I erected a globe around us that deflected the streaks as I fought back the Zee, staff to staff held in both hands. But their craft was so powerful, the globe disintegrated after it fended off the Zee magic.

I heard a pained grunt, ducked on a whirl and looked back to see Cassius had dispatched a Zee coming at me from behind with a hit of his hilt to the man’s skull.

Damn.

And I had only enough time to think that before I had to drop to my side, roll with knees up to my chest and come up on them with a thrust of my staff in the chest of the man charging Cassius.

The man fell back several steps.

Cassius spun and engaged him as the man who I’d been fighting came again at me.

“Enough!” I shouted, dropped to my back, kicked out both feet and used my stomach muscles to propel me onto them.

I pulled my staff back. Pivoting to the side, I thrust it, jabbing him hard in the soft part of his belly, hearing his pained “Oof.” Not wishing to hurt him (too much), I stopped thrusting and swung, hitting him hard in the gut, which made him bend over, then on his back, which made him drop his staff as he landed on his hands and knees.

I pushed out a hand and he went skidding on a blaze of coral into the forest.

It was then I heard the whizzing coming from all directions.

Goddess damn it!

I whirled, ran the four steps it took me to get to Cassius, staff raised like a spear at my shoulder.

A lilac shaft shot from the tip and ballooned into a wall. It wafted through Cassius, but when it hit his attackers, it sent them careening.

They did this just as I dropped the staff and tackled Cassius at his back, shouting, “Down!”

He went down on his front, me on his back.

But he instantly rolled so I was on my back in the leaves, he was lying over me, shoulders to my chest, sword raised and at the ready, as an explosion of garnet, scarlet and berry blinded us when multiple streaks collided where Cassius had been standing.

At that, Cassius spiraled around, covering me with his body, mostly my head, and for a man who did not wish anything to do with me, he certainly moved quickly to protect me from a little Zee magic.

I heard something fizzing and then Cassius’s grunt. He made a movement that was jerky, and I heard his sword thud to the ground.

Shite.

I knew what that meant.

We were caged.

“Get off me,” I ordered.

“Stay down,” he demanded.

“Cass, get…up,” I snapped on a heave of his big body.

His big body moved at my heave, considering it had gone strangely inert.