Christine lifted a hand. “No. No, no, no. You are so far wrong, it’s almost funny. It would be funny, if this wasn’t a serious situation!”
“I’m wrong?”
She sighed. “Yes. I’m not mad at you for fighting the demon the wrong way. I’m furious at you for even trying in the first place, you self-absorbed moron!”
He watched the way her face bunched up, cheeks reddening as she whisper-yelled at him. Why did he find her more attractive when she was all worked up?
Why am I focusing on finding her attractive in the first place? You know you mustn’t allow yourself to be distracted. You have a mission, a purpose. You cannot divert from that. Not now, not when you’re so close.
“There was no need for you to do what you did today,” she hissed furiously. “None whatsoever. I had the situation under control. The team was ready to attack, to banish the demon and its followers, when you went and did what you did.”
“If I didn’t stop the demon, it would have killed you,” he protested. “It was too strong.”
“No, it wasn’t,” she said softly, losing much of her malice. “You just didn’t believe in us, Altair, because you’re too focused on yourself. Too focused on doing things on your own. We’re a team. We work together. Or at least, we’re supposed to. We attack together.”
“Then you would have died together,” he said stubbornly. “I could have stopped it alone, so nobody else died. Berith—”
“That. Wasn’t. Berith,” she fumed. “It was a regular demon. Not a demon lord. We could have taken it. TOGETHER!”
Her last word echoed through the library.
“I’ve read the books,” he said quietly. “They all say that Master Erlinger stopped Lord Berith by sacrificing herself, so that no more of her companions would die.”
Christine clenched her fists, raising them up, shaking them at him. “You need to do more research then, Altair. Berith wasn’t the first demon lord to come to earth. It’s rare, but there are other accounts. Berith is just the most recent. Master Erlinger did what she did to prevent more innocents from dying. It was a product of circumstance, not of need, or desire. If the fight was in a rural area, she wouldn’t have done it. She didn’t want to do what she did—”
“Yes?” he asked as Christine stopped short, staring at him in open-mouthed shock.
“You want to do this,” she said in a stunned whisper. “You want to die, to sacrifice yourself. Why is that, Altair? Why do you want to die so badly?”
“Who said I want to die?” he retorted, not liking where the conversation was headed.
Christine was prying into things she shouldn’t be, asking questions he didn’t want to answer. Altair had his reasons, his desire to prove himself, and that was all that mattered. She didn’t need to know anything more about it. Period. End of story.
“Then why are you acting like it?” the witch asked, leaning over the table and pressing one finger into it. “Throwing yourself at the demon today, without acting as a team. Obsessed with Master Erlinger. Everything screams out to me that you want to go the same route.”
“You have it wrong,” he said, closing the book.
“No, I don’t think I do,” Christine said, standing her ground. “What’s going on with you, Altair? Please, tell me. Maybe I can help.”
That was too much. Altair shook his head, standing up. “This conversation is over,” he said quietly. “I don’t need you prying into my life.”
“But, Altair, I’m not trying to pry,” she protested.
He ignored her, walking out from the table and heading toward the exit, leaving her behind.
Chapter Fourteen
Christine
SHE WATCHED HIM GO, deciding not to follow.
“What the hell was that all about?” she whispered to herself. “I thought we were making progress!”
Everything that they had accomplished the past few days now seemed like a giant waste of her time. The way that they had begun working together during their sessions in the arena. Altair had obviously been studying up on his Abyssal lore, learning what creatures were affected by what, their strengths and weaknesses.
He was good, too. A very quick learner rarely needed to be told more than once. She’d watched with pride as he quickly became a useful, if rarely used, part of her team. It was difficult to adjust tactics that the witches had known all their lives, to alter them to include something and someone, totally different. But they had begun to take the first steps.
Then today had hit, and she’d watched all that discipline, training and teamwork go right out the door.
Sitting down at the desk, she looked at the stack of books he’d pulled. All of them had something to do with Master Erlinger, from her early life, to the battle with Lord Berith, the demon lord.
“Dammit,” she snapped, slamming a fist down on top of the nearest book as she realized a heavy truth.
She couldn’t have someone so obsessed with dying in a blaze of glory on her team. Despite all the strengths and positives that he brought with his dragon powers and muscle, Altair was a weakness in his current state. A liability that she just could not afford.
The biggest thing that Christine had learned about teamwork over the years, was trust. Without it, any real team simply ground to a halt and would not function. On a team, people had to handle different tasks. No one person could do it all. To ensure this happened smoothly, everyone on the team needed to trust everyone else on the team to get their job done.
“How am I supposed to trust him?” she moaned, burying her face in her hands, knowing the simple truth of it.
She couldn’t. Today had been the perfect example of it. At the worst possible moment, he’d ignored the rest of the team and gone off on
