“A púca.” She spat the term out as if it was the lowest life form ever created. “A will-o’-the-wisp. They’re worthless creatures who were damned and cursed by their gods.”

“Or a god of war tricked and trapped here by his own kinsmen who stole his powers after he was stupid enough to trust them.” The shadow moved closer to the battle. If he was offended by Livia’s attack, he gave no clue of it.

Nick groaned as one of the stone creatures hit him hard and sent him to the ground. He tried to rise, but the earth wrapped around his body and held him down. “Do you know how to fight them?” he asked the púca.

“Yes.… If I had a real flesh-and-blood body, I could defeat them all.”

Grimacing and cursing in pain, Nick locked gazes with him as he had a radical idea. It might be crazy, but it was the only one he could think of. “Will you exchange forms with me long enough to take them out?”

The púca cocked a finely arched brow as if he wasn’t quite sure he’d heard those words. “You would trust me?”

“If you give me your word, yes.”

The púca pulled back and blinked in utter disbelief. “You’d accept me word?” he asked again.

“Yes.”

“Don’t do it, Nick! You can’t trust a puck! They’re liars and thieves. All of them! It’s what they do!”

Nick ignored her. “I will trust your honor until you give me a reason not to.”

The púca hesitated a moment longer before he inclined his head to him. “’Tis a pact then, Malachai, between us brothers. Let me in and I’ll ring their blessed bells, till they run weeping home.”

Using as little of his Malachai powers as was necessary, Nick swapped his soul with the puck’s.

One second, he was on the ground, getting the snot beaten out of him, and in the next, he was the one in the shadows.

Ah, yeah, it felt really good to have a body that wasn’t riddled with pain. He could finally draw a deep breath again and not wince or groan from it.

All hail working lungs!

He turned back toward his real body where it was being crushed and bludgeoned by huge, brutish attackers.

Dang, he’d done well to keep them off him. But that was an ugly, ugly sight. And he had no idea how the púca was going to fight them off. For a moment, he fully expected the púca to get them both killed.