Vicious Villains (Ruthless Villains Book 4)

Sullen silence hung around us when we walked back through the city and towards our inn. Audrey glared at the empty street before us as if it had personally offended her. And I wasn’t much better.

When we fled from Gale’s stronghold, we had been pursued by more of his guards, and it had taken half the night to get rid of them. By the time they were finally dead, I was exhausted. I had also taken a lightning bolt to the arm which my fingers still tingled from, and dull pain pulsed through my shoulder blades from when I had been flung into a wall by a wind mage. Audrey hadn’t said anything, but I knew that she was in similar shape.

It bothered me more than I wanted to admit how badly our break-in had failed. The only reason we had even been able to make it back out again was because of the shadow wall that hid us from those first nine guards. Gale no doubt only employed dark mages, and facing down nine of them from two different sides at the same time would have been an incredibly tough win. And we hadn’t even gotten through the second ring of buildings.

Squeezing my hand into a fist, I ground my teeth as another wave of fury rolled over me. The fucking King of Metal hadn’t even been able to kill this guy, so how the hell were we supposed to accomplish it? And in such a short timespan? Chancellor Quill and Lance Carmichael and all of Eldar was getting ready for war, if they hadn’t already started it, so we couldn’t linger in Malgrave too long. We needed Levi’s people and we needed his promise that he would destroy the Blade of Equilibrium. But how the hell were we supposed to get close enough to kill Trevor Gale?

“So…” Audrey blew out a long breath and rolled her shoulders back as we rounded another corner and started down a long narrow alley. “How are we supposed to get in now?”

“I don’t know.”

“We can’t use the same method twice.”

“No.”

We had made sure that Winston and Mi-ri made it to the Bridge of Life before we started back towards our inn. Dennis had run home on his own the moment we gave him permission. And all three of them had been thoroughly threatened before they were allowed to leave. I was confident that Mi-ri and Winston would keep their mouths shut, both because of our history and also because they didn’t want to involve themselves in Levi’s side of Malgrave any more than they absolutely had to. Dennis, on the other hand, might run straight to the King of Metal and spill everything, but since Levi was on our side, it didn’t matter all that much.

“Let’s just go home and get some rest first,” I continued while flexing the still tingling fingers on my left hand. “And then we’ll figure out a new plan in the morning.”

Audrey’s observant gaze dropped straight down to my hand. “How’s your arm? I saw that you got hit with a lightning bolt.”

“It’s fine. How are you? When we—”

White lightning flashed straight towards my chest.

My shoulder slammed into the wall as Audrey shoved me sideways right before the bolt could strike. It zapped through the air between us, close enough for me to taste the ozone in the air. I blindly threw up a force wall as another lightning bolt crackled through the air.

“Behind you!” Audrey snapped.

Green light filled the narrow alley as she shot a cloud of poison towards the other side right at the same time as the second lightning bolt struck my force wall. I whipped around in time to see fire roaring through the air, burning Audrey’s poison away as it sped towards us. Panic shot up my spine.

Slamming my palms together I hurled a force wall to stop the flames. It had barely left my hands when lightning crackled behind me again. I leaped sideways as white light shot through the space I had just been standing in.

As I looked up, my eyes finally focused on our attackers.

Surprise clanged through me.

I had thought that it was some of Gale’s guards who had somehow managed to find us by some sort of insane luck, even though we had left no trace behind to indicate that we were the ones who had tried to break in. But it wasn’t. It was a group of young men and women.

“Aren’t these the idiots who attacked us outside the bakery?” Audrey ground out while she shot a barrage of poison tendrils towards the lightning mage and the three other people with him.

My force wall smacked into a fireball, sending orange sparks flying through the dark night. “Yes.”

“Fantastic.”

Gray eyes burning with hatred stared at me from the other side of the alley where four more people were located. They belonged to a young man of average height and build. His brown hair looked almost red in the light from the flames as he called up another fiery attack and shot it towards me.

I hadn’t cared enough to learn his first name, but after our run-in with them outside the bakery, I had finally remembered that his family name was Johnson. There were two other men and a dark-haired young woman next to him, but I didn’t remember any of their names. The woman threw a blast of wind magic towards us right after Johnson’s flames.

Heat washed over us as the fire crashed into my force wall. As soon as it had left my hands, I threw up another one to stop the wind magic. A wham echoed into the otherwise silent night as the attacks clashed.

Behind my back, Audrey was shooting glittering poison towards the other half of the group who had ambushed us. The blond lightning mage on that side answered them with attacks of his own. I didn’t know his first name either, but I was pretty sure that his last name was Kane. Two women flanked him, and one of them was blocking Audrey’s magic with blasts of water. There was a young man on that side as well, and I remembered him as the guy who had put a sword to Audrey’s neck outside the bakery.

Hell fucking damn it. We were already exhausted and injured after half a night of fighting Gale’s dark mage guards. Why couldn’t these people have attacked us when we were at full power instead? Could we never catch a fucking break?

