I glared at the force mage riding next to me. Morning sunlight painted the rolling hills around us in bright colors and set his dark leather armor in stark contrast against the vibrant green grass. As our horses continued walking, I couldn’t help but notice how Callan’s powerful body shifted with the movements. Drawing my eyebrows down deeper, I scowled at him. Damn that bastard for making me fall in love with him.
“What?” Callan muttered without even turning to look at me.
A jolt of surprise shot through my body. “What?”
At last, he twisted around to face me. “You’re staring at me as if you’re planning to poison me any second. In case you’ve forgotten, you’re the one who volunteered to come with me on this mission.”
Making sure to keep my true feelings firmly off my features, I shot him a glare brimming with threats and instead said, “You put me in a collar.”
“Yeah, I sure did.” He chuckled and then gave me a quick rise and fall of his eyebrows. “So, what are you gonna do about it?”
“I’m going to add an entire day of groveling to my revenge plans.”
“Groveling?”
“Yes.”
He snorted. “Nice try, sweetheart. But you agreed willingly to put on the collar to help sell the ruse. I ain’t taking any heat for that.”
“You’re the one who suggested it.”
“You could’ve said no. So…” Trailing off, he turned towards the person riding on his other side. “What?”
Henry shot a sideways look at us. “I didn’t say anything.”
“But you want to. So, spit it out.”
Heaving a deep sigh, he turned to face both of us. “It’s gonna be a long week if you two are planning to bicker the whole way to the mountain.”
“Bicker?” I raised my eyebrows at him. “I don’t bicker. And besides, why are you even here?”
“I was always planning on bringing Henry for this,” Callan replied in his stead as he shifted his gaze back to me. “The real question is, why the hell did you decide to tag along?”
“Do you really think I would trust you with both an Enhancer and him?” I said as I pointed towards the final member of our small party.
Lance Carmichael flicked uncertain blue eyes between me and Callan where he rode on Henry’s other side. The Enhancer was a tool that had been created by a Binder for a Binder, so it could also only be dismantled by a Binder. Since there hadn’t been one of those after the old dark mages had killed the previous one, they had been forced to hide the Enhancer instead. But now that we had Lance under our control, we could use him to destroy that dangerous item once and for all. If we got to it first, that is.
“You—” Callan began.
“Incoming!” Henry interrupted.
I snapped my gaze back to the area ahead.
A horse came thundering across the grass as if it was being chased by demons. But it wasn’t heading in our direction. Charging down the hill, the horse with its rider galloped past some distance in front of us.
Confusion rippled through me. There was nothing nearby. We had to be at least an hour away from The First and Last Stop, and there were no dark mage mansions close by either. So what the hell was a lone rider doing out here? And traveling at that speed?
At first, they just flashed past across the grass like a dark streak. But then they abruptly changed direction, as if they had just spotted us, and galloped straight towards us instead.
The confusion inside me was replaced by wariness.
Without having to say anything, Callan, Henry, and I all pulled our horses to a halt and released the reins. Glittering green tendrils snaked down my arms while Callan’s gray half-translucent magic appeared in front of him as well. The sounds of wind magic informed me that Henry had called up his powers too.
Who the hell was this crazy person charging right towards us? This was not how ordinary people behaved when they entered the feared hills around Eldar. Usually, they only stayed on the Valdan Road, and we were far from that now. Besides, even if they braved the uncharted hills, riding straight for a group of people who logically had to be dark mages was an incredibly stupid move.
I let my poison turn into a cloud in front of me as I got ready to throw it at the insane person coming for us. Next to me, Callan transformed his magic into a spinning arc.
Blond hair whipped in the wind as the rider drew closer. It was a woman. And she was… I squinted at her, and another bout of confusion washed over me. She had raised one arm in the air and was waving frantically at us.
“Get ready,” Callan said in a low voice.
Keeping my eyes on the woman, I gave him a nod in confirmation while increasing the size of my poison cloud. The rider kept waving her arm back and forth with panicked movements.
Just a little closer, and then I could attack her without also hitting the horse. Callan moved his force arc into position. I studied the rider again.
Shock crackled through me like a lightning bolt.
“Stop!” I snapped as panic surged up inside my chest. “Stand down!”
“What?” Callan said.
“Don’t attack. I… I know her.”
Incredulity threatened to make my brain shut down as Paige Turner galloped the final distance to us and pulled her horse to a halt. Her wavy blond hair was tangled and windswept, and her blue eyes full of panic and disbelief… and fear.
“Audrey,” she pressed out after gulping in a deep breath. Her horse shifted back and forth a couple of steps, as if it too was nervous and scared. “Shit, it actually is you. I tried to get to you but I have no idea where you live so I’ve just been galloping around blindly and then I saw some people and I thought it had to be dark mages but I know I’m not supposed to just ride up to them but I didn’t know how else to find you so I—”
“Paige,” I interrupted. Staring at her, I tried to make sense of what was happening. “Breathe.”
“Shit.” She sucked in a deep breath and dragged a hand through her hair. Some of the panic, and most of the fear, in her eyes drained as she took another few deep breaths before finishing with, “Yeah, sorry.”
“This is Paige?” Callan asked. “The Paige?”
I had almost forgotten that the others were there too, so his voice startled me. Shaking my head, I snapped out of the spinning confusion inside my head.
“Yes,” I replied, and flicked a glance towards him before shifting my attention back to my friend. Worry snaked through my chest. “How are you here? Why are you here? Did something happen?”
“I… Wait, the Paige?” The tension in her body seemed to at last disappear completely, and a mischievous smile slid across her lips instead as she wiggled her eyebrows at me. “I have seen you exactly once in the past six years, and your new friends refer to me as the Paige.” She laughed and then winked at me. “I like it.”
