Page 74 of The Fake Divination Offense
Tem steps closer, reaching for Bel. “C’mon, kid. The waterworks are pathetic at this point.”
I seize Tem’s wrist midair.
My hand clamps down on him and he buckles, eyes going wide, and I could so, so easily snap his arm.
I look past him to Ilbryen.
“I think you and I both know I’m not letting you take Bel away from me,” I tell her. “So how about we stop with these fucking theatrics?”
Bel’s grief pauses, confusion pinching his face.
I release Tem’s wrist. Unbroken. Sadly.
He staggers back, cradling it anyway. “Asshole Urzoth follower—”
“Tem,” Ilbryen cuts him off. “Shut up.”
Tem gapes at her.
She gives me a curious look. “Do you have something to say, Mr. Monroe?”
“Yeah.” I curl my arm around Bel’s shoulders. He’s stiff against me. “You’re not taking him. Where would you even put him? You currently have him in an apartment that should be condemned, with a door that doesn’t even close properly, guarded by an asshole who verbally assaults him andleft Bel alone. What’s your next grand plan? A shack in the woods? For how long? Bel deserves better than abuse disguised as a half-assed attempt at protecting him.”
Tem surges forward, his arm covered in the glowing green of a spell, but Gulus, who’s been silent and unmoving up until now, twists his hands. An arcane wall shoots up between me and Tem just as Tem’s releasing his spell, and the green energy dissipates across the wall in a fizzle of sparks.
“Raussec!” Ilbryen barks. “Contain yourself, or I will do it for you!”
Tem scowls, nostrils flaring. “It was idiotic ever agreeing to letthe target be part of this fucked-up PR charade, and it’s idiotic now to let this guy stand here and talk about shit he doesn’t understand. He’s a liability.”
“Quite the opposite,” Ilbryen tells him, her voice back to level, controlled.
She shifts her eyes to me. Then down to where I threw myself in front of Bel the moment Tem moved, how I have him held behind my back.
“We agreed to let Belzaroth be in thisPR charade,” she obviously quotes Tem’s tone with a flat look his way, “as a test of expanding his circle. The protection of the Urzoth church was an opportunity we intentionally took.”
“After the target signed up without our permission,” Tem grumbles.
“And I do not blame him for it,” Ilbryen says. “He was given an opportunity to dance when he had long been denied it as a sad reality of his protective detail, and the arrangement provided security in a way that was worth the risk.Thatis not how we have been lacking in Belzaroth’s protection,” she says to me. “Our adventure parties have been stretched thin in recent years. I’ve known for some time that Belzaroth’s situation was not ideal.”
“Not ideal?” Tem guffaws humorlessly. “I’ve been—”
“You’ve been a dick,” Bel cuts him off, coming out from behind me. “You’ve been cruel and nasty and a hypocrite. How many times did I have to pay for ward spell components with my internship money becauseyourefused towaste resources? How many times have you walked out on me forhours, yet you give me constant crap aboutputting myself in danger?”
“You traitorous littleshit!” Tem roars and I lurch between them again, but Tem doesn’t get close, that arcane wall still up.
Silence falls. Ilbryen’s glare on Tem is conversation enough, a potent call to the proof in his own actions.
“Mr. Monroe,” Ilbryen says, letting her eyes glide from Tem to me. “What do you propose?”
“Feed him to my teammate’s sword.”
Ilbryen grunts deep in her throat. I realize after I hear what I said that—she laughed?
Oh. That’s not what she meant.
“I mean in regard to Belzaroth’s safety,” she clarifies, a glimmer in her eyes.
My gaze tunnel-visions onto Bel. His lips are parted and he looks like he’s standing on the edge of a cliff, knowing he has to jump but unsure of anything beyond the fall.
