“Come on, then,” Bones jeered. “I haven’t got all night. Were you going to rip her knickers off next? Maybe punch her a few times to keep her from annoying the rest of us with her infernal screaming?” He glanced around the alcove. “I suppose you could just smash her face against the stone… that ought to be enough to knock her out. Stun her, anyway. ‘Course, it might make it harder for all that name-screaming you promised…”
Strangemore went totally still behind me.
Laughably, I could feel him actually struggling with Bone’s words. He’d threatened to kill me if I spoke about what he was about to do, but he didn’t like Bones calling it out for what it was, maybe because he was another mage.
He actually found itoffensivethat Bones was accusing him of rape.
“You, of all people, know what she is,” Strangemore snapped.
But Bones had apparently lost interest in the back and forth.
He motioned gracefully with a hand, without speaking or whispering so much as a word in Sanskrit or Latin, and the suffocating binding spell around my body abruptly fell away.
Shocked, I gasped real, big breaths, in and out. My hand pressed to my throat.
When Graham’s arm loosened in surprise, I elbowed him, hard, in the chest, and wrenched out of his lap. The drug hit me with a vengeance once I was vertical, and my legs crumpled under me, nearly sending me face-first into the alcove wall.
Before I could fall, a different arm slid around my waist.
Gently… so gently, I had the sudden urge to cry… he held me up.
Bones brought me all the way back upright and carefully towards him.
I stepped back into him willingly, moving too fast. As a result, I half-tripped on my high heels so that my back collided with his chest. I found my balance after he’d steadied me again, and then I only stood there, gripping his arm in both of my hands, panting as I stared at Strangemore.
I glanced up only once, staring at Bones’s face, but he didn’t take his eyes off the other mage. The look on his face was…
I blinked, and looked away.
I couldn’t think about that now. I couldn’t pretend I knew why he was there.
Whatever his reasons, I was grateful. His reasons didn’t matter.
I refocused on the mage who’d attacked me, but Strangemore wouldn’t meet my gaze, either. He stared up at Bones, outrage now shining in his violet eyes.
“You fucking royals,” Strangemore snarled. “You’re just going to pass her around between you, then? Not let any of us have any fun?”
My eyes returned to Bones’s face, almost against my will. I noted the vein throbbing at his temple, the tautness of his face and long jaw. The indifferent stare remained in his gold eyes, but the muscles on his neck stood out.
“You mind waiting for me in the corridor, Shadow?” Bones asked politely, his voice as bland and indifferent as his eyes. He started to turn with me, to bring me closer to the stone entrance, presumably so I could use the wall to support myself, once I’d let go of him. “I want to have a little chat with your ‘date.’ If you don’t think you can get back to the party on your own, wait for me, and I’ll bring you in a moment.”
Before he could let go of me, I laid a hand on his chest.
Bones flinched, but those gold eyes dropped to meet mine. That fire continued to coil and flare in his irises, but some of the mask dropped as he stared at me.
“Don’t,” I told him, softly.
The mask hardened back around his features, so quickly it bewildered me.
“Don’t what, Shadow?” he growled.
“Whatever it is you think you’re going to do.”
“Whatever IthinkI’m going to do?” he sneered. “You’re worried for your new boyfriend, Shadow? Even now?”
“No, you idiot. I’m worried about you.”
His eyes flinched.
