Intoxicating Magic by Deanna Chase Page B

ruining your life, you know.”
    “Shut up.” Talisen glared at her.
    “Why?” she said, taunting him. “Afraid she’s going to find out we’re lovers?”
    I gasped involuntarily as shock had me staring openmouthed at Tal. Lovers? What the hell?
    “Don’t listen to her, Willow.” His voice was low and steady, full of danger. “She’ll say anything to drive a wedge between us.”
    The brunette fae laughed, a throaty bedroom version. “Don’t be so modest, Talisen. How else would I know about that birthmark on your upper thigh or the scar on your hip?”
    Anger-tinged jealousy burst forward and pooled in my chest. I’d never seen the alleged birthmark, but I knew about the scar. Back when we were teens he’d slipped on a mossy log and gotten a jagged rock lodged in his hip. There was no way he’d walked away from that without a reminder.
    “What do you want?” My voice was as chilly as the cold air.
    Her piercing eyes bored into me. “You.”
    Talisen shifted so his body was completely in front of mine. “You have two seconds to get out of here before I put this bolt in your leg.”
    I peeked over his shoulder at the supermodel fae and had a flash of them together in bed. The contents in my stomach churned.
    “You know I can’t do that,” she said, standing her ground. “Especially not since you ended Macinson. You know Asher’s entire team is out looking for you both, right?”
    How did she know about Macinson? Had Tal told her? And how many people was the entire team? I pulled the small tranq gun from the back of my jeans and held it behind my back. No matter what happened, I wasn’t going down without a fight.
    “They might be looking, but they’ll never find us.” Tal took a step forward.
    “So naïve.” The woman shook her head. “Do you really think I’d come out here all by myself?” She waved a hand and three other fae materialized from the trees. One woman and two men.
    Tal didn’t even look at them. He just raised the crossbow to aim it at her chest. “Do you really think I’d be so stupid as to take Willow to a safe house when I didn’t have backup?”
    I turned my back to Talisen and eyed the new arrivals. I didn’t recognize any of them. “Tal?”
    “Just stick close to me, Wil. This won’t take much longer.”
    I hated not being in the know. Tal seemed so confident. As if he’d planned for this encounter. But I didn’t see how we were going to get out of this. As far as I knew, we were outnumbered four to two… well, three including Link. Sure, Tal had a crossbow and I had the tranq gun, but the unfamiliar fae could have spells or other weapons they hadn’t yet brandished.
    “This is getting really old, Talisen,” his supposed lover said in a bored tone. “Just hand her over and we’ll let you go. No one really liked Macinson anyway.”
    Talisen scoffed. “Give it up, Meredith. One would’ve thought you’d have realized by now that no one is who they seem to be.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” Her voice rose as suspicion set in.
    “This.” I felt him move and a second later a bolt flew and landed in the knee of the fae to our left. He let out a cry as a burst of magic exploded from him in a cloud of blackness.
    “Duck.” Talisen grabbed me around the waist and pulled me face-first into the snow. More magic flew over our heads as the other fae turned on each other. Link stood guard, not letting any of them advance on us.
    “Move,” Tal said as he pulled me up to my knees. “To the trees.”
    I scrambled in front of him, reaching the nearest tree just as a stream of magic flew by me. I plastered myself to the trunk and took in the magical battle. The shorter, dark-haired female was throwing electric bolts at the one Tal had called Meredith while the two males were caught in an invisible struggle, each fighting the other off in some weird energy battle. They were all manipulators of elements, while Tal was a healer and I was a life fae. Our magic