Anya Bast - Witch Heart

"Stupidity!" shouted Tevan over the din of magick and crashing debris. He lifted his hand and threw a bolt at Adam.

Claire blocked it just in time with earth magick, but the elium — tingling in violent resonation to the Atrika —drove her to her knees.

Tevan took the opportunity. A cold, hard thread of power wrapped around her leg. Claire cried out in surprise at the strength of it. Tevan tugged her forward and she went down on her stomach, searching desperately for purchase on the rug.

The rope of energy around her leg tightened painfully, and he pulled her toward him. As she neared Tevan with increasing speed, her fingernails dug into the wood floor, scratched at another area rug.

"Claire!" Adam ran to her, but Tevan yanked her out his reach, toward him, just as Adam's fingers brushed hers. She screamed as she suddenly shot over the polished hardwood floor like a bullet, straight toward Tevan's open arms and sharp fangs.

Adam bellowed in frustration and shot fire magick at Tevan, but he just blocked it.

Hard fingers closed around her legs and flipped her. She lay on her back with Tevan looming over her. He smiled, showing fang. They were bone white and tipped in red.

She couldn't let him bite her. One bite and she was done for. She'd be unable to use her magick, not to mention move. She couldn't let him jump her anywhere, either.

Claire brought her foot up fast and hard, kicking him square in the face with the heavy sole of her boot. He went careening backward with an oof of surprised pain.

Adam came from her left and swung his sword at Tevan, striking his thigh. Tevan howled in pain. Acidic blood sprayed from his wound, which popped and sizzled from the copper exposure. The demon went down on his knees.

Taking advantage, Adam swooped his blade upward, aiming straight for Tevan's throat. At the very last moment, Tevan jumped and disappeared. Adam's blade whooshed through air.

Tevan jumped back into the room right behind Adam.

"Watch out!" Claire yelled, raising air magick and sending a chair careening into the Atrika to knock him off balance.

Adam turned, dropped the sword and tackled the Atrika. Together, they rolled across the floor, punching each other.

To her right, Kai and Theo were locked in a magickal battle. Claire rolled to her feet and sent the couch crashing straight into Kai, giving Theo a chance to regroup.

Then she turned and refocused her attention on the tangle of Adam and Tevan. Tevan pushed his hands into Adam's chest and Claire screamed, knowing what was about to come.

Daaeman magick pulsed, scorching the air with its thick, acrid scent. Adam flew backward. He hit the wall behind him with a sickening thump, collapsed to the floor, and lay still. Cold terror crawled up her throat, but she had no time to dwell on it.

Tevan turned toward her and Claire raised a thread of earth to block and fire to parry with. She used both as soon as she pulled them, preventing Tevan from wrapping her in another tight coil of power. She couldn't allow him to drag her toward him again.

Aeamon magick didn't work very effectively on the daaemon. It worked as a distraction, or as a sideswipe — magick used the way Adam had done in Wisconsin, blowing up a car and managing to get the Atrika in the blast.

But it did work sometimes when you twisted it just right — a thing Theo and Adam had already grown good at and Claire had mastered.

She hit Tevan dead on with her thread of fire — perfectly executed. He blocked the stream, but it still sent him careening backward into a window. Glass shattered. The scent of charred daaeman rose in the air.

The shock of using two separate threads of earth and fire at the same time weakened her knees and sent her collapsing to the floor.

Rue's voice echoed in her mind. You still haven't learned to integrate the elements, Claire. Learn!

She drew a shaking breath, knowing she had no time for rest or recovery. Taking the opportunity to help Theo while Tevan was down, she whirled and drew two more threads.

Kai anticipated her action and shot a massive blast of power at her. She dove to the floor just as it hit. It scorched her back, singeing her clothes and sending a flare of pain through her.

She heard a very human grunt and the sound of fists hitting flesh. Claire army-crawled to the edge of the overturned couch — she'd landed behind it — and peered around to see Theo and Kai rolling on the floor, locked in a fistfight.

She understood Theo and Adam's desire to throw punches instead of magick, since their power was not totally effective against daaeman shields, but fistfights with an Atrika wouldn't go well. She shot to her feet, gathered her strength and aimed it at Kai.

If only they would separate a little to give her a clear shot…

Ironlike hands clamped down over her shoulders, making her yelp in surprise and pain.

Tevan.

He yanked her back hard enough to give her whiplash and she reacted from some primal, animal-like survival instinct. She thrust her hands back and funneled all her earth magick into Tevan's massive thighs, twisting a little and forcing it hard to get past his natural shields.

All it did was make him yelp and release her, but that was enough, she rolled to the side and gathered more power.

Not enough.

He was on her again in an instant, pulling her to the ground and straddling her. Acidic blood dripped onto her clothes and burned through the fabric to her skin from the cuts he'd sustained from the window. The pain made her cry out and writhe beneath him.

Houses, that probably excited him.

Huge hands closed around her neck, closing off her screams of agony. His body braced, preventing her from thrashing, hitting, and scratching in her frenzy to be away from the burning.

His head lowered, fangs extended, toward her throat.

She went sttll, her breath whooshing out of her. Terror sang through her blood like vinegar — fiery, bitter.

Adam grabbed Tevan and pulled him bodily from her, just as his fangs brushed the tender skin where shoulder met throat. For a moment she lay there, drawing a shuddering breath of relief before pushing up from the floor.

Tevan and Adam had lain to rest all magickal law and had engaged in another old-fashioned fistfight. Tevan was a daaeman, and therefore bigger and stronger than Adam.

But Adam knew how to throw a punch.

He connected solidly with Tevan's jaw and sent the daaeman careening backward.

Claire sprawled on the floor, parts of her blood-spotted skin screaming with fiery pain, and gaped at Tevan knocked out on the floor. Adam turned, shoulders hunched, expression of absolute rage on his face.

Like something out of a nightmare, Tevan rose behind him and pulled him down.

Claire screamed and acted. Without conscious thought. Definitely without planning.

The elium, just the tiniest thread she'd pulled, exploded out of her, rocketing her into darkness.

"Claire?"

She came awake slowly, held and rocked in Adam's arms. Her wounds burned, but his warmth made it all right. Houses, was she still alive? The blast that had propelled her backward had felt like the end of the world and she'd only used the barest amount of the elium. Claire didn't want to imagine what it would be like to use more.

"Baby, are you okay?"

Her eyelids fluttered open. He sounded panicked. She raised her hand and touched his face. "I'm all right," she managed to whisper.

"You almost died, Claire. Fuck. The elium almost killed you. It was only my healing ability that brought you back." His voice sounded shaky, thin.