I clench my teeth. He is powerful. He is capable.
I do not want him to get hurt.
“Very well. Approach?”
“Surround him. Keep Rachel and Margot here. He’ll kill them.”
I nod. Logical. Simple. I lean over to Margot. “Stay here.”
She frowns but nods, not arguing, and I see Rachel do the same with Asher. There is no doubt that, even without being able to feel fae magic, they still know that something is very wrong. Some animal sense they cannot outrun. I signal for Grant to follow me and he does. We slip one way as Asher and Quinn slip the other.
Surrounding the bodyguard is simple enough. He paces in a rough circle, muttering to himself. He does not appear to be in his right mind at all. What is Eirian’s goal here? Foolhardy of her to give him so much magic. She must have had some idea this would happen.
“Do not let him pass,” I whisper to Grant. His magic surrounds us, keeping us from the bodyguard’s view and, I believe, his senses.
“What are you going to do?”
“Capture him.”
Grant squeezes my hand, but when I move away, he lets me go. Quinn slips into position further down, and Asher is opposite Grant, more or less, ready to catch the bodyguard should he decide to run.
He realises we’re there far too late. My blessing is already snaking out towards him when he raises his head, sniffing the air as though locating prey. Only we are not the prey here.
My blessing wraps around his legs, tugging swiftly enough that the bodyguard stumbles and falls. He catches himself on his hands, but Asher’s magic appears to be feeling obedient for a change. It wraps around his arms and pulls them sharply behind his back.
The bodyguard roars. The magic inside him, Eirian’s magic, cuts like choppy waves, trying to throw us off. For a moment, it almost works. Asher lets out a grunt of surprise, his blessing quivering in his grip. I widen my stance, ready to run in and finish this physically. If he is not conscious, it will be harder for him to fight.
Shifted, Quinn pads out of the shadows, a low growl rumbling through him. The bodyguard’s eyes widen, and he twists in the grip of Asher’s and my blessings, but before he can pull away and try to run, Grant strikes. His magic is like a well-aimed arrow and it hits the bodyguard in the chest, travelling through him in a shockwave.
He slumps to one side. He is not dead. I know that. Simply unconscious, and that is what we need.
Asher lets out a breath. “Good job, pup,” he says, and I do not know whether he is talking to Quinn or Grant, but I do not care.
Grant grins at me when I look at him, pride shining in his dark eyes. Oh, he should be proud. He did not put himself in danger and he finished this quickly, assisting even when I gave him no room to.
He needs to be rewarded for that. I shall reward him for that.
However, for now, we must focus on the task at hand, which is the unconscious vampire before us. Asher rubs a hand over the back of his hair. “What are we going to do with him?”
Quinn sits by his mate’s side, still shifted. Margot and Rachel eye both Quinn and the bodyguard warily as they approach.
“Do you think we can take him back to the hotel?” Grant asks. He pulls a face. “Not like there’s much room to keep him there, but we can make it work.”
“Is your room any bigger than theirs?” Magot asks Asher, who shakes his head. “Yeah, that’s not gonna work.”
Rachel shakes her head, too, when Margot looks at her. “No.”
“Rach—”
“No. I mean it. That’s not happening.”
“Do you have a better idea? Not like there are a lot of places to choose from.”
“You want avampirein our flat?”
I jolt. The offer—unvoiced though it may be—is unexpected.
“Just for long enough for”—Margot flaps a hand in our direction—“whatever, you know. We wanted to end this. We’ve beentryingto end this. We can’t give up now.”
