“Don’t be—” The dismissive remark had become automatic when Zoey or Titian criticized Delora. Then Jaenelle Saetien remembered the look on Hespera’s face when the girl walked up to them.
A prank taken too far? Or something more serious, more sinister?
Hell’s fire, now she was suspicious of everything Delora or Hespera did.
You should be, some long-ignored part of her whispered.
“We’ll find Beale. He’ll summon the Healer in the village,” she said. “Let’s get Zoey to bed.”
“No!” Zoey cried. “No bed! No . . .” She collapsed, almost pulling Titian down with her.
“Zoey not feeling well?” Krellis asked as he, Delora, Hespera, and Dhuran strolled into the great hall, followed by most of the other boys and girls who obeyed every snap of Delora’s fingers. “I know what ails her, and I have just the thing that will fix her up, right and proper.”
Zoey gave Krellis a look of lust mixed with disgust and fear. “Stay away from me.”
“That won’t help.” Krellis gave her a sharp smile and took a step closer.
“Krellis,” Jaenelle Saetien said. “Leave her alone. She’s not well. She needs a Healer.”
“That’s not what she needs.”
“Hurry up,” Delora said.
Krellis pushed aside the other girls and made a grab for Zoey.
Jaenelle Saetien made a grab for Krellis and was shoved out of the way by Delora.
Titian called in a sparring stick and jabbed him in the gut. When he stumbled back, she formed a Summer-sky shield around herself and Zoey, then formed another one. With her hands tight on the sparring stick, she spread her wings partway, settled her feet in a fighting stance, and faced Krellis.
“Stay out of this,” Delora hissed at Jaenelle Saetien.
Finally having some idea of what this friendship was going to cost, Jaenelle Saetien bared her teeth and said, “Go to Hell.”
Hell’s fire, Daemonar thought as he stepped off the landing web and strode to the Hall’s front door, probing warily at the power he felt around the massive building. Black shields around the entire Hall? Not good.
He called in his Eyrien club. He’d rather lose that weapon than his war blade—or his hand—if Uncle Daemon had shaped an aggressive shield that would strike at any power that struck at it. A passive shield would be better, safer for sure, but would keep him out just as easily.
Wrapping himself in a tight Green shield, Daemonar used Craft to open the door just to see if he could. Then he used the club to push the door open a little more.
Nothing happened. Except he couldn’t withdraw the part of the club that had passed through the shield.
Shit. The shield wasn’t shaped to keep people out; it had been made to keep people—and everything else—in. It wasn’t a fancy shield, unless you considered the size of the building it covered, but anyone inside was nothing more than a mouse trapped in a maze.
The prudent thing to do was try to reach Uncle Daemon. If Sadi was inside, then he should contact Halaway’s Master of the Guard and leave a message for his father. If Sadi wasn’t there, then . . .
Titian screamed. In fear? In warning? He couldn’t tell—and it didn’t matter.
Daemonar shoved the door open, passed through the shield, and raised the club, prepared to beat the shit out of whoever was scaring his sister.
He saw Krellis, Dhuran, and a handful of other boys from the school.
“Now!” Krellis shouted.
Several blasts of power hit his Green shield before he took another step into the great hall. He struck back with a bolt of Green, blowing out the knees of one of the boys.
Screams from the girls and the sizzle of power against shields.
Deal with the fight in front of you, or you won’t get to the fight you need to reach.
Ignoring the strikes against his shield, he swung the club, taking out another of the boys by shattering the prick-ass’s hip.
A moment when everything seemed to stop. Then Krellis, Dhuran, and the remaining boys all sent blasts of power against his left side. He tried to counter, tried to bolster his shield, but he had committed to another strike against a boy standing on his right and couldn’t adjust fast enough. He felt a bone in his left forearm break, felt ribs break before he formed another shield.
Not just a fight with the odds against him. Whatever was happening here, Krellis wanted him dead. And that left him no choice.
Vanishing the Eyrien club, Daemonar called in his war blade—and stepped onto a killing field.
THIRTY-NINE
“Go to Hell,” Jaenelle Saetien said.
“You’ll go with me,” Delora replied, “so you might as well have some fun.”
That was all the warning she had before Delora, Hespera, Leena, and Tacita unleashed their power against Titian’s Summer-sky shield.
Titian screamed out of fear or defiance as her first shield broke. She quickly shaped another one behind the shield that still held.
“We don’t want you, Fat Bat,” Hespera said. “Get out of the way, and we’ll let you go. This time.”
“But Zoey is a problem and will always be a problem,” Delora said. “Since Krellis can’t deal with her in his way, I’ll deal with her in mine. It makes no difference if she’s broken or dead; she’ll no longer be a rival.”
“The bat has arrived,” Dhuran said, staring at the front door. “Can’t mistake that psychic stink.”
“Then we’ll deal with him once and for all,” Krellis snarled. He pointed here and there, arranging the other boys to attack whoever opened the door.
“Stop this,” Jaenelle Saetien said as Delora and the other girls struck Titian’s shield again, breaking another one and weakening the one behind it.
“When I’m finished,” Delora replied.
Then Daemonar walked into the great hall—and Krellis and the other boys attacked, unleashing the power in their Jewels against Daemonar’s Green shield.
“No!” she screamed. Daemonar was fighting like a warrior dealing with untrained bullies instead of boys who wanted to kill him.
His Green shield broke, just for a moment, and strikes on his left side . . .
She saw the pain in his face—and she heard Titian scream as the last shield her cousin could shape with the Summer-sky’s reservoir of power broke, leaving Titian and Zoey vulnerable.
Then a midnight voice rose up from somewhere deep in the abyss.
Choose.
Daemonar called in his war blade and turned the great hall into a killing field.
Delora and Hespera gathered their power for the strike that would permanently damage or even kill Titian and Zoey.
Jaenelle Saetien stepped between her cousin and the girls she’d thought were friends and formed a defensive shield that flickered wildly with all the colors in her Twilight’s Dawn Jewel as Delora’s and Hespera’s power hit the shield.
Seeing Leena and Tacita sidling toward the other girls who were clustered near Zoey, Jaenelle Saetien extended her shield to protect the rest of Zoey’s friends.
“Bitch,” Delora said, her fury fixed on Jaenelle Saetien. “I should have known you didn’t have the spine to be a true aristo.”
Then dark power flooded the Hall, and with it, a sexual heat that slammed into Jaenelle Saetien, shattering some protective barrier and producing a flash flood of excruciating arousal unlike anything she’d felt before—and never wanted to feel again.
Titian gasped. Zoey wailed. Daemonar, closest to the front door, almost fell to his knees before he regained some balance.
Jaenelle Saetien stood there, caught by the heat like everyone else, while hope warred with terror.