Page 14 of Loving Nightmares
“Bastard is like a roach, always comes back,” Slater sighed. “Nothing to do but chase him away.”
“But there is,” I said softly. “I could do what I did with Hate.”
Silence filled the space.
“Absolutely not,” Razar snarled. I avoided his gaze.
“What do you mean?” Eve asked, her brow dipping.
“She messed with his magic and made him sick,” Keres said. “Something with hersis metashit.”
“But she had to be on the battlefield with him,” Blackwell snapped.
“I was able to stop him—literally like compulsion.”
“It’s true; it was fucking amazing,” Zain said.
“You are not going to be on that goddamn field again,” Damian growled.
“I think that’s a bad idea,” Amun said, looking more tense by the moment as Cy began pacing. Saint squeezed my hand, andAshur stayed quiet, his gaze on my face as if waiting for me to explain further.
“I think it’s the best idea to ensure maximum damage to his actual magic and ability to use compulsion,” I said, trying to keep my voice strong enough to show that I wasn’t going to bend on my idea but also filled with understanding that this would be hard for my mates. “I understand I would need to be shielded, and not just by Mykia—although you did great.”
She offered a happy bark.
“But,” I continued, “I need to break the control he has over the humans here so they can understand what’s happening and run for their lives—as they should—and leave him without an army. I know it’s not a full fix, but it would stop this particular battle and buy us time to figure out a more permanent solution.”
“He would try to escape if that happened.” Irina said. “The minute he suspects you’re interfering with his magic—if we are going to do that—he’ll run. You need to have a way to trap him.”
“We can do that,” Saint agreed.
“I’m not okay with you going out there,” Razar growled, more adamantly this time.
“We can figure out a way for me to go out there safely,” I said, trying to compromise, “but something that wouldn’t affect my ability—”
“I have an idea,” Ashur said. After staring into my gaze for a long moment, he spoke candidly.
“I hate the idea of you out there,” Ashur admitted, “but this could work. Last time you had to fight through and break the compulsion nightmare by nightmare, and while I think you could do that this time, it would be easier if you could access all of the humans at once in a big burst of power.”
“I’m going to hate this,” Blackwell predicted.
“I can keep you surrounded by wards on your journey across the battlefield. Once you get to a centralized location, I can moldmy power to yours and keep it as a protective barrier, then help you explode it out to break the compulsion of everyone at once—”
“What’s the catch?” Eve asked.
“That catch is that our magic will be permanently combined, to an extent—bonded,” Ashur said, his voice trailing to end on a softer note.
I smiled, recognizing that he was concerned about my reaction when hetotallydidn’t need to be. “Is that all?”
“That’s everything,” he said under his breath.
“Well then, it’s decided.” I squeezed his hand and looked at the others. “It’s time to get all of these humans away from our damn home.”
6
ARABELLA
Ashur’s warm,rough hand slid over mine as I leaned against him, causing a pleasurable shiver to roll up my spine. We were currently on the elevator heading towards the healing center, the group having been split up since the god terrors—with the exception of Irina, who’d stayed with my father—had joined us. I knew my mates hadn’t been happy about it, but to be fair, we were a fairly large group.
