“And you’re not afraid that I’ll tell?” I asked.
“Not at all,” he said with a smile. “Especially since I’m going to take your tongue in a moment. You use it so poorly that it’s sure to be an improvement.”
I gasped.
“Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to gasp in horror. Just like that.”
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. If I hadn’t attacked Osprey ...
“And now you’re thinking that if you’d only let Osprey give you my mark and dress you in silk we wouldn’t have to do this. And you’re right,” he said, smiling gently. “So, remember this the next time you defy me. It doesn’t have to go poorly for you – if you remember that you are mine. That you belong to me. That I will do to you as I please. Apparently, threatening that bedraggled family of yours does nothing. Killing them before you does nothing. Ordering the only person who tried to protect you to mark you for me does nothing – oh, did you think I didn’t see that my guardian had a soft spot for you? I’m not a fool, property. Or should I call you wife? You will be that very soon. My Claws are getting me a Skysinger to make it so.”
“You’re hurting yourself as much as me by marrying me,” I said defiantly.
“Do you think so?” he asked, tilting his head as if he was really considering my words. His fist was still clasped to his chest as if he was trying to hold something in it. “The healer says I’m bound to you. I need your honeycomb and it vanishes if you’re dead. And my snake allies warned me that the gifts they gave you are necessary for me. I need to keep you close. And what is closer than a wife?”
“And the second reason?” I asked.
“What?”
“You said this was to teach me two things. The first was that my resistance was useless.”
He smiled. “At least you listen. You can put your ears to good use when I take your tongue. But yes, there was another reason. It’s to teach you once and for all that you are mine – in every way. I own your every action, every thought, every murmur. I own you, body and soul, and you shall never be free of me.”
I shivered as his face went blank suddenly and he lifted a hand and his snake returned, slithering from his palm and swaying side to side almost as if it were dancing. The movement was hypnotizing. I tried to fight it.
“Please,” I begged my bees. “Please.”
But I couldn’t feel them – not even their buzz. I was too tired for magic. I was too tired to do anything at all.
Except for maybe some last defiance while I still had a tongue. “May what you do here today ring condemnation through the years of your life. May it sour days of sunshine and dash comfort to the floor. May all love cast you out in this life and the next.”
His eyes narrowed, but it was the only sign that he’d heard me at all. He reached out and caressed the snake. It slid up his arm, twisting around his torso and face lovingly as he whispered softly to it. As he spoke, it glowed a brighter green and began to swell. He must be very good at invoking to have come so far in just a few days. His snake had grown, and it seemed more vicious than ever.
It flowed down his other arm and to the ground as he continued his long, steady whispered chant. I couldn’t make out the words, but somehow I didn’t have to. I could feel them – ambition and cruelty, possessiveness and power. They twisted through his chant like strands of poison.
His eyes glazed over and his lips parted with pleasure as he kept whispering his steady stream to the glowing adder. It rippled across the ground, slowly sliding toward me.
I backed up into the stone wall behind me, my manacles clanking as they hit it. But there was nowhere to go. I was exposed and at his mercy.
“If you have any tricks,” I whispered. “Now is the time.”
My little bee buzzed, creeping down the manacle. But it was only one bee. It was not enough to save me. I barely had the power to lift my head. I certainly didn’t have the power to call on bees.
The snake tangled around my leg and I gasped in horror as it wrapped around my ankle and slid up my leg. I couldn’t help the cry of terror that escaped my lips or the terror that shuddered through me when Juste smiled at my fear. His beautiful mouth curved into an expression that might inspire Imperial painters. He loved this – my every flinch, my every cry.
I fought my own body, trying to remain still – trying not to give him the satisfaction as the snake wrapped around my belly and began to slide higher yet. I trembled under it as it wove and danced over my skin.
A sense of wrongness filled me, making me feel like a trespasser in my own body, but as though my soul had been trespassed on.
And then his spirit snake was plunging through my body, disappearing into me. Pain ripped through every nerve of my body as it darted its adder head into my chest. Hot spikes of pain shoved through my chest. I screamed, throwing my head back, unable to control my reaction now.
Surely, there must be something I could call on for help.
But I was alone. I was at the end of myself. I had nothing left to give except my desperation and fear.
I focused on my bees, but there was only that single bee, working its way into the lock on my manacle. A valiant attempt ... but even if my magic succeeded there, it would only free one hand. Still, I spoke to the bee with my mind, Keep going! Free me!
The snake removed its head and began to slither up around my collar bone, tongue flickering in the air.
