sideways, and before she could catch herself, she hit the sand.

Shelton dragged her back to her feet. Blood trickled from his split lip, and sand stuck to half of his face. He looked ready to punch her again, so she took a step back and summoned more crystal. This time she formed it into two long staffs ending in shining blunt hooks.

“You wish to fight,” she said, “then we shall.” She tossed one of the staffs to him, which he caught, and dropped her shoulders as she assumed a dueling stance. “Blood or death?”

He stared at the staff in his hand and then her. “What?”

The man was supposed to be an immortal soldier, but he knew nothing of dueling. Standards among the military had certainly slipped since her time.

“Do you wish to fight until one of us draws blood, or one of us dies?” He stared at her more. “Fae are very hard to kill,” she added honestly.

“Oh, shut up,” he said, snarling like an angry dog.

He did bring up the staff in time to parry her first blow, but he neglected to anticipate her follow-through of a hook to the knee. He went down a second time.

“Elettra, he doesn’t want to fight you,” Summer said as she stepped between them. “Please, put down the staff.”

“Is that true, Templar?” Elettra stood on her toes to look over the emerald witch’s head. But as Charbon pulled her aside, Shelton came at her. “Oh. It seems not.”

They went at each other in proper fashion from there, and Elettra felt better. Shelton had no style, of course, and pulled his blows as if he feared harming her. She did the same, with enormous style, and managed to land nearly all of her strikes. That her heart ached with every blow mattered not. She kept seeing the dead halfling Kember had never known. Would knowledge of his daughter have kept him from ending his life? How could he have been so careless? Why did it all make her want to weep?

“We don’t have time for this,” Atwater said.

“What happened to her?” Bowers yelled.

Elettra spun to lock Shelton’s hook with hers, but his elbow came up and struck her mouth, splitting her lip. She spat blood on the sand and grinned at him.

“You have prevailed,” she said. “Unless you mean to kill me. Then we will be here for a much longer time.”

The staff fell from Shelton’s fist. “God in heaven,” he muttered.

He came to her, and grabbed her face in his hands, and gingerly touched her bleeding lip. For a moment it seemed like he would say something, but then he pressed his brow to hers.

All of the sorrowful thoughts in her head went away as Elettra breathed in the scent of his sweat and blood.

“I think that’s enough compassion, Brother,” Bowers said.