“Leya, get back here!” he snapped as she stopped at the edge. “What the hell are you doing? Those flames will rear up again and swallow you whole—”
“We have to save him!” She lifted her hands toward the cage.
Was she trying to use the telekinesis she insisted she didn’t have?
Aerén shot forward to assist her but hit the fucking wards again, pain rippling through him.
Hands fisted, chest heaving, he stood there, feeling useless as a thumbless hand, watching the woman he loved more than his life risk her very mortal self to save his sire. And he could do nothing to help her.
With her attention fixed on the cage, her sheer concentration garroted his entire being as she strained to move it—
Power flew out of him toward her, wrapping around her and strengthening her telekinesis.
Shit! Not strengthening her telekinesis…Shewas siphoninghispowers! Powers that churned within him and ones he couldn’t release because of the damn, bespelled arrows!
Thiswas what the bastard wanted? To keep him helpless by muting his powers, then for him to self-destruct when he couldn’t spend his abilities?
Too fucking bad!
His powers continued to roil like a whirlwind, and he forced himself to tamper his fury. He shot another look at his sire, who remained unconscious and suspended in the air—
The cage trembled. His heart pounded.
You can do this,caeli mea.
His gaze dropped to Leya. Her mouth had thinned, her skin drawn tight across the delicate bones of her face as she concentrated. Then he frowned at the slight shift within him as the spell eased some of its vicious hold on him.
How? Past experience had shown it took time, and a mage’s help, to expel that shit…
Was it from Leya’s blood that he’d licked when he healed her? It was the only thing that made sense.
Still,how?
Urias! She had to possess a little magic, because no one could siphon his powers like she was without having magic inside them. He’d stake his life on it!
His heart racing at his discovery, he wanted to go to her. But she was beyond the barrier.Fuck. He balled his fingers and waited, letting her draw whatever she needed from him.
“I can’t move the cage,” she grunted. “I’m not strong enough!”
“You are,me’morae. You are so much more.” She cut him a look over her shoulder, the amber in her brown eyes resembling the blaze in the abyss. “Just move the cage out of the abyss,” he coaxed. “I’ll do the rest.”
Aerén flexed his fingers and could feel her drawing on his abilities again. He opened his psychic shields a little. She siphoned more.
The cage moved an inch.
He tried to scan for anyone else, for hismateri…and nothing.
Whomever the fucker was who trapped his sire in this hellhole had no idea Leya had slipped past his wards without detection. Hell, it could be the same ability she possessed that stopped him from reading her, that blocked her from the bastard.
“I can’t. It’s too far.”
“You can do this,caeli mea. Believe in yourself.”
The torment on her face showed him her truth. She was trying. But Leya wasn’t used to wielding powers, even though she’d somehow latched onto his.
“Please, please,” she whispered, her trembling hands stretched upward to the cage.
Jaw clenched, Aerén watched—