“I would guess that you considered yourself special when you manifested bees,” Juste said speculatively. “They do have some interesting properties. Such as healing. I won’t deny that it has been personally helpful to me that they exist – even if I wouldn’t have needed them had you not stabbed me in the belly in the first place. But they aren’t much of a weapon. More of a distraction. You wouldn’t believe the thrill I get from this snake. The pain it can manifest. The way it can violate the natural bounds of physical and spiritual – it was like meeting my inner self for the very first time. It’s powerful and beautiful and deadly – everything I’ve ever wanted to be.
“And when I am not with you, wife, I will leave my snake with you to remind you of how you are mine. But that will be rare, for I shall keep you with me always. What could be more intimate than the bond shared between husband and wife, unless it is the bond shared by us as my manifestation has free range through you, rummaging through your spirit and plundering it as it wishes? Do you think snakes eat bees? I think mine would like to try.
“I shall enjoy being wed to you. When I am free from affairs of state, I can watch your reaction to my magic, watch your eyes grow wide in horror, and listen to your wordless screams whenever I need reminding that I truly am as powerful as I need to be.”
The snake reared up, swaying in front of my eyes. I kept my jaw locked, my mouth firmly closed. Juste’s grin grew larger. He knew my closed mouth was no barrier to the snake.
“No last words for me?” he teased.
I tensed, pulling at the manacles. One clicked open, dropping as it freed my right hand. I grabbed at the snake and my hand passed right through it as my bee buzzed past my face.
A laugh burst from Juste – high-pitched and rusty – like he wasn’t used to laughing.
“I like you better when you’re fighting it.”
Something banged on the door and he glanced toward it, his hand lifting to cup his injured belly. If only my bees were still there to draw on. Their honeycomb was still there. I could feel it even when my eyes were closed or I was out of the room.
Wait. I could feel it.
Why would that be?
There was a burst of red light from outside the small study window and more banging on the door. Juste cursed under his breath, glancing from me to the door and back. He gasped, his hand flying up to grip one of his shoulders as he grimaced in pain.
“Someone wants to interrupt our fun. We’ll have to be quick.”
His snake hissed, twisting back and forth as if deciding how to dart through my closed teeth and ri
p my tongue from my mouth. My eye glazed with tears as I tried to keep it in sight.
A muffled shout and more banging on the other side made Juste clench his jaw and his fist. I was running out of time.
I felt the manacle on my right foot fall loose and the second it did, I pulled with all my mental strength at the honeycomb in his belly. What had been given, could be taken back. Energy flowed from it to me, filling me up, replacing what I’d lost.
The snake disappeared. Juste’s jaw dropped open.
A second manacle fell from my other foot and bees swarmed from my hands, filling the room with their buzz and filling my heart with joy.
Juste stumbled to one knee, hatred flashing in his eyes as he fought to stay upright, just like I had moments before. The banging on the door stopped abruptly as my last manacle fell and I raced for the window, fumbling for the lock and shoving it open.
“Wherever you go, I will find you,” Juste whispered from where he leaned on all fours, trying to keep himself from collapsing. “This is not over.”
One of my bees zipped out of my hand, circling his head. I left it there.
“Of course it isn’t,” I agreed as I shoved through the window. “It’s only just begun.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
I LEAPT OUT INTO THE street toward the light of the red bird frantically flapping in front of me. Ignoring the shouts behind me, I sprinted after it and down an alley. The energy I’d stolen from Juste was buoying me up, making my agony fade away temporarily.
The red bird flew ahead of me, as frantic as I was, dashing down a street and plunging down a second alley, leading me to an open door. My bees began to fade as my stolen energy sapped away. My magic trickled down to a single bee. I’d lost my hold on them. I was beginning to lose the strength in my legs, too.
Don’t give out on me now!
The red bird fluttered, agitated and I hurried after it, through a narrow door and down into the earth and the darkness. Hopefully, Zayana was in there somewhere. Hopefully, I could trust her in a world where everyone seemed to want something from me.
We were in a cellar where the barrels lined up like soldiers.
The bird slowed and I followed carefully into a narrow passage that dove deeper still into the ground. My pain was returning as my strength faded. I doubled over, clutching my damaged belly, my head ringing with the reminder that I’d been hit in the face with the Claws’ powerful fists. The pain was worse after those few minutes without it – as if I was being struck all over again.
The passage widened into an open door, the sound of lapping water on the other side. My legs were heavy as rocks as I stumbled through the door and collapsed as I passed through it into warm arms.
“I’ve got you, Aella,” Zayana murmured. “We’ve got you.”
