Warlock Brothers of Havenbridge 01 - Spell Bound by Jacob Z. Flores Page B

loud snap thundered around us.
    We both looked up as the line holding the bundle of glass snapped. For a few moments, the package remained suspended in midair before plummeting toward us. I wrapped my arms around Drake and rolled us toward the building. The glass struck the scaffolding, which buckled and splintered before giving way to the weight, and the scaffolding collapsed.
    I pressed Drake as tight into the wall as I could, shielding him with my body. I looked up at the debris headed our way. I held out my hand toward what was just seconds away from killing us and muttered, “ Protegat nos .” While most of the wreckage fell around us, the wood, iron, and glass immediately above us stopped midfall before sliding sideways and missing us completely.
    We lay safe underneath the rubble in a small bubble of protection.
    “What the fuck?” Drake asked from beneath me.
    I couldn’t very well confess to being a warlock, even if Drake happened to be a shifter. Admitting what we really were, especially in a public place with so many humans around, went against the laws the Conclave enforced. “Lucky, I guess,” I said with a shrug.
    His lack of response told me he wasn’t buying what I was selling. And why would he? He already knew what I was anyway. I just couldn’t admit it here.
    “Are you okay in there?” someone outside the rubble asked.
    “We’re fine,” I called back. “Just want to get out of here.”
    “Sit tight,” the man yelled back. “We’ll have you out of there as soon as possible.”
    I nodded, even though the man couldn’t see me. My thoughts had suddenly become preoccupied. Not by the fact that Drake had acted as if he didn’t have a clue what was going on or the fact that we’d both almost died.
    What I couldn’t stop thinking about was that I had just used my magic. Twice. And both times it had worked.
     
     
    A FTER WHAT seemed like an eternity but was most likely only half an hour, rescue crews managed to clear away enough debris for Drake and me to crawl out. Paramedics rushed at us, checking our vital signs, bandaging our wounds, and asking questions. I didn’t respond. As they led us to the rear of the ambulance, I could only look back at the tangled heap of wood, iron, and glass where we had just been.
    No one should have walked away from that alive, but we had. Because of me.
    I gazed down at my hands. They didn’t look any different from a few hours before, but with a gesture and two words in Latin, I’d managed to save our necks. How could my hands be exactly the same? Shouldn’t there be some kind of visible sign that would let me know this wasn’t a fluke? That I’d managed to finally get something right with my spells?
    But there was nothing different about me. Had it really happened?
    All I needed to answer that question was to look at Drake. He hadn’t stopped staring at me since the moment I saved us.
    “Besides the bloody nose and scrapes along his back, I don’t see any serious wounds on this one,” the paramedic who tended to me told his dark-skinned partner, who was checking on Drake.
    “None on this one either.” The man with the tanned face gazed at us in amazement. “It’s a miracle.”
    “Yeah, a miracle,” Drake replied. He swept his gaze up the crane, down to the wreckage, and then back to me.
    “We’re still gonna need to take you to County Memorial,” my paramedic said. “Run some tests. Make sure everything is okay.”
    “I’m fine,” I said, removing his hand from my forearm. I sure as hell wasn’t going there. That place held nothing but bad memories for me. “I just want to go home.”
    “You can’t,” he replied. He looked at his partner before turning back to me. “You need to be checked out. You could have a concussion.”
    And if I did, home was the best place to be. Dad could cast any spell he wanted, and Thad could brew up a healing potion that would take care of everything that would hurt like a motherfucking bitch in the