The guards rushed out onto the porch and I knew they would be on us in seconds. But now that we were far enough away from the house to see the rooftop, I grinned.
Elle dropped from the roof, standing before the guards and king, gun drawn. “Back off, motherfuckers!” She held the sleek black gun right to the king’s head.
Holy shit.My best friend had lost her damn mind.
In a split second, the king raised his arms and a wall of ice twelve inches thick erected before him, causing Elle to stumble backward. One of the guards advanced on Elle then and she lowered her gun to his leg, squeezing the trigger. Two short bursts flew from the gun and took out his kneecaps. He went down with a shrill cry and the other two guards froze.
Holy crystals!
“Who’s next?” she shouted, pointing the gun at the guards, slowly backing out into the yard near us.
Time to get the hell out of here. I pulled the rolling pin out and transformed the bike as quick as my gimpy arm would allow. Liam was still holding an ice wall in front of us in a standoff with his dad. He took one look at my bike and climbed over it. “I’m driving. Your arm,” was all he said.
My fucking arm. Just talking about it caused me so much pain I wanted to cry. I wasn’t in a mood to argue, so I slipped on the back and hugged his waist with one arm. “Elle!”
“I’ll fly!” she shouted, and we all took off. Liam gunned the bike, letting his wall of ice crash down, and Elle kicked off the ground, bolting into the air. Turning back, my gaze fell on the king, who tried to step out from his wall of ice. Elle shot two warning shots, which made him promptly run back behind it.
They were specks of people now, growing smaller and smaller as we raced away from the danger. My heart was in my throat. That was the craziest thing I’d ever done in my life. Elle was right above us, not too far behind, and hopefully disguising herself to the humans as a helicopter, or a bird or something.
I leaned my head against Liam’s back, afraid to admit to myself how good being this close to him felt. He wove the bike expertly through traffic while I murmured directions in his ear. I just kept pulling up that vision of the beach house where we’d come, the blue door there, and my seeker ability pulled me closer and closer, always nudging me where to go.
My arm was steadily dripping blood even as I tried to hold the wound and staunch it. The icicle had melted and now it was just an open wound. I peered over my shoulder to find that there were little tears in my wings. I didn’t dare try to flap them or fly, for fear of injuring myself further.
Finally, Liam pulled up to the beach house and I stumbled off the bike. Dizziness overwhelmed me and Liam turned to look at my arm with concern. “You have to make a tourniquet!” he shouted incredulously. “Weren’t you trained in battle injuries?”
Sure, bud. We just fucking take battle injury training in Faerie. Yes, I had been battle trained, but not for something like this. My mother probably hadn’t wanted to scare me, but now I was seeing the error of her ways. I wouldn’t make it to my twenty-first birthday at this rate.
He pulled off his shirt and my mouth went dry.
Holy mother of Fae.
His chiseled torso looked like it was etched from stone. His eight-pack was bulked out under tan tight skin and his pants were so low I could see the V-shape of his hip muscles pointing to the pleasure zone. He stepped closer to me, bringing the heat of his body with him as I shook my head a little to clear it. Using his teeth, he tore a long strip from his shirt and tightly knotted it above my arm. I winced as it caused the pain to flare, but sighed in relief when I noticed it stopped the blood.
“Lily!” Elle shouted as she landed hard behind us, holstering her gun.
“Don’t put that away!” Liam snapped at her. “Who trained you both?” Liam looked incuriously at Elle, who pulled the gun back out and looked around as if the Winter King were going to run out of nowhere.
Elle growled at him. “I’d say we’re doing just fine, seeing as though we just rescued your ass!”
“Barely,” Liam snapped back, tenderly staunching the cuts on my wings with his shirt. “Why didn’t you put up a shield?” he asked me.
Fuck. The shield.
“I … I’ve only practiced back home … not—”
He sighed. “Are you all they have left?” His blue eyes threaded with molten lava locked on to mine and my heart quickened.
I nodded.
“My mom … I’m the last seeker.”
He looked angry; it was weird. Why the fuck did he care? We were on opposite sides.
“Come on,” I told him, and started to walk to the blue door, placing my hand on the handle.
He shook his head. “I can’t go back there with you. I don’t belong there. I have a life on Earth, okay? People depend on me.”
Elle laughed, full-on laughed. “Some life! You almost died back there, and they’re probably right behind us. What good are you to yourpeopleif you’re dead?”
