Page 97 of Change
Help me.
Bryce sucked in a breath, shoulders squaring, as his attention moved from my face to the two men beside me. I could have sworn his lips were quivering in excitement—but that could also have been my overactive imagination lost in a moment of panic—because when he moved, grabbing my arm and pulling me to him, his expression was the picture of seriousness.
“Hey!” Damen rounded on Bryce. “Why did you—”
Bryce went after Damen first, as the onmyoji was the quickest to respond to my sudden disappearance. The bespectacled warrior moved more slowly than usual, and Bryce had already side-stepped him, crashing his elbow into his back all in the time it took for the witch to shake his head.
The even sound of Damen crashing into the floor didn’t cause Miles’s expression to refocus entirely. He blinked once, then rubbed the back of his neck.
“I’m impressed that you’ve held on this long,Miles,” Bryce said, moving to a defensive position between the two of us. The way he emphasized Miles’s name caused the hair on the back of my neck to stand. “You even had the foresight to send Anthony to get one of us. Because of that, I’ll give you the chance to back away before I’m forced to knock some sense into you.”
“Oh, shut up.” Miles dropped his hand back to his side and clenched his fist. The previous look of confusion had vanished. “Don’t try to use your magic on me. I only want to hold her hand.”
“Fuck you,” Damen responded—back on his feet before Bryce could even open his mouth. But it was Miles he was addressing. “You’ve been with her enough. It’s my turn now.”
“Shove off, she likes me better. She likeseveryonebetter than you.” The witch rounded on the onmyoji. “Besides, sharing wasyouridea. Just get over it.”
“I didn’t think it would work out that way!” Damen sounded like a petulant child, but the threatening sight of him slowly rolled up the fabric of his sleeves and was anything but harmless. “She’s not supposed to like you more.”
“Well, she does.” Miles held his arms in front of him, crouching down in a fighting stance. “It’s your own fault. It’s karma after treating her like shit for thousands of years. Besides, you haven’t learned a thing: you’d have a better chance if you stopped being so fake.”
The two of them lunged toward each other, colliding in a flurry of fists.
I gasped, the echo of fight and humming receding from my ears, and moved to them, but my progress was halted by Bryce, who thrust his arm out in front of my face.
“Let them go.” Bryce was unperturbed at the violent display.
I gripped his sleeve tightly. “But isn’t this my fault?”
“Sure.” Bryce shrugged and the corner of his mouth lifted once more. “Your quintet will always be affected while you’re using an enchantment. But they’re only acting on impulses they’ve been suppressing. Miles would never go after Damen otherwise. But Damen’s been begging for someone to kick his ass, and it’s better that it’s Miles than Julian.”
“Tell me how to stop it.” I pulled at Bryce’s shirt. “I don’t want them to fight!”
Bryce sighed, throwing another long-suffering look at the two brawling men. “You’ve already stopped. The second they started brawling. But they’re involved now. I can jump in, if you want. Can I break Damen’s nose? That should get his attention.”
He sounded almost thrilled at the prospect.
“No!” I half-covered my eyes as Damen swung his fist at Miles, just barely missing the witch, then narrowly sidestepped Miles’s attempt to take out his left knee. “There are more peaceful ways of getting their attention.”
“Please don’t do anything idiotic.”
“They won’t hurt me.” I ignored him, ducking under Bryce’s arm and out of reach from his grasping fingers, and made a beeline right to the onmyoji and witch.
In retrospect, there were a number of good distractions that I could have chosen. For example, I could have swooned dramatically, started crying, or even thrown the soccer ball at their heads. Another option, of course, would be to announce the presence of a ghost—Miles, at least, would have been on top of things then.
However, logic was not the strongest instinct at the moment. Witnessing them going after each other in this way…
It was impossible to think clearly.
Guilt and worry flooded through me, and my vision tunneled. I had to prevent them from hurting each other.
And this sort of thing always worked in the movies.
“Stop!” I slipped into the small space between them during a short reprieve as they readied themselves for another attack. Throwing my arms out, I touched them both, hoping that the contact might help.
The corner of Miles’s mouth was slightly scraped already, as he’d been hit at least once, and his arms were protecting his torso. However, the instant my fingers brushed over his skin, the witch froze. His posture relaxed as the feral anger in his eyes disappeared.
Damen, on the other hand…
