With a snarl, I lifted my finger and used the only magic I appeared capable of, a light on the tip. Shoving more power into the end, I created a bolt of lightning and blasted it at the clear magical wall. Rather than see, I felt it collapse, and I wasrunning once more, sweeping through the dregs of the guards’ magic and out onto the boardwalk.
Stopping, I peered around. Red and silver flag. Red and silver flag. I was told to go to the ship with the red and silver flag on the top of the tallest mast.
There. Straight ahead, at the end of the pier.
With the guards clambering behind me, I raced along the wooden platform, my boots creating heavy thuds as I scurried around sailors and those loading items onto the ships with magic.
A gangplank extended down from the Evergorne king’s ship, and I barreled up it only to have a guard grab my arm and bring me to a jarring halt. He yanked me down the gangplank, the heels of my boots skidding across the worn wooden surface, my sword flailing in the air. My bag fell onto the pier nearby.
The cloaked man who’d followed me stepped past the rail of the king’s ship and out onto the top of the gangplank, leisurely strolling down to join me and the guards on the pier.
“Release her,” he growled.
“She’s a thief,” one guard blustered. “Well see that she pays.”
“I told you to. Release. Her.” Though stars peppered the dark sky above, and the air hung heavy, without the hint of wind in sight, a storm swirled around the cloaked man. As it grew in intensity, it picked up water from the harbor below us, forming a mist-like mass.
The guards sputtered. Neither loosened their grips on my arms, however.
With a push of his hand, the cloaked man shot the wall ofwater at them. Gritting my teeth, I braced myself for impact, but the mass split, blasting around me close enough to dampen my exposed skin.
It hit the guards square on. Releasing me, they stumbled backward, one falling onto his ass. He hissed and sprang to his feet, brandishing his sword in my face.
“She stole a nyxin,” he snarled. “She’s under arrest.”
“I don’t see a nyxin.” The weight of the cloaked man’s gaze swarmed across my skin. “Do you, my lady?”
“A nyxin?” I blinked in confusion. “Haven’t seen one of them in ages.”
Some suggested the fae couldn’t lie. They were wrong because I sure could.
The man unbound the tie at his throat and shoved his cloak off his tall frame. It disappeared before it could hit the wooden planking.
I shouldn’t gape at him. I’d had my love of a lifetime, and I’d never find another. My heart should be immune to even the charms of an incubus.
I worried my heart would never be immune to this man.
While he stared down at me with a sneer curling his full lips and one dark eyebrow cocked, I couldn’t drag my gaze from the way he exuded strength, power, and a magnetism unlike any other.
Tall, but I’d already noted that. The rich, inky fabric of his tunic and pants did nothing to mask his muscular form.
Kinart had been perfect. Wiry and lean, with enough muscles to hold onto and carry him into battle, but not so many that he appeared grotesque.
This huge guy was anything but grotesque.
A sudden gust of wind caught his dark brown hair that glinted with strands of starlight, whipping it around his face, and he shoved it back with one hand. His dark eyes locked on me projected the same sneer as his mouth. Coarse stubble peppered his jawline, and the skin on his face and neck was tanned, not naturally brown. A scar started at his left temple and bisected his face to his right jaw.
“The nyxin was in a cage,” one of the guards cried out. “We saw her knock it off an elder’s shoulder. The nyxin escaped, and it’s her fault.”
“Then go hunt the nyxin,” the man rasped. “The lady said she hasn’t seen the creature. She is with me.” He extended his hand toward me. “Aren’t you, Wildfire?”
“My name’s Reyla.”
“Yes. I know. You should’ve boarded the ship at least an hour ago.”
Lovely. He hadn’t been following me. He wasescortingme.
I studied his hand and the bit of skin revealed by his long-sleeved tunic. You could often tell a person’s age by their hands alone. His said he was about thirty. Tanned like his face. Tiny scars. Lots of those.
