A hand grabbed my upper arm and yanked me back. I looked over my shoulder at Verin. His face was set into a snarl—his lips pulled back to bare his teeth. Did he scare me? Not even a little.
“You arenotgoing first,” he said slowly.
“Slate is out there, possibly hurt. So just try and stop me!” I snapped and jerked my arm out of his grip.
I started forward—more carefully this time—and my men moved into place around me. I heard Verin snarl again.
“You lost your right to have a say when you walked away from her, Verin,” Torin informed him with steel in his tone. “We'll handle this.”
Verin growled again.
“She's not yours to protect,” Gage growled back. “You don't get to have it both ways.”
I kept walking. I might have found some satisfaction in that exchange if I hadn't been so worried about Slate. As it was, I just hunched my shoulders and hoped I didn't trigger another trap. If I did, I'd deal with it but losing Slate wasn't something I could heal.
Chapter Fifty-One
My guys badgered me, pointing out—over and over—that Eleanor wasn't going to hurt Slate. We were the ones in danger, not him, and I'd be wasting even more time if we had to stop every few feet to wait for me to heal myself from some horrific spell. So, I finally gave in and allowed the witches to take point. We formed a line three people wide with the witch leaders in front. They scanned for traps and spells and we walked in their cleared path. Fifty yards seemed like fifty miles when you had to take them as slowly as we did. And I wasn't the only one who thought so.
“This is taking too long!” Banning snarled. “Eleanor could be torturing Slate while we inch our way through the fucking jungle.”
“Um, Ban?” Cerberus stared at my husband strangely.
I turned to see why and felt my mouth fall open. The streaks of starlight in Banning's hair—the ones he'd received when he drank Lucifer's blood—were glowing brilliantly and the glow was spreading.
“We need to think of a faster way to get to him,” Banning went on. “We've got some of the strongest magic users in all of the realms with us, but we can't get through a damn magic minefield?”
“Banning?” I murmured.
Everyone was staring at him now. It was hard not to, what with his entire body shining and sparkling like a star. Give him some wings and he'd look like Lucifer.
“There must be something we can do,” Bann went on, his anger seeming to feed on the light and the light increasing with his anger in a mystical circle of power. “Isn't there a song that could clear away harmful magic? All we need is one good blast of power to wipe them away.” He slashed out his hand and light—or maybe I should say Lightwith a capital L—blasted forth from it and exploded through the jungle.
Banning froze, staring at his hand and then down at his body as the light faded. “What the hell was that?”
“I think heaven would be more accurate,” Cerberus murmured.
“I believe you just cleared our path for us,” Osamu surmised. “How interesting.”
“We wondered what you'd gain from drinking Lucifer's blood,” I said to Banning. “I guess now we know.”
“Lucifer?” Banning stared at his hands as if someone had cut his off and put a brand new pair in their place.
“You just used god magic.” Darc gripped Banning's shoulder supportively. “Well done.”
“I did?” Banning blinked. “I cleared the path?”
“We don't know that for certain, but I'd say it's likely,” Glinda said as she peered after the fading wall of light.
“Then what are we waiting for?” Banning started to pass by me but I grabbed him by the bicep.
“Darc and I should go first,” I suggested. “You may have just used god magic, but you're not that kind of immortal, babe.”
“No, not you, El,” Banning protested. “You've already been injured. If you don't want me to lead, fine, Darc can take point. But not you.”
Verin grunted in agreement.
I turned to speak with Darc but he was already gone, several yards ahead of us.
