Then Declan and Nimai stepped into the marked area, and the edge of the space sprouted a riot of silver blades, knee high and gleaming.All Antonio could do was watch, as Declan studied Nimai, hate in the look and in the bond, but a smile on his lips.
“You know what I could never figure out?”Declan asked, loud now, and deep enough to set the swords shivering.“Why Everil didn’t experiment a bit.See if ‘I’ll shed no blood’ meant ‘I can drown the ruddy disappointment of a brownie’.”
Nimai sneered.“What you fail to understand about Everil is that hewantedto be kept on a tight rein.He knew the danger of his baser instincts.You, sadly, have never recognized the need.”
Declan didn’t answer with words.Dark tendrils manifested around Nimai, oil slick, viscous, and reaching for his skin.Nimai responded with glass, a shell that kept Declan’s magic at bay.
Antonio knew how to handle a fistfight.How to understand one.This was different.
Declan’s magic was brutal and relentless, but Nimai’s was crystalline and almost invisible, closing in like walls.When the tendrils shattered the barrier, those splinters became knives aimed at Declan.Razor-edged glitter.They fell before they hit, caught in ink and carried downward, but barely.
Glass and shadow.Knives and poison.Slowly, Nimai began to falter, shirt torn and blood dripping down his chest.
Declan could do this.Andnow, it didn’t matter thatthismeant killing a man.Because it was either that or die.
Daring a glance sideways, Anonio saw Veroni’s gray hand resting on Kylan’s red skin, saw her smirk as she walked away.
“What was that about?”he asked Talia.
“Just Kylan bragging about Nimai,” she answered, her gaze not leaving the magical duel.
But it’d been more than that.Antonio was sure of it.Kylan no longer fixated on Nimai’s side of the ring.He watched Declan.In the bond, mingled with smoke and lilac, Antonio tasted mint.
Mint?
Declan felt like a lot of things.A cozy bonfire and a forest burning.Petals in bloom and fading.Ink dropped into water and on the edge of a needle.
But he wasn’tmint.
Mint and crisp, cool air, like a gust of wind, chasing the smoke away.
The air around Declan filled with slivers of glass, driving in, and though they fell away as they had before, they didn’tallfall away.Declan staggered, bleeding from a hundred tiny cuts.
Smoke caught by the wind.Drawn away, leaving only the taste of mint.Antonio could feel it.A lessening of the sense of Declan’s soul at his center.Like Declan himself was draining away.
Something was very, very wrong.Because the wind wasn’t pulling the smoke toward Nimai.It was pulling it toward Kylan.
“What the fuck?”he snarled, turning toward the qilin.And Kylan was more powerful, wasfae,but Antonio really didn’t care.Declan wasfading.“What are youdoing?”
“I am playing by the rules, Hollow.Causing no injury.”Kylan kept his eyes on the dueling ring, fingers twitching, like he was clawing the air.“Run along and sulk elsewhere.I’ve no time for your pouting.”
A flash of light.A wave of darkness.More glass shards, driving toward Declan’s throat.The bruised beauty of his magic, rising to deflect them.Declan’s wings, hiswings, were bound by thin crystalline chains, wrapped over bone and tightening.
Shit, shit, shit.
No smoke.No lilacs.Just overwhelming mint.
“You’re done playing.”Antonio snapped.Like hell was he going to let the bastard drain Declan dry while he was fighting for his life.“There’s no rule that says I can’t break your fucking fingers.So back the fuck off.”
“Antonio,” Kylan said, all gentle, condescending reason.“The sluagh isn't worth the effort it'd take you to try.He does the realm more good as a corpse.A corpse that won't spread a twisted tale about my bond.Save your own energy and walk away.”
Declan stumbled.Kylan smiled.
A fae, a fucking fae, and how was Antonio supposed to do anything?Call Talia?No.She wasn’t allowed to hurt anyone.Hyacinth?Antonio didn’t trust him.And there was notime.
There was only him.He had totry.
It’d been a while since Antonio’d thrown a punch.Some things, you didn’t forget.Like the crunch of bone on bone.The sting of his knuckles.Easy.He’d always hated howeasyit was, hurting someone.
