He watched as she bit her lip and pointed, saying, “There, Graely…right under the library. It will blow it to pieces, it will.”
He jumped between her and the ticking bomb as he used his powers and peeled away the layers of magic that hid it from his immediate view. Demon magic was no match for his own.
Hurriedly he shoved her out of the way and ignored her when she chastised him. Standing straight and tall, he knew he had to act quickly because the bomb was about to go off.
In arcane Danu words, he recited the spell he had learned so many thousands of years ago when the Dark King had still taken an interest in him.
He knew he couldn’t diffuse it in time, but he could and did send it off far above and where it would do no harm.
“Graely,” Frankie breathed as she flung herself at him and wrapped her arms as best she could around him and rested her face against his middle. “Ye be brilliant, do ye know how brilliant?”
He couldn’t stop himself as he held her close, for a moment he told himself, just for a moment, to let her delicious sce
nt waft through his senses, to feel her precious body close to his.
He gently held her shoulders and made himself stand apart and thought it was one of the hardest things he would ever do, he would keep himself apart from her.
“We aren’t done, Frankie,” his voice was low and husky in spite of the gravity of the situation, in spite of the determination to keep her at arms’ length. “As you believe, there is another one we have to find.”
She stood silent for a moment, “Aye, I know, Graely…but the other bomb…it isn’t active yet. We might yet be in time.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“No, but I know, it isn’t down here. Everything went quiet. I don’t hear any ticking in the tunnels.”
“Frankie, I don’t know what to do with you. If I hadn’t been here, you would have thrown yourself on that bomb, I know it. You would have died,” he said in a voice fraught with frustration and horror.
“I’m not a fool, Graely. I wouldn’t die for nothing. I would have thought of sending it off…” she grinned sheepishly. “Eventually.”
“Not in time,” he answered roughly. “You don’t know how to save the day without throwing yourself into every danger!”
“Eh then, Graely, my Dark Prince, what I need is you to watch over me,” Frankie pursed her lips and wrinkled her nose at him, “Don’t ye think?”
He wanted to hug her. He wanted to kiss her luscious lips but he sucked in a long hard breath instead, “I know you, I know you would have thought of something but not without getting hurt.”
She batted her lashes at him, “Well then, thank goodness ye were with me. Never go off and leave me to m’own devices, and we shall do fine, won’t we?”
His dark eyes narrowed. She was a minx, she was stubborn, she was impulsive and brave beyond measure and he would pine for her through all eternity because she would never be his, and he would always be hers.
He dropped his hold of her, and stepped back. She stepped forward, put her hands on his bare, muscular, tattooed chest and got on her tippy toes to kiss the hallow in his neck as she obviously couldn’t reach his lips.
“Well, I don’t have time to take up this issue with ye now, Dark Prince of mine, and I am yers, and ye are mine, don’t be thinking otherwise and make a mess of this.” She sighed dramatically, “But I have to go and find the other bomb. Are ye coming?”
His voice was a strangled sound, “To the ends of the earth…”
Frankie arched a brow and shifted off. She shifted directly to Jazz.
Graely hung back, and she turned and made a motion for him to come closer but he stood his ground.
He watched Jazz direct everyone away from the common areas of the campus and he saw as Frankie scanned the immediate area. He could see she felt or heard something and he stood ready.
* * *
Frankie smiled proudly as she watched Jazz doing a great job of calmly hurrying people away and out of danger.
So many students and professors were still streaming out of the various buildings in their efforts to get far away from the campus.
No one stopped to even ask Jazz who she was or how she knew there was a bomb. They just ran.