But the Corrupter was just as fast, blocking the Wraith Lord's blades with two dark swords that sparked with every contact, and brushing away that impressive elemental magic as if it were meaningless. The flames coasted over him and died out, Water burst into tiny droplets, the ground steadied for him, and the Varraen's aerial attack got him nowhere. The men spun, the Wraith Lord surprisingly light on his feet for such a large man. But then again, although his body bulged with muscles, he had a lean physique. It was only the comparison between him and the truly slender Corrupter that made the Wraith Lord seem so massive. I watched, transfixed, for a few seconds, and not just because the fight was mesmerizing.
It was the Wraith Lord who held my attention.
I'd never seen a Wraith Lord before, but my fascination wasn't due to that. It was him. The graceful way he moved. That sleek, powerful body. But above all, it was his face that enthralled me. It made my heart race in a different way than it had been. No fear, just excitement. The Wraith Lord was the most brutally handsome man I'd ever seen.
Straight, ebony hair hung past his shoulders, restrained by a single tie at his neck so that it swung in a thick swath with his every move. His eyebrows were just as dark, arched like raven wings, and although his skin was fair, those brows and thick lashes turned his lavender eyes into startling points of color, even at a distance of over ten feet. Long nose, high cheekbones, stern lips. I couldn't say what it was exactly that made him handsome enough to stop me in my tracks. But the scar that ran across his left cheekbone accentuated all of it. Somehow, that pale stripe made him even more beautiful.
And that beauty was about to be destroyed.
I don't know how I knew; I just did. Magic rose inside me as it had earlier, but this time, it didn't form a shield. It shook me to my bones, sending me moving toward the fighting men. I filled my hands with all the power I had as I ran, uniting Fire, Air, Water, and Earth in a way I never had before. I felt them collect in my palms—vibrating balls of supercharged magic.
A second before I launched that magic, the Wraith Lord noticed me. Our stares collided. His eyes widened. The Corrupter's swords came down.
With a roar, I tossed both balls of merged magic at the Corrupter.
My battle cry startled the Corrupter enough that his blades missed. The Wraith Lord used the opportunity to stab upward with both of his swords. As they slid into the Corrupter, my magic hit his back.
A gust of wind swept the bastard off his feet, setting him to spinning as it pulled him off the Wraith Lord's blades. But it wasn't just Air in that funnel. Flames erupted within the tornado, burning irrationally beside swaths of water. The whole thing compressed, gathering dirt around the Corrupter that the water turned into clay, then the fire and air turned the clay into pottery.
The Wraith Lord gaped at the Corrupter as he thudded to the ground, a statue. Then he looked at me.
I stood opposite him, with the Corrupter statue between us, my breaths coming in harsh, shocked pants. All around us, the Corrupted—those who the other Wraith Lord hadn't freed yet—screamed as the evil left them.
“Holy fuck,” the Wraith Lord before me whispered.
“Rath?” The other Wraith Lord stepped up beside the one I faced. He looked from his friend to me. “What just happened?” Then he looked down at the Corrupter. “Did you do that? Is he dead?”
“No,hedid it,” Wraith Lord Rath said as he lifted one of his swords to point at me. He blinked, then quickly sheathed his swords. “Who are you?”
“Ember,” I said.
The other Wraith Lord—a blond who was handsome, but not nearly as gorgeous as Rath—started to chuckle, then laugh. “Holy fucking shit! A human just killed the Corrupter!”
“Ember,” Rath murmured. “Yes, that's a good name for you.”
“Ember? He's a fucking wildfire. We should rename him Blaze,” the other Wraith Lord said. “We've got to take him to the Emperor. A human with magic? This is a miracle. The Goddess has touched him.”
Then the statue shook.
All three of us jumped back. The villagers and other freed Corrupted screamed and went running. They'd all been watching us, frozen in place as surely as the Corrupter, and I didn't blame them for taking off. Especially when the clay cracked and crumbled away. All I'd done was contain the Corrupter. Briefly.
“Son of a bitch, he's still alive,” the blond Wraith Lord muttered petulantly.
Rath withdrew his swords and settled into a battle stance.
The blond removed a sword from a sheath strapped to his back. It was nearly as long as I was tall, but he was big enough to wield it, far bigger than Rath. He settled into a stance that matched Rath's.
But instead of engaging the Wraith Lords, the Corrupter shot up from the ground amid a rain of pottery shards and dust, snarled at me, and vanished.
“Well, fuck,” Rath said.
Chapter Two
“You're coming with us, Ember,” Rath said, his voice deep but not too deep, a nice masculine medium.
“Uh, why?” I looked from one Wraith Lord to the other.
Fuck, they were intimidating. All those muscles encased in black leather and armor. All those straps crossing their broad chests and trim waists and thick thighs. What were those straps holding? Some held their swords, but what about the rest? Were they just for aesthetics? No, surely not. These were not the type of men who added useless straps to their battle gear just because they looked good.
