“He can make tier ten crystals,” Julian warned me, protectively moving his arm around my shoulders and trying to back us away. “I can’t take him, duckie.”
“Oh, a fun adversary for once,” I purred.
“Take down the barrier and we can find out, girl,” Mr. Craftsman mocked.
“I take down the barrier, and we’ll level the whole arena with you under it,” I countered with an evil smile. “You come to have another talk with the doc, and that will be the best ending you’ll get. Savvy?”
“You don’t call the shots here.”
“Neither do you, but we find ourselves in a cause-and-effect situation. You cause another problem, and the effect will be my getting pissed off and blowing shit up all around you. You do have things you can lose, right? As much as you were trying to threaten his mom, you have family and stuff you value. Want to see how evil I’ll be?”
“You’re a child. A woman.”
“Not sure how my breasts have anything to do with this, but tell that to Joshua Edelman. Or Elder Harbour. You might have the chance at the golden ticket with me, but the council doesn’t like you either, and you’ve pissed in a lot of other corn flakes. Should I call the dragons and tell them what I heard? You went around their edict about Julian and were trying for me. How would they react to that?”
“You hide behind beasts and call yourself a witch,” he sneered.
“I don’t actually. You keep trying to trap me into saying that. Idiot. That’s all I get. I’m a person. That’s all that really matters to me. So fuck off and get the fuck out of here before you push me too far. And tell those chickenshit fuckers this was the last straw with me. No more warnings.”
He smirked at me. “I’m sure they’ll be as terrified as I currently am.”
“Being stupid doesn’t make the threat any less valid. Those dragons I killed learned that the hard way. I suggest you learn from their mistakes before you lose everything.”
“And I suggest you talk to Julian and heed my words that people who make an enemy of me don’t fair well in our world. That’s something you should learn fast.”
“Hey, asshole, you were going to hand me over to the soulless dicks who run your council. We weren’t going to be friends, and this isn’t a difference of an opinion. You were going to sell me, which makes you a supe trafficker, and the lowest form of filth. We’re enemies already, and believe me that I’ll still be the one standing if we come to blows.”
That made him flinch. He was a man who was used to using his wealth and power to fight—his magic too—but not his actual person. And I would. I would throw down and take him down.
What kind of idiot wouldn’t already be planning for that, given how much Julian had told me?
Mr. Craftsman tried one more time for me with my barrier still up, but seemed rattled, and even more so when something happened with the game and the fans above us erupted in cheering. He threw out some threats and left, leaving us alone in a deserted hallway.
We didn’t move for several moments, both of us probably reeling from what happened.
I gasped when Julian spun me around and moved me over to the wall. “You shouldn’t have done that. I could take what he’d do. You shouldn’t have poked at him, and certainly not for me. Not after all I’ve—not after how I’ve…”
I didn’t know what to say, staring at him, my heart hurting for him. Hurting for us. He wouldn’t have given me over. I believed him, and not for what he said about the shortsightedness. I knew that was just to get the guy to back off. No, Julian would have done anything to protect me. I’d seen it in his eyes. His resolve had been absolute.
He would have given his life to protect me right then, and I knew it down to my soul. It wasn’t about my power or the magic that intrigued him. He loved me. He would have sacrificed himself for me because he loved me.
Even more than his mind if they had melted it taking off the magical tattoo protecting me.
I don’t know who reached for whom first. I don’t know if I gave a signal or he did. I couldn’t say what happened or why it even started… But it did.
I blinked and we were kissing, me cupping his face, holding him to me as his hands moved all over me, his body pressing me into the wall. People cheered again, and I changed the barrier to block it all out, and from anyone seeing or hearing us. I didn’t even think about doing it, I just did it.
We moaned as he grabbed my breast and he took off my shirt. I undid my bra, whimpering when his big hands touched my hot skin and massaged my breasts. I missed this, missed his touch so, so much. I begged for more when he kissed along my neck and hurried with his jeans.
His shirt was gone too then, and I didn’t even bother taking off my shoes, hurrying to get my jeans off enough so he could have me. He wanted more than sex, turning me around and taking my jeans down my hips as he knelt behind me. His mouth found my pussy lips and it was as good as I remembered. For all of his damn faults, the man knew how to please a woman.
He was so intense. He paid attention to every moan, every twitch, and every indication of anything I
