Sterling (38 page)

Watching him from afar, I could appreciate his skills and truly see him as the fighter he was.

They cut a circle in the grass as they sized up one another…both eyeing the dagger a mere 15 feet away. It was a game of who could get to it first; it was a game of keep away.

When Samil rushed forward, the physical contact started. Adam ducked out of the way and struck Samil in the stomach with a hard blow. As Samil bent over, Adam knocked him hard in the jaw the way a street fighter would. I wanted to cheer and shout but I didn’t dare distract Adam.

My arms were hurting when I realized that I was being restrained, I looked over quick enough to see that Simon was very much into the fight as if he wanted to join. He was dripping with pride when Adam moved the way he taught him.

Samil cracked a hard fist against Adam’s temple and blood sprayed out from the gash caused by the ring he wore. Some of it got on Sasha who looked horrified as she tried to wipe her robe clean. The second strike went straight for the throat—fingers extended—and Adam staggered back, almost falling.

Samil went for the dagger when Adam snapped his leg out and made contact with Samil’s ribs hard enough that both men fell to the ground.

The fog thickened with the steady rain and thunder crashed overhead sending me straight to my knees. I had a metallic taste in my mouth and although I was always a little afraid of lightning before, I sure as hell wasn’t warming up to it now.

Justus caught my arm as we both kept our eyes on the fight and pulled me up. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m okay, it’s nothing.”

Adam looked like a predator with arms spread wide and his body bent forward. Samil stayed low to the ground and I couldn’t predict what would happen next. Saying I was on pins and needles would be an understatement, it was more like daggers and spears.

“Watch his hand,” I heard Simon whisper in a quick voice.

I looked up and at first didn’t notice anything, but then my eyes shifted to Samil. His hand was in the mud raking up as much earth as he could in a slow drag. I surged forward with all my strength when I was tugged back, “Learner, you cannot interfere!”

Samil swept his leg knocking Adam off balance. Adam took some hard blows to the head, including one that rammed mud into his eyes. He bared his teeth and grimaced as Samil took the palm of his hand and shoved it in hard.

Not for long, because Adam hit him so hard in the jaw that I thought it cracked as Samil groaned and leaned back holding his face.

Once again they were fighting, Adam blocking the attacks with complete concentration.

Blind.

His eyes squeezed shut and he grimaced in pain. Samil tossed a rock in the opposite direction hoping to throw him off and gain the advantage by confusing him. In a blur of movement they were in hand to hand combat once more.

My respect for Adam went through the roof as he was every bit as good fighting blind as he was seeing. Each chance he got, another fingerful of mud was scraped from his eyes. This went on for five minutes…ten minutes…I stopped counting.

Adam’s hand came up fast and hit Samil under the chin knocking him back. Before Samil even hit the ground Adam took his wet shirt and rubbed his face until his vision was clear again, leaving a smudge of mud across his cheeks.

Once Samil hit the ground, he rolled and knocked Adam down, leaping on him. Each man held the throat of the other—Adam was on his back.

“What use could you have for a Mage? Humans and their stupid notions of nobility, I hope she is at least fucking you for this.”

Adam’s face tightened. “WHO is he? What is the name of the other Mage!”

Angry hands squeezed Samil’s throat with choking force.

“
Rot
, human,” Samil spat.

I knew he got what he was looking for…a way in to Adam’s mind, a way to break down his defenses. He found the crack in the foundation and was exposing its weakness.

I pulled free from Justus and stood very still. The rain was chilling me to the bone, plastering strands of hair to my face. My teeth chattered uncontrollably but I was hardly even aware that I was cold.

Samil growled through his clenched jaw, “You haven’t had her have you? What a pity.”

Those jeweled eyes deliberately rose to mine and venom poured from my stare as a laugh escaped him.

“She tastes every bit as sweet as she looks.” His tone was calculating as his gaze crawled up my body like a plague. He was slowly inching his way in, looking for Adam’s breaking point.

“You sonofabitch!” Adam shouted.

In a swift move, Adam threw off Samil who stood up and retaliated by kicking Adam in the ribs. I winced when I heard a bone snap.

His pain was my doing.

I wiped the rain from my brow with my trembling hand.

Samil strolled over to the dagger as if he were already the victor. He gave a nod to the Council as he pulled the handle and unsheathed the blade from the muddy earth.

Bright red blood poured from his nose and forehead. Most of the Council looked on with bored interest.

Bastards
.

Samil stalked in my direction with Adam between us, holding the knife at eye level to be sure he had my utmost attention as the tip of the blade waved at me. “You should have begged.”

A surge went through me when I threw my arm out and the knife suddenly plucked free from his hand flew into mine.

Sharp end in, of course. In those moments, I knew it was just a regular knife, not a Stunner.

I might have made a sound, maybe shouted, but it was all a blur. I didn’t even bother to remove it as I pulled back my arm, aimed, and sent it flying back at my enemy.

Samil’s expression went to shock as it penetrated his leg. I had never thrown a knife that distance but I had to give myself credit where credit was due. At least I hit my intended target and not a tree.

I knew I had broken the rules, not that those particular rules were ever verbally said in front of me by the Council. Nevertheless, I was prepared.

But not quite prepared for what I saw next.

Samil pulled the knife from his leg and sailed down on Adam, planting it firmly into his chest. He never once took his eyes off me.

Adam’s mouth opened wide in horror as the knife sank in to the hilt.

“NO!” I screamed. It was as if the world were moving in slow motion. “You can’t do this to him, I won’t let you!”