Anger surged through me. Touching my palms together, I hurled a spinning force arc towards Johnson and his companions. The woman threw a blast of wind to knock it up into the darkened heavens while Johnson shot another fire blast at me. I barely managed to block it before I had to leap sideways to avoid a lightning bolt in my back.

Audrey swore viciously behind me.

Since she didn’t have any real defensive magic, she focused on attacking Kane and the water mage with such ferocity that they would have to spend all of their time blocking her poison instead of trying to take us out. But apparently, they managed to get some attacks off anyway.

I threw a spinning arc at them before fire roared towards me from the other side again. Embers floated into the air as the flames crashed into my wall. Before they could launch another attack, I threw a force spear towards the wind mage.

Panic flashed over her features, and she barely managed to dive forward to escape it.

Something made of metal whizzed through the air. I slammed my palms together and called up a wall right before two throwing knives could sink into my chest. They clattered to the ground at my feet while I snapped my gaze up to the young man who had thrown them. His answering grin was cold and full of rage.

I shot a spinning arc at him, but the wind mage blocked it right before Johnson threw a wave of fire towards us. Green light flashed behind me as Audrey no doubt fought Kane and the water mage, but I couldn’t spare them any attention.

In the cramped alley, we could barely move sideways. And the two groups were blocking our way out. The fact that they were all attacking simultaneously also made it difficult to hit them with any decisive blows. Not to mention that both Audrey and I were already exhausted and hurt.

Hell damn it all. How had these people even managed to ambush us like that? One or all of the three people not currently throwing attacks at us had to possess some kind of stealth magic, like Mi-ri’s sound-blocking powers or something along those lines.

Fire barreled down the alley, lighting up the darkness. It was followed straight away by a hail of throwing knives. I barely managed to block them while also shooting attacks back at the group. We really needed to finish this quickly, or we’d lose.

“Remember Lance’s friends?” I pressed out while hurling a spinning arc towards Johnson.

“Yeah?” Audrey answered behind my back.

“Let’s do that.”

“They’re on two sides.”

“I know.”

“Can you handle that?”

“Can you?”

For a few seconds, only the hissing and booming of magic broke the silence as we continued fighting.

Then Audrey said, “Alright, let’s do it.”

Without having to say anything else, both of us whirled around and shifted our positions so that we were standing opposite each other with our backs to the stone walls. A ripple of surprise went through Kane’s side of the ambush, but Johnson only continued shooting fire.

Taking advantage of the moment of inattention, Audrey shot a massive cloud of poison towards them while I blocked the wave of fire. A water wall stopped her attack a mere inch in front of their faces. But we were already on track.

Translucent gray magic barreled down the alley as I shot wall after wall towards them. First to the left. Then the right. Then left. Right.

At the same time, Audrey fired off her poison attacks.

Alarm flashed across our ambushers’ faces.

Since I could now focus only on blocking, they were having trouble getting any attacks through. Even though they were coming from two sides, I was fast enough to continuously throw force walls one after the other in both directions. And while I was doing that, Audrey was expertly timing her poison attacks around my walls so that they passed right after my magic had faded out and taken their blasts with them.

Glittering green light flashed through the air, getting closer and closer with each attack.

When Johnson came a fraction of a second away from getting a poison tendril shoved down his throat, he finally opened his mouth for the first time and bellowed across the hissing and crackling of magic that was now mostly trying to block Audrey’s attacks.

“Retreat!” he called.

Audrey and I shot merciless attacks after them, but the wind mage and the water mage covered their retreat until they could dart back into the shadows.

My heart thumped in my chest, and I sucked in fast breaths as I whipped my head from side to side, waiting to see if they would come back and try again. Audrey did the same.

We kept our magic up for a couple of minutes, ready for battle at any time.

When it became apparent that they would not be returning to attack us again, at least not right at that moment, we slid down along the wall and sat down on the ground.

Resting my head against the cool stone wall, I looked up at the star-dusted heavens and heaved a deep sigh. “Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Audrey replied.

For a while, we just sat like that. Staring up at the night sky visible between the buildings. Catching our breath. And trying to muster enough strength to get up and walk the rest of the way across town to our inn.

When my heart had stopped beating so hard in my chest, I tilted my head back down and looked over at Audrey where she sat against the opposite wall. She was still resting her head against the dark stones, and silver light from the stars glittered in her eyes as she gazed up at them. A few long strands of her hair had slipped out of the braid she had tied it into earlier, and they fell down to frame her face.

I scanned her features. She looked exhausted, but as far as I could tell, she wasn’t badly injured.

With great effort, I braced myself against the wall and pushed to my feet. Audrey slowly tipped her head back down as I took a step closer and held out my hand. A tired smile drifted across her lips.

“Why do people always attack us at the worst possible time?” she said while reaching out to take my offered hand.

I helped her to her feet. “I don’t know.”

Sliding her hand out of mine, she dusted herself off.

I was just about to do the same when a sudden idea struck me like one of those damn lightning bolts.

A wicked grin stole across my face.

“But this actually gave me an idea for how to get close enough to kill Trevor Gale.”