“I’m going home.” I looked around for my things. I figured he’d tossed my clothes but not my weapons. I looked around for my sai. I guess it would have been too much to ask him to give them to me.
“Your weapons?” he asked.
I nodded.
He considered it as he watched the magic in his hand in a state of newfound wonder as if it was his first time seeing it. At his command, the magic was smothered to nothing. In silence, he went to the closet and pulled the twins out. The blades gleamed as the light hit them. The blood from my last fight was absent.
I took them from him and started to back out of the house, surprised when he didn’t make an attempt to stop me. Instead, he followed me slowly. Still nothing. His passivity made me more nervous than if he’d attacked me. I looked around the area surrounding the home. Three houses just as grand as the one he’d had me in. Vast trees, with thick florets of lush leaves, were intermingled with fragrant flowering bushes. The grass so green that it looked fake, which it probably was. The air, just enough of a breeze that it gently caressed the dress against my skin. My eyes narrowed on him. When he spoke, his voice had a gentle timbre, laced with his brand of confidence.
“Iridium is a funny thing. I hate it. I wish the lesser beings never discovered it was our weakness. Our only defense is that it takes so much of it to really subdue us. But you know that, don’t you? So much that you helped that group test it before that spectacular ambush. I will admit we were ill-prepared for it—for you. But there you were, my consort, my chosen, leading the cadre of agitators. Your diminutive little resistance.”
I pressed my lips tightly together fighting the urge to tell him that resistance had taken down most of his group and captured him. His bitter look of defeat was imprinted in my memory. It was the first time his confidence and arrogance had faltered.
“I wonder how they discovered melting it and putting it in a dart. It was quite effective, but short-lived. But I’m sure if they could have gotten us to ingest it, it would have lasted longer. And you hardly can detect it. Mix it with fruit, sauces on meat, or even just add a dusting of it to French toast—syrup nearly overwhelms the taste. I never understood why people would ruin the taste of a perfectly delicious dish by putting that overly sweet mess on it. But they do. I guess it was lucky that you do—and hunger had made you ravenous. Did you even taste your food, or did you scarf it down without a care for the taste?”
He disappeared and reappeared, just inches from me. “Of course you did the latter, because you were too busy ignoring me and rebuffing me as though I’m just some common peddler of magic as you’ve done before. If only I wasn’t so—”
He’d poisoned me! All the kindness and words had been a distraction as he tricked me into eating iridium.
He jumped back just in time to miss my strike with one of the twins. I wouldn’t miss again. I lunged; he moved. I swiped his leg, and when he hit the ground, I dropped to one knee and tossed one sai aside so I could use all my force to impale him with the other. It slid into his arm, like butter, and blood gushed. He hissed. The golden ball that formed in his hand hit me in the chest, sending me back several feet. I hit the ground and another jolt slammed into me. His face contorted in pain, he winced as he pulled out my weapon. He came to his feet, his shirt crimson, trails of blood running down his arm. I glanced at the discarded sai that was just a few feet from him. He stared at the one he’d pulled out of his arm before tossing it to the ground next to the other.
My breathing quickened as others came out of their houses. Just three of his crew were left. So small now. Weak. They were all probably just as rooted in their plans as they were before. Whether there were three or three hundred and three, they wouldn’t be dissuaded.
“If I stay here, you will never sleep, because the moment you do, I will try to kill you,” I warned. As he flashed me an amused smile, I again found myself wondering what type of person I was dealing with, demagogue or psycho. Well, I got my answer: he was a psycho with a side order of lunacy.
He bared his teeth in a wider smile. “How can I not be drawn to that passion?”
“Believe me, your murder won’t be a crime of passion. It will be calculated and strategically executed.” I glared at him, becoming even more irritated. My threats meant nothing to him. He expected to get what he wanted.
He’d drugged me. My magic paled in comparison to his and he’d still weakened it and me. The more I thought of his plotting to drug me and render me helpless in case I didn’t fall for his insincere altruism, the angrier I became. It made me more violent than I’d ever felt.