Adam turned his chin so that I saw him more clearly. I saw him more clearly than I ever did since the day we met. A man who gave me everything and asked for nothing. That’s when I lost all feeling and my knees gave in, sending me to the wet mud.

“Little girl, this is the price of disobedience!” Samil took a few steps in my direction. “Look at your human now—did you think you could win?” he laughed. “He is but a weak speck of nothing. Now you will live with that speck on your conscience for the rest of your days.”

My hand smeared across my face as I wiped away strands of wet hair from my cheek. I would never go back to him. I had a few remaining moments to decide what I needed to do. I felt hopeless and lost to a fate I did not choose.

Samil’s eyes went wide and his mouth opened in silent surprise. He lifted his arms and his knees buckled, sending him to a hard fall. When he fell to his knees, it was Adam who stood behind him holding the knife.

The knife he pulled from his own chest. The knife he used to cut the throat of my maker.

My Creator collapsed, trying in vain to stop the blood from pouring out of his jugular as he crawled on the muddy earth.

Adam did something unexpected when he grabbed Samil by the hair and straightened his head to face me, opening his wound even more. He bent over and the words that came from his mouth were filled with vengeance.

“Look at her! I want her face to be the last one you ever see,” his voice weakened, becoming raspy and thick with blood. “You lose.”

Samil was on his way to meeting his maker and I hoped he was as big a son-of-a-bitch as Samil was. His eyes glazed over becoming dull, his skin paled even more than it already was, and Samil took one final gasp before hundreds of years of wasted living fell face down in the mud and died.

Adam stood the victor. But he didn’t stand for long.

Chapter 29

I never realized how fragile life was until it shattered before me
. Hope dissolved, victory decomposed, and nothing remained but hollow victory.

Samil was dead.

The rain tapered off and a pool of blood mixed with the wet earth. There was complete stillness among the Council.

“Adam,” I cried running to his side. There was no hug, no kiss of victory, not even tears. My only concern was his injury. I knew that a Mage could heal each other but I did not know if our magic worked on humans.

Adam pressed his palm where the knife had gone into stop the flow of blood. His life was escaping him with each beat of his heart. My hands went to cover the opening in his chest.

“It’s okay, I hardly feel a thing,” his ragged voice chuckled. “S’not so bad.” He lightly touched my lip with his thumb and tenderness filled his smoky brown eyes.

“You’re going to be fine, you just need a doctor,” I sobbed. Composure was no longer something I could hold—it was as heavy as a glacier and all my emotional walls tore down. He smoothed away my wet hair and fell to his knees.

“Adam!”

My arms cradled his head as I looked to Justus. “Help him!” My frustration spiked as Justus and Simon stood motionless, eyeing the Council. Adam’s breathing sputtered out, a mixture of air and blood.

Turning to the Council I begged. “Please help him…” my eyes streamed with hot salty tears that ran into my mouth and I could taste the pain. I looked down again. “Adam, hang on—do you hear me?”

Hannah sighed impatiently. “Mage, let your mortal die, it is his time.”

“Yes,” Merc said. “Do not let the wailing of a woman be the last thing he hears.”

I shut them out, because if I allowed myself to entertain the idea of truly hearing their words I would have literally snapped out of my skin.

That beautiful masculine face cupped in my hands was the only thing that anchored me.

“You shaved,” I said stroking his jaw, attempting a smile as tears spilled.

He smiled back looking up. “You’re always telling me and I never listened, I clean up pretty good, huh?”

Adam leaned on me when I brought my lips to his head and cried through my whisper, “Please hold on…it not supposed to end like this.”

My grip on him became possessive as I stood there with the first man who ever truly cared for me, bleeding out his life all over me.

“Silver,” he said softly against my jacket. His face peered up and I wiped away the mud on his cheek with my thumb. “You’re free now. It was worth it.”

All tension released in the lines of his brow; it was a look of relief, a look of someone who had reached the end of a long journey.

I wanted to yell at him, to tell him that I would have taken it all back if it meant that he would live. But I knew that would take away his honor, and if he was going to die in front of me I wanted him to have that, if nothing else.

“The human has won the challenge.” Hannah moved forward with the rest of the Council closing in to surround us. “He fought remarkably well.”

“Can he be healed?” I shouted more than asked.

“I’m afraid our healing powers do not transfer to humans, it would kill him to be certain.”

Adam slipped through my arms and fell to the ground. Every breath was a struggle but his eyes were alert as he watched. He was drowning in his own blood and I had to sit and watch while the Council toiled over their formalities of conversation.

“Does the victor gain nothing?” I boiled in anger.

“We cannot transfer Samil’s energy to him.”

“He was willing to die for my honor, no strings attached. Adam had nothing to gain from this, he wasn’t trying to acquire power, or even me. He is a man of worth!”

My voice cracked as I screeched out the last bit. I shut my eyes as my mouth broadened in pain, a pain I could no longer shovel away with a hardened face. Random drops of water fell into the puddles, the wind blew, and a small rabbit poked his head out from the tall grass.

“I would like to know, Learner, how it is you moved that blade.” Merc stood with folded arms and a thought flashed in my head of driving that knife into him.

“
What are you
?” he whispered in my head.

Tension filled the air sending tiny needles over my entire body. I could almost feel Samil’s power rolling through Merc and he was reveling every moment of it, for as long as he had it. I don’t think he was even aware that he put his thoughts in my head, something only Samil could do. I only hoped him and Sasha didn’t conspire, I couldn’t help but distrust political figures and wouldn’t put it past them to work together to become all-powerful. Frankly, what was to stop them?

“Council if you would—”