Page 2 of From the Edge

Mell cocked her head and held up her hand with fingers splayed.

“Five minutes?”

A nod.

Rowan lifted her head. “We have five minutes before her guard is here. If you have anyone good at restraint, it would be a good idea to call them.”

The elf with the red and gold streaks in her hair walked into the stone building. She came out a moment later with a dark elf and several of his friends.

The dark elf asked, “Do you know what he looks like?”

“Big, blue, his ears stick out like this?” She made fists with her thumbs sticking out and put them on the sides of her head.

The men’s eyes widened, and several of them brought out phones.

“He was her captor?”

“No, he was her guardian. He doesn’t like me. I tasted wrong.” She looked at the ladies. “If she says five minutes, I would recommend doing that thing that you do to release the curse. She can calm his ass down but not if he can’t see her.”

It seemed to knock the ladies into action. They got the cloak down to expose the curse, and the women sent pulses of their own type of magic through it to snap it loose. A soft light came from Mell; glowing butterflies and birds scattered and filled the air.

Rowan returned to Mell’s side and listened to her breathing. “Mell? I can hear you.”

Tears filled her friend’s face, and the soft whisper asked, “You can hear me?”

“And I can see you. Both of you.”

Mell grinned and pressed a hand to her belly. “It’s still there.”

The elf with the red and gold hair said, “You are pregnant?”

Mell blushed. “Yes.”

“Was it forced?”

Mell ducked her head. “No. It was quite nice, if a bit weird.”

Regis blinked. “Weird?”

“He had to do it with a woman he couldn’t see.”

There was a roar, and Rowan pulled Mell out of the circle, looking for the blue blur, and when she saw it coming toward them, she fired up the protective circle with the last of the absorbed sex magic from the night before. The impact when the blue man slammed into the barrier caused her to cough blood.

He roared again and began to punch the barrier. She felt the strikes on her body and wheezed. “Little help?”

The dark elves and what looked like orcs surrounded the barrier, and she knew what they were going to do before they did it. They hit the blue guy with stun blasts, but they did it through her shield. She saw him falling a moment before the grass rushed up to meet her. Mell yelled, and Rowan felt a hand on her shoulder. Hah, the blue lover could eat dirt.

* * * *

Ted looked at the woman on the ground. “What happened?”

Lucia was standing near Yorwell, and he said, “She’s a witch. She can only use energy that is gathered.”

“What do you mean, gathered?” Ted frowned.

Mell looked up from her friend’s side. “She works with sex magic. She absorbs lust and collects it and then can use it for stuff like this. It’s why she was able to see me at all. She cast a spell on her own perceptions so that she could see me.”

The woman holding her friend’s bloody face said, “Can anyone help me? Her magic is part of her, so when he hit it, she felt it.”