“That’s hate,” he said, staring into my eyes. His hands roved over his arms, and the blood slowly receded until it was just a little spot. He used magic to pluck it from the shirt and allowed the red rivulet to linger in the air before it fell to the ground. Then he made a show of pulling back his sleeve and exposing the injury. With a wave of his hand, the skin meshed together, leaving the fawn-colored skin as unmarked as it was before.
The others came closer, but he held a hand up to stop their advance. “This is between us. We are just having a spat. It will probably be one of many. She is quite feisty.” He kept a cautious eye on me as he addressed them. I called on my magic, pulling it from the recesses where it was strongest, hoping to draw enough that it would override anything he’d put in my system. But it sat like a boulder in me, inert. The heaviness of magic that couldn’t be used left me feeling even more agitated and angry.
When Conner spoke, although his tone hadn’t changed much, I felt like he was taunting me. Asshole. “I thought kindness could convince her, but you all were correct. She’s so far gone, under the finger of the humans. Their little pet: she will do so much to serve her masters just at the mere smidgen of hope that they would absolve her of a past she had nothing to do with. It’s rather pitiful.”
His eyes flicked in their direction. “If you all were nearly as hard as her to convince, I do believe I’d be too exhausted to be of any good.” He looked at the only man present. “But you see why I’ve taken more time with her. My warrior, my consort, my future bride.
“You all please hold while we continue our little quarrel.” His voice was as light and breezy as the little flicker of his lips. He opened his hands, and a sword materialized. The same one he’d used before. He bowed to me. I inched toward my sai with apprehension. “I will not cheat. You win, and you get to leave. You fail and—well, you know what happens then.”
I ran to get the twins. I stabbed one through the front of my dress and ran it up the fabric, ripping it to give me room to move my legs. I didn’t care that I was indecent in front of strangers. I lunged; he spun out of reach. I twisted and rammed the butt of the sai hard into his skull. Dazed, he stumbled back. Strike. Parry. Strike. I advanced toward him aggressively, moving around him striking and retreating to gain the advantage. One hard jab caught him in the side, and blood seeped through his shirt. I caught his sword overhead in the moto of one sai. I dropped to my knees and jammed the other into his thigh. I yanked it out quickly and in one swift move jammed the handle into his throat. He choked but held on to his sword that was locked on the sai. Jerking it with enough force, I urged the sword out of his hand. I grabbed it and rolled closer to the observers. They didn’t see it coming. Two of the three bodies dropped to the ground seconds before their heads. I grabbed the other one by her hair, refusing to give her the chance to disappear.
Eyes red, Conner was able to grab a few breaths as he looked at the carnage and more of his people fallen by my hand.
His lips parted, anger-stricken. Torrential waves of magic came off him as he clenched his hands at his sides, seething.
“Let me out,” I demanded, pressing the sword to his acolyte’s throat and swallowing the bile that had crept up as I considered what I’d done. The rules of war were different, I knew that, and I had no illusions this wasn’t one.
Weighted silence ticked by and he finally closed his mouth. His voice was
a whisper. “I am sorry.” It wasn’t directed to me, but to my hostage. As the words fell from his lips, the air became coated with a dark and dangerous magic. His eyes were intense, hard, cold as marble. He moved, faster than I’d ever seen him, jabbing my sai into the woman’s chest. It went in just enough to puncture her—my enchanted weapon was prevented from being used to injure me. She slumped against me, her blood moistening my dress and mixing with the blood that already stained it.
I stepped back and let the body fall. Conner and I stood just feet away from each other. I readied the sword to engage again, and he raised his hand. “You’ve proven to be a worthy adversary. I’ve had two failures, and behind each one is only one common denominator—you. You’ve seen the lengths I will go through to keep you. Shall we fight daily until you concede, or will you do it now? Understand those are the only options. It’s just us now…” He looked at the three remaining bodies, his anger flashed, and I wondered how much control it took not to retaliate.
