Page 46 of Wicked Enemy

“He was the spy.”

My eyebrows shot up.

“I know, right?” Jamila said, her voice now full of excitement. “Who could’ve thought? But apparently, he’s the one who has been working for Arden all this time.”

“How did you find that out?”

“Arden tried to break his people out of prison three days ago.”

Shock pulsed through me. “What?”

Three days ago. That was the same day that I had gone to his Court to warn Gemma. Was that why he hadn’t been there? Because he had been on my side of town, breaking into my place of work, to free his people?

“Yeah,” Frank filled in with a nod. “They torched a few buildings to make it look like an attack while Watson stole some keys and freed them from their cells.”

“Did it work?” My heart pounded in my chest, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted the answer to that question to be. “Did they get out?”

Smug laughter spread through the room while Frank waved a large hand in front of his face. “Of course not. We caught them before they could set one foot out the door.”

Disappointment settled in my stomach like a stone. So, Levi was still more or less without protection. And now, he not only had the other dark mage Houses to deal with, but also a worldwalker.

The feeling was immediately followed by irritation. Why was I disappointed that we had caught them? I was a constable, for Current’s sake! Catching dark mages was my job.

“Of course you did,” I said, forcing a smile onto my face. “You’re all far too skilled to let the likes of them get the better of you.”

Another wave of satisfied chuckles swept through the room. I kept the smile firmly on my features as I listened and nodded while they explained what had happened, but on the inside, my soul was being shredded by guilt.

My colleagues had been risking their lives trying to put out that fire and trying to recapture the escaping dark mages.

And what had I done in the meantime?

I had fucked Levi Arden.

Again.

Chapter19

Magic flashed all around me. I raised a metal wall right before a mass of shadows could slam into us. They crashed against my shield with a boom that reverberated through the air and made the windows on the buildings all along the street rattle in their frames. Gritting my teeth, I gave my metal a hard shove forward.

A grinding noise filled the street as my wall slid down the road, forcing the twisting mass of darkness back.

“Dropping left,” I pressed out, not taking my eyes off my shield. “Now!”

The left side of my metal wall sank back into the ground, and the unexpected lack of resistance made Aaron’s shadows shoot forward. But Shinji was ready for it. The moment my metal disappeared, he sent a torrent of dark orange flames roaring down the street and tearing through the mass of darkness like hungry beasts.

Behind us, my five low-level fighters shot attacks at the other members of the House of Onyx who had tried to corner us on the road.

The shadows disappeared in a flash, and I almost stumbled as there was suddenly nothing pressing on the other side of my shield. Releasing my grip on it, I instead summoned a sharp sheet and shot it towards Aaron Reyes.

It whooshed through the air, creating a whistling sound.

The woman next to him summoned a wind blast and shoved it off course, but I had already shot another one. And then another.

On my right, Shinji blasted the people on Aaron’s other side with waves of fire.

My head spun from exhaustion, but I kept up the brutal pace of my attacks. If they knew just how close I was to collapsing, they would keep the fight going. And I couldn’t afford that. I had to make them back off. Right now.

Since I’d only had Shinji and five of my lower-level mages with me when the ambush happened, Shinji and I had had to bear the brunt of it. And me more than him, since I was more powerful, more skilled, and also the damn leader of this gang that was falling apart before my very eyes. So I’d had to fight like I had infinite energy reserves. But I didn’t. And I was about to run out very soon.

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