A magical whip.
Warmth fires up in my chest without much effort at all. I move like I’m reaching into my non-existent backpack over my shoulder and I conjure the handle and thong that’s electric white-blue and crackles with electricity from behind my back. Even the handle is lit up, but it doesn’t hurt my hand.
Slicing my arm down hard, I send the thong toward Carrick, but I pull it back just a tad so it doesn’t actually strike him. He wasn’t expecting it, though, and he jumps back a few feet as the electrical arc comes his way. It makes a louder crack than my real whip does.
“Not bad.” He grins. “Granted, that wouldn’t kill a fae, but it would make them think twice about rushing you.”
As I let my arm fall, the thong comes to rest on the floor in a lazy “S” shape. I twirl the handle a bit, making the thong swirl in a pretty pattern of light.
“Conjure a weapon to kill,” Carrick commands, and I lift my head.
Easy as pie. I drop the electric light whip and before the handle hits the ground, the entire thing evaporates into nothing. Rolling my wrist, I imagine a battle-ax appearing, except I make a minor alteration. The ones that Carrick has are incredibly heavy, and I usually have to wield them with two hands once I start to get fatigued. I make this one a little smaller, not as weighty, and the grip perfectly fitted to my hand.
The weapon appears just as I imagine it.
I swing it above my head, put my other hand to the hilt, and then throw it straight at Carrick. In an impressive and, I must say, incredibly sexy show of his powers, he merely sidesteps slightly so the ax flies by him. But even more impressive and totally the hottest thing ever is when his hand shoots out and he catches the rotating ax perfectly by the handle as it starts to whiz by him.
With a wave of his hand, it disappears. “Hit me with something else.”
I hold my hand out, palm up, and a fireball erupts. It feels cool as it hovers above my skin. I note this came so easy and automatically that I didn’t feel my magic fire up with warmth in my chest, but rather the warmth seems to be just hovering there in the background.
In other words, it took little effort.
With exaggerated motions, I act like a pitcher on the big-league mound. Bringing the ball to my chest, stepping back with one foot, and then raising the other knee high before firing the flaming orb at Carrick.
He’s grinning broadly at my playfulness as he conjures a wall of water to douse the flames. When the two magics hit, they evaporate into nothing but steam.
“Again,” he demands.
I push both hands out toward him to conjure up a fierce wind. It flows across the gym and hits Carrick so forcefully he has to lean into it to stay upright. He holds it for a bit and his feet actually start to slide backward, but then he does some type of witchy mojo that turns the wind back at me.
It hits me so hard I go windmilling backward until I fall on my butt while Carrick doubles over with laughter.
Glaring at him, I just wait it out until he’s finished. When he straightens, he tips his head with an impish smile of apology. “Sorry. But on the plus side, you are throwing magic almost effortlessly. You just have to be ready sometimes to fail to meet your objective or have it turned around on you. You should have thrown that bubble shield against the wind.”
He’s right, of course. I need to be thinking moves ahead, like a chess game. I can’t assume what I throw is going to work. In fact, I think his point is to assume it won’t.
Carrick motions with his hands to get up, and I do. “Now, throw something at me with the intent to kill, not harm. You weren’t all that serious before.”
“No,” I say, aghast. “I’m absolutely not going to do that.”
“Come on, Finley,” he snaps, bracing his hands on his hips like he’s a coach getting ready to lecture. “You have to be committed to kill. Playtime is over.”
I shake my head, cross my arms. “I could never muster up intent to kill you.”
“But you can’t kill me,” he points out. “So take that worry off your plate.”
“We don’t know that I can’t kill you,” I say softly, a sudden realization hitting me. It’s one thing for Sarvel to suggest my powers are limitless and indefinable, and something else to practice throwing fireballs to fight against Dark Fae and the like.
But it’s a completely different thing to understand that there’s a possibility I might have the power inside of me to kill a demi-god.
I think it’s a long shot. The gods could always bring him back in the snap of a finger. Chances are, I don’t have that type of ability.
However… I am an anomaly. No human has been able to do the things I’ve done, so we can’t be sure about anything.
I shake my head again. “Not going to do it.”
“Finley,” he admonishes, moving toward me.
“No. Not going to it,” I insist. “I can kill evil things, but I’m not going to throw around killing magic to test the theory you’re indestructible.”
“I am,” he replies smoothly.
“I’m sure Lucien wouldn’t agree,” I snap, then immediately regret it by the flash of pain that flickers in his eyes.
Of course, it was just a flicker. Carrick is far more adept at keeping his emotions from showing, but I’m absolutely horrified I said that to him. I open my mouth up to start a rush of apologies.
Carrick truly knows me better than I know myself, so before I can get a word out, he presses a hand over my mouth. “I know you didn’t mean that, and I also think it’s a valid reminder that we can’t know anything absolutely.”
When he removes his hand, I gush, “I am so fucking sorry, Carrick.”
His hand goes back over my mouth, and he shakes his head. “It’s fine. Besides, I’m confident Lucien isn’t gone for good.”
I let those words settle over me as I study his expression, which seems confident in that prediction. His bearing is commanding, as always, and I don’t sense a single vibe of worry from him.
Okay, he could be playing me so I don’t worry, but I’m going to choose to latch on to that positivity. My hand comes to his wrist, and I pull his hand from my mouth. But before I do, I press a soft kiss there. “Lucien will absolutely be back.”
Carrick’s eyes fire up with a tender warmth that always makes my heart catch when it happens because it happens when I say or do something that affects him on an emotional level. Therefore, it is no surprise what follows is a dip of his head to put his mouth on mine and then a kiss that if it were allowed to go on might eventually lead to us getting naked, but as it stands… we’re not alone.
A slight cough to get our attention has me jumping back from Carrick, and I wheel around to see Maddox and Cato standing in the gym.
Not near the door where someone would normally enter, but in the opposite corner, meaning they bent distance to get in here and who knows how long they’ve been there.
Maddox stands casually, thumbs tucked into the front belt loops of his jeans. He shoots me a wink, and I smile back.
Cato takes a step forward, and my attention goes to him. He inclines his head toward Carrick. “Apologies for needing your brother, but he is back now and at your disposal.”
I think it’s very odd he would apologize, but I don’t know Cato. I don’t know much about any of the gods really since we’ve never talked about them all that much. Carrick says they’re all fairly egocentric and standoffish and that while Veda is his favorite, she stays at arm’s length too.