“I’ll never concede. You’ll be miserable with me here.” It wasn’t a statement but a promise, and the arrogance that he’d allowed to falter so infrequently reasserted itself. Although he was watching his established plans wither away, he didn’t seem desolated. I wanted him to feel hopeless, because that would cause him to abandon his plans.
I lunged at him, swinging the sword. He disappeared and reappeared nearly fifteen feet away. He waved his hand, and magic struck me hard. A symbolic smack across the face displaying his displeasure. My bones groaned as I smashed into a tree. The bark bit into my skin as he left me fastened to it. Only then did he move closer. He studied me with great interest before he gathered the weapons and strolled to his house, where he stayed. I expected to be released—but I remained, fixed to the tree.
The iridium darts that the SG used had a six-minute effect, then our magic was restored. How long would it take for ingested iridium to be out of my system?
I tried to think of every book I’d read, everything Blu had shown me, the things that Kalen had told me. I tried to devise an escape plan, but nothing would work if I didn’t have magic to break the ward.
I wasn’t sure how many hours had passed when he finally released me. I looked at the bodies that lay at my feet, preferring to look at them rather than him. I doubted I could see his face without wanting to claw out his eyes. That’s what I was reduced to. However, I believed in using whatever was available to succeed, including kicking Conner in the groin, which had become a priority.
He waited for me at the entrance of the house. I crept slowly toward it, hoping that each moment would allow me to devise a plan to get away from him. In silence he beckoned me to follow him to the dining room. Once there he pointed to the chair where I’d sat earlier. My jaws were clenched so tightly that they started to ache. I glared at the food on the table but didn’t make an effort to reach for it.
With a heavy sigh, he moved and clamped a wide iridium manacle on my arm. He returned to his seat then slid a plate in front of me. I looked at him but didn’t respond; I wouldn’t give him the pleasure of even a scowl. I looked straight ahead, expressionless, occasionally looking at the manacle on my arm. He looked at me several times, finally sat back, and smiled. “You can decline eating but eventually you will have to. You are stubborn but not foolish enough to starve yourself to death.”
I remained silent, emotionless, knowing that would bother him more than me talking. In his world where the psycho demagogues roamed and wielded their delusions of grandeur like measuring sticks, venomous words from one they had their eyes on were probably equivalent to a sweet sonnet or words of adulation. Ignoring him was my best weapon. I’m sure it was hard for him to deal with his unrequited ... well, it wasn’t even love or lust, it was a peculiar fondness based on whatever odd list of attributes he found desirable in a mate.
“You look lovely.” I didn’t bother to look at the new dress that a wave of his hand had placed me in. It was similar to the first, except it was emerald green and complemented my eyes and the persimmon red hair that he’d seen fit to crown me with. I kept a sharp hateful eye on him as he wiped away the blood from my hands and arms. I needed a shower; just putting me in a pretty dress wasn’t going to make me look “lovely” by any standards.
“The food is fine.” He took several bites out of his as proof.
He didn’t even wince when I stabbed my fork into his steak, put it in on the napkin, and started to eat it.
“You are behaving like a savage.”
“Says the man who poisoned me and killed his own in order to keep me hostage in his pathetic little world.”
“Do you know how long I’ve been working on this? Nearly eight years. Do you think you can outlast me? I find it distasteful to control your mind to get you to concede, but if you don’t leave me any other option, I will,” he chided.
I didn’t doubt controlling me was of lascivious intent. I hated the way he looked at me. His eyes trailed over my lips, the curve of my neck, and my breasts, where they remained too long. He moistened his lips, igniting a rage in me that made choosing death rather than remaining another day with him an easy choice.
I grabbed the vegetables and potatoes off his plate and slowly ate them. A smile had settled on his face, easy and quietly amused by me. A trite look of pleasure.
I finished it all in silence, and then he stood to clear the table. A blistering windstorm suddenly thrashed through the air. Magic—strong, and so many variations of it, I couldn’t pinpoint the source. Witch, fae, mage, it was all melded together into a conglomeration of virulent, dominating power.
