Page 117 of Hexbound
Verity considered him, then smiled. "Only until you get to know him. He's not half as grim underneath and I prefer to think of him as practical, rather than controlling. He wouldn't be so stupid as to tell me he'd protect me. The last time that happened he ended up in an icy bath."
"What is wrong with wanting to protect you?" he countered, ignoring her reference to the bath.
That smile softened in mysterious ways, and Verity patted his hand. "There's nothing wrong with wanting to protect me. It shows you care. But keeping me out of harm's way while you try to save the day...."
"Would be a waste of breath," Ianthe added. "You're not the only dangerous one here."
Bishop shook his head. Outnumbered. "In hindsight it was a stupid thing to say. I meant only to set Lucien's mind at ease. Not to doubt anyone's abilities. Are we all satisfied?"
"Nice save," Lucien murmured, coughing into his hand.
Ianthe finally burst out laughing. "I'm sorry, Bishop. I'm only toying with you."
Verity snickered.
Drake sighed. "Behave, children. Now let's get moving." He took Eleanor and Cleo by the arms and set out toward the grove, as if there could be nothing threatening out there.
Another flash of movement had Bishop turning, his attention locked on the trees. A clump of snow dumped off a heavily laden fir, as if something had brushed it. Bishop placed a hand in the small of Verity's back and directed her onto the boot-trampled path on his father's heels. "Perhaps I should take the lead?"
"Relax," Drake murmured back over his shoulder. "They'd be fool to make a tilt at us now. There are four sorcerers here wearing seven rings, and there's nobody alive who can get past my wards."
Nervousness inched down his spine like icy fingertips marching over his skin. He could get past his father's wards, but he'd never told Drake that. Maybe he should have? "That's precisely why I expect it. Because nobody with any common sense would dare, and our guard will be lowered. Perfect time. Perfect place."
Drake looked at him, shaking his head, and he knew his father didn't quite understand the way he thought. He'd never had to.
Cleo's head shot up, a gasp coming from her lips. "Drake!"
A flash of movement—
"Get down!" Bishop barked, leaping forward and slamming his shoulder into Drake's back. He locked his arms around his father's waist as they both went down, Bishop rolling them in the snow until his father was beneath him. The blaze of an etheric blade flew through the air above him, exploding against the tree behind them. A punch of fear slammed through him. "Verity?"
She had a hand on Cleo's head, forcing the young woman into a crouch behind a tree. "I'm fine."
Another glance raked the clearing. Lucien had Ianthe and Eleanor. And Drake's wards shimmered to life around them like a soap bubble. Almost transparent, with the oil-slick gleam of a rainbow painted over its surface. Tree branches rustled as the assailant darted back through them. All he saw was the flutter of a red cloak, and then it was gone, vanishing into the shadows.
"Stay down," he told his father, his etheric blade forming in his hand with an electric buzz of energy. "Don't any of you leave Drake's wards."
Then he was running, the ward shivering over his skin like a cool glove before vanishing the second he was through it.
Bursting through the interlocked branches of a pair of firs, he sent snow flying. A flash of red taunted him, and he staggered in a deceptive hole beneath the snow before twisting and ducking after the assailant.
Slamming through clearing after clearing, he finally paused, his breath coming in great heaving exhales that fogged in the air in front of him.
Nothing.
Footsteps crunching through snow. Bishop tilted his head, narrowing his focus down to his hearing, forcing out everything else around him except for those footsteps. Left. He turned his head, tracking the assailant, and then, crouching low, he slipped through the trees after the fellow. He'd been expecting Sicarii, but the sheer blundering missteps the idiot was making argued against it.
The assassin threw a glance back over his shoulder—just a glimpse of a pale, face, eyes widening as the fellow saw him.
Bishop leapt over a log, blood thumping through his veins as he poured on speed. He wanted answers. But the violent urge of themaladroisebegan to whisper to him, sweet, sweet lures ofhow good it would feel, andhowhungry Horroway's pitiful spark had left it.
The assassin ducked and wove with Bishop barely ten feet behind him. Another glance over his shoulder, and then an etheric blade was flipping end over end toward Bishop.
Bishop threw himself beneath it, coming up in a roll, only to face another shimmering blade of pure power. He slammed both wrists together and a ward shimmered to life just in time. Power lashed through his ward as the knife collided with it, setting off a showering shimmer of sparks. The energy grounded itself in the earth beneath his feet, leaving him kneeling in a perfect circle of pure snowmelt.
Son of a bitch.Bishop didn't think. Just flipped his wrist forward and threw as his ward flickered out.
The etheric blade flew straight and true, even as instant regret soured his mouth. It buried itself in the middle of that red cloak, and the would-be assassin staggered a step, then plummeted face-first into the snow.