My last bee faded out.
“Quick,” I heard Ivo whisper. “Get her into the boat. They’re in the passage. We don’t have much time.”
She helped me into a small boat tied up in a man-made channel. I slumped in the bow, resting my head along the rail of the boat. It was the same little fishing boat we’d arrived in, I realized.
My escape seemed to have cost every last scrap of my energy. I could barely lift my head.
“What’s wrong with her?” Zayana asked as she shoved the skiff off the dock and leapt in.
“Drained,” Ivo said shortly. “She used up all her energy escaping. Did Flame see how she got out?”
“I don’t know! I can’t see through his eyes yet!”
“Don’t panic. You did very well.” Ivo’s voice was strained and they both faded into grunts of effort as they turned to rowing. “Harpy would have been too noticeable but Flame is the perfect size for a stealth maneuver like that one.”
Water lapped against the boat as it slid quietly into the dark channel. I fought my heavy eyelid, sinking into the hard side of the boat as relief – like a fire burning the Forbidding – rolled across my heart.
I had escaped. My tongue wouldn’t be removed today. I wouldn’t be marrying Juste or doomed to have his snake violate my body at will.
“Throw the tarp over her,” Ivo whispered and a canvas that smelled of mildew was draped over me.
Minutes – or maybe hours, I was losing track – passed and then there was a murmur of voices over the tarp.
The boat kept moving and once again I was escaping out onto the water. Only this time, it heaved and rolled with the tide. I lifted the edge of the tarp and caught a glimpse of the city, lit with lanterns and torches.
Over everything else in the dark sky, a purplish-white Osprey shot up into the sky like an arrow, bursting open as its wings unfurled and it fell into a swoop, circling over the city.
I put my hand over the cuff at my wrist. The feather within was growing cooler by the second.
I let the tarp fall back over me.
Everything faded as my consciousness fled with my strength.
READ MORE OF AELLA’S Story in Wing Magic.
Well, you’ve come to the end of this book - but there’s still so much more to come! If you enjoyed the story, please leave a review - and if you didn’t, please don’t! I’m kidding, of course. All reviews are deeply appreciated, and I would love to hear your thoughts on my work.
I would like to encourage, inspire, embolden or even cajole you to sign up for my newsletter. Seriously. Please sign up.
Why?
Because I want to get to know you! Oh, maybe you meant why would you want to do that. Well, you’ll be getting all my short stories related to the books for free. You’ll get the chance to weigh in on writing decisions. And, often, I give my subscribers full books for free! So, what are you waiting for?
SIGN UP TODAY!
Behind the Scenes:
USA Today bestselling author, Sarah K. L. Wilson loves spinning a yarn and if it paints a magical new world, twists something old into something reborn, or makes your heart pound with excitement ... all the better! Sarah hails from the rocky Canadian Shield in Northern Ontario – learning patience and tenacity from the long months of icy cold – where she lives with her husband and two small boys. You might find her building fires in her woodstove and wishing she had a dragon handy to light them for her
Sarah would like to thank Eugenia Kollia for her incredible work in beta reading and proofreading this book. Without her big heart and passion for stories, this book would not be the same.
Sarah has the deepest regard for the talent of her phenomenal artist Luciano Fleitas who created the gorgeous cover art that accompanies this book. Without his work, it would be so much harder to show off this story the way it deserves!
Thanks also to the Noble Order of Female Fantasy Authors who keep me sane – sort of. And for my beloved husband, Cale and sons Neville and Leif who are endlessly patient as I talk to them about bookish passions.
Visit my website for more information:
www.sarahklwilson.com
Follow me to keep up with fun updates:
INSTAGRAM
FACEBOOK
AMAZON
NEWSLETTER
Why not try one of my other great series?
Tangled Fae Series (2020)
Twisted Fae have invaded her world and stolen her sister. Can she save her village and her family by lecarabaong to fight and bargain like the fae?
Bridge of Legends Series (2019)
He is possessed by ancient magic. She can smell spiritual residues.
Together they seem unstoppable, but is their love doomed?
Dragon Tide Series (2019)
Can Seleska and her baby dragon bring magic back to the world?
Dragon Chameleon Series (2018)
He’s a trickster with the most unique dragon out there. Together, they’ll have to be heroes.
Dragon School Series (2018)
A disabled teen, a telepathic dragon, a bond that will save the world.
Reviews are always welcome! If you liked this book, please tell someone!
&nb
sp;
Hive Magic (Empire of War & Wings Book 2) Page 16
