“Ah,” his voice a mixture of respect and predatory excitement. “You’re one ofthem.” He gestured toward a curtained-off area behind the stall. “The box is back there. But perhaps… she stays, and you can have it.”
The old woman’s knitting needles clicked in perfect time with the frantic hammering of my heart. Luzia tensed beside me, and I placed a restraining hand on her arm, my touch a silent plea for patience. This wasn’t the time. Not yet. This man wouldn’t hesitate to kill us.
“You think you can hold her?” I asked Silva, forcing my voice to remain calm, my mind racing for a way out. “She’s more trouble than she’s worth. Trust me.”
Silva hesitated, his gaze darting between Luzia and me, a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. He seemed to be weighing his options, calculating the risks. It was in that crucial moment of indecision, that sliver of vulnerability, that his two guards chose to act. They were hulking brutes, their faces scarred and grim, and their movements surprisingly swift for their size. They lunged forward, aiming to subdue Luzia before she could unleash her full power.
One went for her legs, attempting a clumsy tackle, while the other aimed a blow at her head. But Luzia was ready. She moved with a speed and grace that defied human limitations, a whirlwind of motion too fast for the eye to fully comprehend.
She sidestepped the tackle with a fluid twist of her body, the attacker stumbling past her, off balance and vulnerable. In the same instant, she pivoted, her elbow snapping upward with brutal force, connecting with the other guard’s jaw. A sickening crack echoed through the stall, followed by a groan of pain as the man crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
The remaining guard, recovering from his near miss, roared in anger and charged again. Luzia met his attack head-on, her movements precise and deadly. She ducked under a wild swing, her fist connecting with his stomach, driving the air from his lungs. He staggered back, gasping for breath, his face contorted in pain. Luzia followed up with a lightning-fast kick to his knee, buckling his leg. He collapsed, whimpering, clutching his injured limb.
The entire exchange took mere seconds, the two hulking guards reduced to groaning heaps before I could exhale.
Silva’s eyes widened, but not with the raw, primal fear I expected. Instead, his surprise melted away into a chilling,predatory confirmation. He smiled, a slow, ugly stretching of his lips. He had been waiting for this.
“Impressive,” he said, his voice dangerously calm. “Very impressive. I knew the stories were true.”
Luzia tensed, ready for his attack, but he didn’t lunge. He simply snapped his fingers.
From behind the beaded curtain, two more men emerged. They were not hulking brutes, but wiry and alert, and they moved with a cold professionalism. In their hands, they held black semi-automatic pistols, and they aimed them not at the whirlwind of fury that was Luzia, but directly at my chest.
My blood ran cold. I froze, the weight of theSeolaisunder my shirt suddenly feeling like a block of ice.
Luzia’s ferocious energy vanished, replaced by a stillness that was somehow more terrifying. The otherworldly light in her eyes flickered, her gaze locked on the guns pointed at me. She was trapped. Her power, as immense as it was, was useless against a bullet aimed at a human she cared about.
“You see,” Silva purred, stepping around the groaning forms of his guards. “I’ve dealt with your kind before. Magic is powerful, but it has its limits. And you… you have a weakness.” His gaze flicked to me, and his smile widened. “He is your weakness.”
“Let him go,” Luzia growled, her voice a low tremor of contained rage.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Silva sneered. “I have theSussuron. I have the leverage. And now I have confirmation of what you are. What do you think the local police, or theFederales, would do if I showed them a video of what you just did to my men?” He gestured vaguely toward the corner of the stall, and I saw the small, blinking red light of a security camera for the first time.
My heart hammered against my ribs. He had her. He had us both.
“So here’s what’s going to happen,” Silva continued, his tone all business now. “You are going to walk out of here. You are going to forget all about theSussuron. And if I ever see either of you again, I won’t just kill him. I’ll make you a global sensation first.”
The threat hung in the air, suffocating and absolute. Failure washed over me, cold and bitter. I had brought her here. I had let this happen.
Salvation came from the old woman. With a sudden, sharp cry, she stumbled, knocking over a tall, rickety shelf piled high with brass pots and ceramic idols. The crash was deafening, a wave of chaos that momentarily stunned the gunmen.
It was the only chance I would get.
“Now!” I hissed, my hand locking onto Luzia’s arm, a desperate anchor.
I launched us from the stall, a single panicked motion that threw us into the overwhelming chaos of the market. Silva’s roar ripped through the air behind me, an order that felt like a physical blow. “Get them!”
The crowd slammed into us, a wall of bodies. A heavy-set man carrying a crate of chickens stumbled, shoving me one way and tearing Luzia’s arm from my grip. For a heart-stopping second, she was gone, swallowed by the human tide.
Scrambling to my feet, my heart hammered against my ribs as I shouted her name. With every step taken toward the shifting gap where she’d vanished, a familiar, dreaded tightness began to coil in my chest. The air, so freely given just moments before, thinned into a useless, sharp gasp. A raw wheeze clawed at my throat, the phantom memory of a thousand childhood attacks rising with it.Not now,the panic flared.Please, not now.
CHAPTER 17
Caio
Panic strips away thought, leaving only the frantic pump of legs and the fire in my lungs. The crowd was a wall of bodies, a suffocating tide I fought against, shouting Luzia’s name until my throat was raw. Black spots danced at the edge of my vision. Every gasp was a failure, pulling in nothing but the thick, spicy air that offered no relief. My legs were leaden, my movements clumsy with oxygen deficiency. I was going to collapse, and Silva’s men would get me.
Then, a hand clamped onto my arm, the grip firm, a lifeline. Luzia.
