The silence stretched until all I could hear was my pounding heart in my head, in my throbbing arm.
“Fin.” I hated the waver in my voice. “Answer me. Where did you go?”
“I felt the magic at the same time you did. Across the dance floor, permeating the room, this whole house. I feel it even now. I think you can only feel the active magic. When I felt the magic swell, I knew he prepared to make his move, and I readied myself to make mine.”
My previously over pounding heart seized and stuttered in my chest. I clutched his arms. “Did you get him? Did you get the Black Mage?”
“Not yet. I tried, but I couldn’t find him. He built this house with his magic. It lives in the walls. It’s meant to confuse people, ensnare them. I wasn’t able to find him, but I think with your help we can.”
I took a second to breathe because my head was about to explode. “So you’re saying you abandoned me, the one of us who can’t do magic? What if I’d died? What if they didn’t bother with the human spare and outright killed me? Would you have at least shown up to get my body out?”
He rubbed the back of his neck and ducked his chin. “I see my logic in this situation may have been clouded. I figured he paid so much attention to you while you were dancing, he had some interest in you. I thought you would be safe. Considering, well, you, I should have known you wouldn’t be content to wait for me to rescue you.”
“No shit. Let’s just go. I think I have some broken bones which you are severely going to pay for. That is an addendum to my contract... pain and suffering with an exponential percentage.”
I reached for him to lean on, but then jerked my hand away. “Wait a second. You said you figured I’d be fine, and that Esteban had shown an interest in me, which is why you disappeared.”
I cupped his chin and forced him to meet my eyes now so he couldn’t lie. “Did you fucking use me as bait to catch the bastard?”
Chapter Seventeen
Fin opened his mouth, but movement caught my eye. With a gasp, I looked up as oodles of goons swarmed down the stairs and from the door at the other end of the hall.
Damn, there was probably another exit back there. I should have tried it.
Fin touched my elbow. I didn’t know if it was meant to be reassurance or an apology. Either way, fuck him, it didn’t work.
The men squeezed into the hall, doing their best to surround us.
Between the pain in my arm and the pain in my heart at Fin’s betrayal, I didn’t have a single thing to say, at least not to the mages.
“Fin, please, they’re all yours,” I said. “I think I’ve reached my quota for the night. Should have gotten the punch card when they threw me down here.”
He didn’t respond, but crowded me into the empty room they had held me in so he could hold ground at the doorway.
The mages advanced, and I watched, fascinated, when I felt the tinge of Fin’s magic in the air. The first few mages who approached simply folded over onto the floor like they’d fainted. I hoped Fin wasn’t dumb enough to leave them alive.
The next round had to get over their fallen comrades to reach Fin, and they lay down almost as fast as the first.
“Is it harder to control a mage’s mind or a human’s?” I asked, as he continued his almost comically simple slaughter of the Black Mage’s men.
It took a moment for him to answer. “A mage’s mind is not more difficult, but more protected. A human is usually wide open, but a mage learns to protect himself early, like the fae.”
Now he tells me I can block him out.
“When we get out of here, you’re going to teach me that little trick.”
Once the first wave went down, another round arrived, and I folded my legs under me and took a seat on the floor. Might as well save my strength until I needed to fight, or we actua
lly escaped.
“Just let me know if you need any help over there,” I told his back. He stood stock still in the open doorway, his hands clenched by his thighs. Hell. If I’d known the extent of his mind power, I might have been more afraid of him when we met. Not that he would have known it.
Why hadn’t Esteban come to face us yet? At this rate, his personal harem would be decimated. Then who would come to his fancy parties?
When the hallway finally went silent, I waited a long moment before climbing to my feet, carefully cradling my arm to steady it. If I didn’t feel it now thanks to Fin’s magic, I sure as hell would feel it tomorrow. Until then, I would baby the shit out of it.
“All done?” I asked.