Magic Forged (Hall of Blood and Mercy #1)(64)

Rupert snarled like a caged animal. He effortlessly ripped my katana from my grasp and flung it away.

“Rupert!” Celestina called. “What are you doing?”

I tried to back up and retreat, but Rupert stayed on me.

“Rupert!” Josh shouted.

I tried to angle myself in Celestina and Josh’s direction, but I only took one step. In that time Rupert pushed in closer and jabbed with his fist, landing an explosive hit to the side of my head. I toppled, and instantly everything went black.





Chapter Seventeen





Hazel





My ears rang, and when I tried to open my eyes the world swirled madly. Somewhere in the blurry distance someone shouted.

I groaned, and something soft moved under my head as I tried to remember why I was collapsed. The fight abruptly flooded my memory. “That jerk!”

I tried to sit up, but everything hurt, and the spinning made my stomach queasy.

“Here.” Celestina supported my back with her knee as she passed me a potion.

I recognized it as another fae healing draught. This one had a faint fruity flavor that was a little tart—like kiwi. I chugged it. The first swallow almost made me gag, but as soon as it hit my stomach I started to feel better.

My head still rang, and I could still hear yelling, but finally everything started to focus.

“You disobeyed my orders!”

That sounded a lot like Killian, but that was impossible. Killian would never raise his voice like that, and the British accent was way too strong. Though the tone was certainly flinty and icy enough.

“What’s going on?” I finished the bottled potion then wrapped my hands around my head, grateful for Celestina’s support.

“It’s the Eminence.” Celestina’s voice was hard to gauge—it was guarded, but also had a flicker of something like worry.

“What, did he come to peer at my prone body and sneer about fragile wizards?” I asked.

“No. I think he’s going to kill Rupert.”

“What?” I dropped my hands and sat all the way up.

I’d been carried off to the side of the gym, but Rupert and Killian stood on the mats where Rupert had knocked me out.

Rather, Killian stood on the mats. Rupert was dangling from Killian’s grasp, his feet hanging in the air.

“That trigger-happy tyrant.” I struggled to my feet, briefly losing balance when the room bulged like a fishbowl. I shook my head, trying to clear my vision.

“You’ll stop him?” Celestina asked.

I took a few tottering steps before I got my feet under me. “Someone has to!”

As the fae potion pumped through my veins I switched from a walk to a mad scramble, quickly closing the distance between me and the rage-filled Killian.

Every muscle in his body was stiff with anger. The planes of his face were hard, but his voice whipped like an icy wind and filled the room. “I said the wizard was to be untouched.” His fangs were more prominent than usual, and the red-black of his eyes had hardened into something closer to obsidian. “And yet you still attacked her. You should know quite well what I do to those who don’t follow my orders.”

I swear I could hear the vertebrae in Rupert’s neck as Killian squeezed harder.

The red-haired vampire dangled helplessly from Killian’s grasp. His face was turning a dark shade of purple, twisted in a horrible grimace. Though he gripped Killian’s wrist he didn’t try to attack the Eminence.

“You hit her with enough force to knock her unconscious!” Killian shouted.

“And I’m awake now, how about that!” I hurried onto the mats, sliding to a stop just short of Killian.

Killian peeled his eyes from Rupert and studied me.

I tried not to visibly gulp as the blackness of his eyes promised death and froze me where I stood.

Rupert gurgled, reminding me of the situation. I forced a shaky smile to my lips. “Do you want to put him down now?”

Killian looked back at Rupert, holding him effortlessly in the air. “You’re going to ask for mercy.”

I took a deep breath. “Yes.”

“Even though he hurt you.”

“We were in a mock fight,” I said. “And it’s not like he was trying to kill me—I’d be dead if he was.”

Actually, I would have died in my first week of training. There were hundreds of ways Rupert could have killed me when I reported to him for weightlifting, and he could have more easily made it look like an accident. The thought nagged me for a moment—if Rupert was the murderer like I thought, he’d already had ample opportunity to kill me and hadn’t. Did that just mean he had a bigger plan in mind, or was he innocent?

“He disobeyed an order.”

“Yeah, so exile him or something—you don’t kill him!” I argued. “A fae potion fixed me right up, so he didn’t even hurt me that badly.” A part of me couldn’t believe I was arguing on Rupert’s behalf, but I didn’t want him to get killed because of me.

“For something as fragile as you, the line between death and injury is a fine one,” Killian grimly said. “In accordance with your ridiculous House Medeis beliefs you’d argue for him even if he killed you.”

“No, I wouldn’t…” I trailed off when I realized it was true. If Rupert had killed an innocent in cold blood—not just me—I wouldn’t raise a finger.