Everyone hit the ground hard, bouncing even on the rough patch of grass we stood on. Except Fin, who thankfully my magic recognized as mine.
I coughed as I regained my voice. “As I was saying, leave or you will regret it.”
The goon reached out and grabbed my ankle.
So much for being off limits. I struck with my blade before he could even reach his, hitting him hard in the side. Blood poured from the wound as I removed my blade and leaned down.
“You won’t die, but you’ll leave me alone while I deal with your friends.”
Fin had started fighting a pair of others, obviously not wanting to hold them with magic any longer. He was spoiling for a fight. Two more stood waiting in the wings as if they were next up to the stage. I used that same dark tinged magic to drag them both toward me until they knelt at my feet.
Instead of towering over them, I knelt in the grass and looked them over. “Same deal. Leave now and I won’t hurt you.”
They glared at me like they wanted to kill me, so I focused my power on the heavy thump, thump, thump of their pulse in their necks. When the blood flow slowed, they both slumped over, passed out from my magical blood choke.
Fin had taken down one of his guys, and as I stood to survey their fight, he finished off the other with a punch to the guys throat. He hadn’t been as gentle as me. They were both beaten and cut, but not dead.
“Is it a mistake to leave them alive?” I asked. Not that I was in a hurry to kill them while they were down for the count. “Should we just leave them here?”
Fin stepped over them, cleaning his blades on his pants as he headed toward the car. We climbed in, this time Fin driving, and I waited about as long as I could for him to say something.
“What the hell was all that about? I get they are mad about going to fairy jail or whatever, but do you usually get randomly attacked like that?”
He sighed, his shoulders falling back. “No, not usually, not in a long time. I haven’t been out in the world much in recent years. I prefer to keep to myself and hunt the Black Mage. When I brought you into my plans was the first time I’d really gone out in years, outside of tiny excursions for supplies the Captain couldn’t or wouldn’t retrieve.”
Awesome. I was mated to the fae version of a hermit.
Fin slammed on his brakes. I snapped forward into the airbag console hard enough I had to brace my hand to stop from hitting it.
“What the fuck?’
He had his knife out as he faced toward the empty back seat. “Show yourself.”
Then, the backseat wasn’t so empty. A man sat there, one leg crossed over the other, his black on black suit immaculate.
“I heard you were searching for someone,” he said.
I turned to get a better look at him. “You heard? That was pretty fast.”
He shifted his attention to me and under it I felt flayed open. Like he could see my insides and pick them out like a game of Operation.
“Word travels fast in the market circles.”
I waved at him despite the fear clogging my throat, putting some bite in my tone. “You could have called. You didn’t need to get all serial killer creepy in our backseat.”
A grin popped at the corner of his mouth and then he leaned forward. I shifted away, trying to keep as much space between us as possible, not even daring to taste him with my own magic.
“I like you, Zoey Sallix. I knew I would. Word was you were looking for someone making jewelry, but I suspect that’s not all?”
I tugged my necklace from my shirt and held it up. “Someone who makes jewelry like this. I need something that can handle my unique magical abilities.”
He didn’t reach out to touch the necklace, and I shoved it back under my shirt, so he wasn’t tempted to. “That is a fae piece and yet you carry mage-marked daggers.”
I shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a complicated woman. Do you know someone who might help me?”
His focus shifted to Fin, who sat there holding his knife, ready to strike in a split second. “How did something like you end up with something like him?”
He was talking to me despite his gaze of Fin.