Conner rose, indignation covering his face. Magic twined around his hand. He’d never looked so truly affronted before. His ward had been broken, by people he’d considered beneath him, without my help.
Then came the deafening sound of a roar reverberating off the walls. Conner’s eyes fixed on the entrance of the house, and he gritted his teeth and started for it. I used his distraction to my advantage and jumped up, allowing the cuff to slip toward the heel of my hand. The odd angle of the hit and the impact of the strike weren’t likely to leave my wrist unscathed, but I didn’t care. I smashed hard, leveraging the position of my body to get more power. The strike jerked his head back, I hit him again, feeling the bones of my wrist and hand groan under the impact. The excruciating pain brought tears to my eyes, but I couldn’t stop. I grabbed a plate, thrashing him in the face with it. He stumbled back again, blinking. A pulse of blindly hurled magic shot through me. I grabbed his shirt and we went back together, landing a foot from the table with him on top of me. I pushed Conner to the side just as the lion dug its claws into his back, pulling him off me and onto the ground. It swiped across his throat and then mauled his chest and body until there was nothing but gore left. Conner’s death was far more barbaric than I’d expected for him. It didn’t involve magic or my sai.
CHAPTER 14
“I’m fine,” I said, exasperated after twenty minutes of Savannah’s, Gareth’s, and Lucas’s attention. I didn’t want soup, my legs propped up as if I was injured, or to lie down. I had a small fracture in my wrist, something that the mage doctor at the Isles diagnosed and fixed within minutes. I wasn’t injured—just magicless.
I wasn’t sure how long it would take for the iridium to pass through my body and finally be gone. Being without magic made me feel vulnerable—even when I didn’t use it at least I had access to it. Now I felt like I had lost one of my senses, like a part of me was gone.
I concentrated on my rage, and I had plenty of it. It was unfettered, borderline dangerous. These feelings of vengeance and ire were indeed lethal—and scary even to me. Never had I plotted and desired to rip someone apart more than I wanted to do to Harrah. Her betrayal tasted bitter in my mouth and her conniving ways made my skin crawl. I wanted to kill her and bring her back to life just so I could do it again.
“How did you find me?” I asked, letting my gaze skate over each of their faces, refusing to focus on t
hem. I knew they would be twisted in various versions of concern.
“Finding you wasn’t the difficult part.” Gareth’s voice held some humor but not enough to belie the anger and frustration in it. “Getting through the veil was the problem. I owe Tina a lot of favors since she agreed to use her team to help us. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have had the manpower to do it even with using the Hearth Stones.”
No one had to say it because we were all thinking it—we were glad Conner was dead.
“How long was I gone?” That was the only question I could slip in between theirs. I gathered that Kalen had come to just in time to see Conner whisk me away, and they had been looking for me ever since. I can only imagine the scene that Kalen had woken to: the severed head of the Mors and its body. A blood-painted room. Pools of more blood where I’d lain. Stifling magic that inundated the air.
“Five days,” Savannah said, anger and sorrow low and heavy in her voice as she growled the words.
Five days. My hand ran along the imaginary scar, the skin now smooth and unmarred, of the wound that would have killed me or at the very least left me scarred if it weren’t for strong magic.
“I need to find Harrah,” I said in an even tone. Thirst for her blood was so deeply embedded that it was part of who I was at that moment. It didn’t change the modulation of my voice, the cadence of my words, or even rile my emotions as it once did. It just existed, and I felt like I existed because of it.
“Levy,” Gareth said, regarding me for a few moments and then frowning. “You can’t retaliate—” I was about to voice my objection and had an excellent rebuttal stating why I had every right to retaliate, but he held up his hand to stop me. “Not now. The narrative that you were attacked and so were other supernaturals has been established. They attributed the crimes to Trackers. The ones that weren’t killed by Conner are now in custody.” He said it like it was tied up with a nice pretty bow. I didn’t care about politics or narratives.
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