Free The Sorcery Code by Dima Zales, Anna Zaires Page B

everything else?
    “The same thing that it means to everyone, I imagine,” she said. “I read about it. There are a lot of stories about men and women kissing if they find each other attractive. And you find me attractive too, right?” There was a questioning look on her delicate face.
    Blaise knew he had to tread carefully. Despite his aptitude for sorcery, he was far from an expert when it came to understanding women. The charming creatures had always mystified him, and here was one who was not even human. He might’ve created her, but her mind was as mysterious to him as the depths of the ocean.
    “Gala,” he said softly, “I already told you that I find you irresistible—”
    She gave him a look that resembled a pout. “But you just resisted me.”
    “I had to,” Blaise said patiently. “You’re so new to this world. I’m the first man—the first human—you’ve ever met in person. How can you possibly know how you feel about me?”
    “Well, aren’t feelings exactly that? Feelings?” She frowned. “Are you saying that because I haven’t seen the world, my feelings are somehow less real?”
    “No, of course not.” Blaise felt like he was digging himself a deeper hole. “I’m not saying that what you’re feeling right now isn’t real. It’s just that it might change in the very near future, as you go out there and see more of the world . . . meet more men.” As he added that last tidbit, he could feel a hot flare of jealousy at the idea, and he squashed it with effort, determined to be noble about this.
    Gala’s eyes narrowed. “All right. If that’s your concern, that’s fine. I’ll go out there tomorrow, and I’ll meet other men. And then I’m going to come back and kiss you as much as I want.”
    Blaise’s pulse leapt. “Why don’t I take you to the village right now then?” he said, only half-jokingly.
    Her eyes lit up, and she practically jumped with eagerness. “Yes, let’s go!”

Chapter 13: Augusta
     
    Below, Augusta could see the peasants launching their attack.
    Barson and his soldiers were expecting to be teleported, but when it didn’t happen, they began fighting with ferocious determination. Soon they were surrounded by corpses. Augusta’s lover seemed particularly inhuman in his battle frenzy. Realizing his strategic value, the rebels came at him, one after another, and he dispatched them all with the brutal swings of his sword.
    Seeing that the guards were holding their own, Augusta tried to concentrate. She couldn’t fly down to retrieve her spell card—not with a bloody battle raging below—so she had to write a new one.
    Getting her thoughts together, she took out a blank card and the remaining parts of the spell. All she had to do now was re-create from memory the complicated bit of sorcery code she’d written earlier. Luckily, Augusta’s memory was excellent, and it took her only a few minutes to recall what she’d done before.
    When the spell was finished, she loaded the cards into the Stone and peered below, holding her breath.
    A minute later, Barson and his soldiers disappeared from the battleground, leaving behind dozens of dead bodies and baffled rebels.
     
    * * *
     
    “I am so sorry,” she said when she rendezvoused with Barson and his men back on the hill.
    Luckily, no one was hurt; if anything, the fighting seemed to have lifted everyone’s spirits. The soldiers were laughing and slapping each other on the back, like they had just come back from a tournament instead of a bloody battle.
    “We held our ground,” Barson told her triumphantly, snatching her up in his strong arms and twirling her around.
    Laughing and gasping, Augusta made him put her down. “You’re lucky I was able to replace that card so quickly,” she told him. “If I’d lost some other card, it would’ve taken me more effort to replace it, and you’d have been fighting longer.”
    “Perhaps there is something you can do to make up for that blunder,”