“Let her go right now! I swear I'll kill you!” I yell, throwing myself toward them.
But without my magic, two against one are bad odds, and they manage to subdue me too.
Just when the guard is about to tie me up with plastic zip ties while another one makes jokes about taking off our clothes, the study door explodes. Sylara and Althea appear in the doorway and don't need magic to be lethal.
With her enormous strength, the Kobold hurls one of the guards through the air with a punch, while Sylara moves so fast she seems not to have lost her magic. Using some kind of elven martial art I'd never seen before, she has no problem taking down our captors.
Seeing his men falling, Voronov backs up, holding the null stone in front of him like a shield.
“I don't need magic to break your face,” Althea growls, advancing toward him.
I take advantage of the distraction to throw myself on Voronov and rip the stone from his hands and then kick one of his guards for having pushed Nell.
“We have to get out of here, now!” Sylara yells, helping Nell to her feet. “Althea stole a catering van. The arrow is safe.”
“Go ahead,” I say. “The stone blocks our magic, but we can't leave it in his power.”
Sylara nods, and she and Althea clear the path to the exit while Nell stays by my side, refusing to leave me behind.
“Are you okay?” she asks, worried.
I simply nod, wiping the blood dripping from my right eyebrow. As we run, I examine the stone. It looks like a simple pebble tied to a gold chain. There are no runes, no symbols, nothing to indicate its magical nature. It only emits a faint, constant light. I soon understand. Our magic is what feeds that light.
“Quick!” Althea yells, signaling from a white van.
We throw ourselves inside while the mansion's alarms blare at full volume, but it's too late for them.
For several minutes, no one speaks. Althea drives at full speed through back streets, making sure no one is following us.
When we're at a safe distance, I dare to shift my gaze toward Nell. Despite the torn dress, the busted lower lip and the smeared makeup, she's never seemed more beautiful to me.
“You were incredible in there,” I admit, lowering my voice and taking her hand in mine.
I stroke her knuckles with my thumb, and she smiles shyly. The contact sends an electric shock through my entire body. Normally, touching someone for this long makes me feel too solid, too trapped in this human form. I don't feel comfortable.
But with Nell... with Nell it's different. With her, I want to keep touching her.
There's so much I want to tell her. So much to confess. So many emotions I've been suppressing. I want to explain the truth to her, that I'm not like this, that I've stayed cold and distant because I thought it was best for both of us.
Because I'm a siren.
Because I manipulate people's will without meaning to.
And I couldn't bear to discover that what Nell feels for me is just an echo of my own magic and not something real.
But when she looks at me like that, with those eyes that seem to want to tear down all my defenses... I want to believe it's real.
I need to believe it's real.
“Nell, I...” I begin, but the words get stuck in my throat.
She leans slightly toward me, wrapping her right arm around my waist and resting her head on my neck. Timeseems to stop when she covers it with small kisses. I tangle my fingers in her hair, and she lifts her gaze, opens her lips and leans toward me, her mouth millimeters from mine.
“What the hell...?” she protests when she sees Althea hit the brakes, making the vehicle skid and throwing us forward, though she soon stops when she realizes the reason.
Chapter 19
Nell