“Well, there’s no one like you.” I flinched. That had come out sounding more vulnerable than I had intended, so I quickly pulled my brows down in a scowl and jerked my chin towards Callan instead. “And he’s not my friend. He’s the other guy you forged that document for.”
“Ohh.” She swept her gaze over Callan before continuing towards the other two. “So then…” Trailing off, she squinted towards the Binder on the far left. “Wait… Aren’t you…? Is that… Lance Carmichael?”
“Yep.”
“Yes,” Lance replied as well. That dangerous hope that had returned to his eyes after the constables had attacked Malcolm’s mansion flared up even more as he looked at Paige. “And you are?”
Paige scrunched up her nose slightly. “Not a fan of yours.”
The hope in Lance’s blue eyes deflated again. I huffed out an amused breath while turning back to Paige.
A spike of rage shot through me.
She was still looking towards Lance, and with her face turned like that, her cheek and jawline were fully visible from where I sat. Bruises bloomed on her skin.
“So then—” Paige continued as she shifted her gaze to Henry.
“Paige,” I snapped, cutting her off. “What happened?”
“I…” Reaching up, she ran a hand over her cheek a bit self-consciously. “Oh, that. Yeah. The reason why I’m here, I suppose.”
Before she had even finished speaking, I had swung myself down from my horse and stalked over to hers. “Get down.”
“Man, you’ve gotten bossy in the past six years.”
“Paige.”
“Fine.”
After blowing out a sigh, she dropped down from the saddle as well. Her horse snorted and shifted back and forth again. It was still breathing heavily, evidence that they had indeed been galloping for some time.
“You too,” Callan said somewhere behind me, presumably to Lance, but I wasn’t paying attention.
Instead, I placed gentle fingers on Paige’s chin and turned her head so that I could see her face. Angry bruises lined her cheekbone as well as her jaw.
Another wave of fury roared through me, and I had to flex my fingers to expel some of it after I released her chin again. “What happened?”
Three thuds sounded behind me, informing me that the others had dismounted as well. Paige flicked a glance towards them before meeting my gaze again. Embarrassment swirled in her eyes.
“They figured out that I was the one who had helped you,” she said slowly. “Once they started investigating, they found out that two people had rented a house and then left abruptly after the ball. The lady at the rental agency could apparently describe you rather well because they eventually pieced together who you are. Well, not him.” She nodded towards Callan again. “But they know that it was you, Audrey.”
“Shit,” I swore.
“Yeah. And once they knew that, they started looking into your old relationships. Which is how they found me. And then everything just unraveled from there.”
“Unraveled?” I stared at her in disbelief. “That’s putting it mildly. What the hell happened to your face?”
“They figured out that I was the one who had given you the forged papers of citizenship. And since we used to be friends, they thought that I knew where you lived.”
The ‘used to’ hurt more than I wanted to admit, but it was still nothing compared to the anger that crackled through my veins after seeing the bruises. Holding her gaze, I ground out, “What. Happened. To. Your. Face?”
“They took me to The First and Last Stop and tried to… persuade me to show them the rest of the way to your mansion.”
“Persuade?”
“Yeah.” A flicker of fury flashed in her eyes as she shot a glance towards Lance. “They’re very desperate to get their Binder back.” Her gaze returned to me as she shrugged. “And since I’m their only lead, they weren’t very patient. Or was their only lead. They forgot to lock the window this morning, so I managed to escape.”
“That’s…”
I trailed off as the sound of thundering hooves suddenly rolled over the grasslands.
A moment later, a dozen horses surged over the hill. Shouts rose up as they spotted us. While the riders spread out in formation, Paige whirled around and sucked in a gasp.
“Shit,” she breathed. “It’s them.”
“These are the people who hurt you?”
“Yes.”
“Yes,” I repeated while my mind churned. For a moment, I could only stare at them as realization dawned inside me. “Yes, it is. Because you didn’t escape.”
Paige whipped her head towards me, but I kept my eyes on the riders. “What?”
“You didn’t escape. They let you escape so that you would run and then they could follow as you unknowingly led them straight to me.”
“I… Oh, fuck. Audrey, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m glad they’re here.”
“Hey!” Lance suddenly yelled. “Help! It’s me. It’s Lance Carmichael. Help me!”
“Audrey,” Callan said.
“I know,” I muttered.
Touching my palms together, I shot a cloud of poison straight in the Binder’s face. Before he could take so much as a step towards the riders, or make one move to get back up on his own horse, he crumpled to the ground unconscious.
His body had barely finished hitting the grass when I turned back to Paige. “Would you mind holding my horse while I go and slaughter these people?”
Paige looked like she didn’t know whether to laugh or ask if I was serious, but she just said, “Uhm, sure.”
“Thanks.” While striding forward, I slid my gaze to Callan and Henry. “Do whatever you want. But they hurt Paige so I’m going to kill them all.”
Before either of them could answer, I stalked away from them all and towards the approaching riders. This was about to get messy, and noisy, and I didn’t want to spook our horses.
Once I had reached a better position, I stopped and called up my magic. A twisting green cloud materialized in the air in front of me while the riders thundered closer. I could almost feel the pounding of their horses’ hooves through the grass.
Winds tugged at my clothes and whirled through my hair as I raised my chin and faced them down.
Something moved at the corner of my eye.
A moment later, Callan and Henry came to a halt next to me.
Surprise swirled in my chest. “You’re going to help?”
“Yeah.” Callan shot me a sideways look. “We’re in a hurry, after all.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Henry.”
“I know,” he replied. “I’ve got you covered.”
I glanced briefly at the muscled man on Callan’s other side before exchanging a look with the force mage. Lifting his broad shoulders, he gave me a shrug in silent reply. I nodded.
“Alright. Then let’s kill these people.”
