Chapter 47
Chapter Forty-Seven
My power seeps back into me like a storm building, breath by breath. It starts as a tingling in my fingers, each pulse sending an ache through my ribs, as though my power is angry with me for being so careless with it.
I won’t make that mistake again.
With enough of my strength returned, I easily break through the ice encasing my legs—it wasn’t as thick as I’d expected. Rage rumbles through me, and my power matches it. The sky darkens, and a storm worthy of the Dark Commander gathers overhead.
The thunder booms my promise.
I take off into the woods after the waterwielder. It’s only a matter of time now before she succumbs to the aphrodisiac. She’ll crawl back willingly to me. And then I’ll—
And then I’ll what? I already know I won’t kill her.
I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see.
Her footprints are easy enough to track through the woods. She’s woefully untrained. Her father—or her captain—didn’t do her any favors.
I come to a sudden stop.
Her footprints veer right.
She’s heading straight for the Tundrayni camp.
I could stop now. I should stop now. Let her barrel right into their camp. I’d planned to deliver her there tomorrow anyway.
But she’s high on my power.
By the time she arrives at that camp, she’ll be aching for anyone.
Everyone.
What if the warriors who find her aren’t good men? What if they don’t resist her advances and get her to safety?
What if they—
The thought of anyone else’s hands on her skin, willing or not, sends a fresh wave of rage crashing through me.
I run as fast as I can.
It takes only minutes of running at full speed before I sense her energy signature. Skies, she’s vibrating with need. At various distances around her, there are more signatures than I care to parse. Some up in trees, others crouched behind bushes.
They’re using her as bait. Stoat maneuver, I believe they call it.
Slowing to a lazy walk, I stride through the trees. Her eyes widen as she drinks me in, her electric currents pulsing faster. A deep flush paints her cheeks and neck. Her lips part, tongue wetting her lips.
She takes a cautious step toward me.
Another.
Then, her hesitance evaporates, and she’s bolting toward me, pure need brimming in her eyes.
She’s almost reached me when it happens.
One of the warriors concealed in a tree flings an iron chain toward me.
I was waiting for it—my fingers wedge beneath the chain just before it wraps around my neck, keeping my airways unrestricted. Immediately my power dims, like a flickering candle just before it’s extinguished.
Six men leap out from behind the dense underbrush. Two grab my arms while the other four anchor my legs.
I could fight—we train extensively in iron to master fighting without our powers. But I don’t so much as raise a finger as they shackle my wrists with thick iron cuffs. No, I keep my gaze fixed on the waterwielder. Her eyes are unfocused, flicking between my face, chest, and hips.
My lips twitch.
Poor little waterwielder wants to fuck the very enemy she went through great lengths to deceive.
“The Dark Commander himself,” an older man drawls, emerging from behind a thick tree trunk. He stands close beside the waterwielder with an easy familiarity that makes me grit my teeth. “I can’t tell you how often I’ve thought about this day.”
I know exactly who he is—I’d be a shit commander if I didn’t keep track of my enemy’s top general. But more than that, there’s something strikingly familiar about his face, in the sharp angles and the dark blue eyes.
It hits me like a thunderclap. This is the captain’s father.
It’s all I can do to keep a grin plastered on my face. “I haven’t thought about you at all. You are?”
The captain’s father scowls. “Sorka. General of the Tundrayni army.”
“Ah. Then, it’s my honor. I’d bow but”—I shrug as much as the firm grip of the warriors allows—“I can’t move.” My gaze cuts to the waterwielder. Her face has grown even pinker, her teeth digging into her plump lower lip. “Are you feeling all right, wife? You look a little … flushed.”
Her hands are clenched into tight fists, breathing ragged.
Sorka looks at her with knit brows. “Princess?”
Her throat bobs. “I—I need a tent. Alone. He … he channeled his power into me. A lot of it.”
Sorka’s mouth drops open, then snaps shut. His cold blue gaze flits to me. “Tidesdamned bastard,” he hisses. “String him up in camp.”
The warriors drag me through the trees, toward a large rectangular platform in the center of camp. Tents encircle the area in a misshapen circle.
Every man we pass glares at me with fierce hatred, some spitting at the ground as they drag me past.
The warriors are silent as they bind me to two tall posts nailed into the center of the platform. I keep my attention fixed on the waterwielder, not sparing a single glance for the Tundrayni men, not even when they snap a heavy iron collar around my neck.
Her chest rises and falls rapidly, thighs clenched together. The surrounding warriors watch her closely, and a low growl builds in my chest, hands clenching into fists around the iron chains.
Do they know what’s happening to her?
Do they know how easy it would be to—
The general brings a young woman over to the waterwielder—the same one I’d observed earlier, before this night went to hell—and the tightness in my chest eases just slightly.
“Princess,” Sorka says to the panting waterwielder. “That one”—he gestures to a small tent—“is yours. Vykiss will stay with you. I’m assigning two guards to stand watch.”
Two guards are nowhere near enough, not for the amount of power I channeled into her.
And it’s far more likely for two men to decide that they’d rather do the unthinkable.
“Eight guards,” I call out. I smirk at the waterwielder, cruel and sharp. “I’ve seen you feral, wife. Two men won’t stop you from getting your hands on me.” I level a glare at the captain’s father. “And if I get loose? This entire camp won’t stop me from getting my hands on her.”
Pain erupts across my face as one of the warriors backhands me. Spit and blood arc through the air, but I keep smirking.
Sorka mutters under his breath, face reddened with rage. I can’t hear him, but I strongly suspect he’s cursing my lineage.
But in the end, he assigns eight guards to her tent.
The other woman ushers the flushed waterwielder inside, then emerges a few minutes later and hurries off toward another tent. At the edge of the clearing, Sorka murmurs quietly with three warriors, their contemptuous eyes cutting to me every few minutes.
I don’t give a damn what they’re planning to do to me.
My focus is on the waterwielder’s tent and the eight men flanking the entrance. She’s in there alone. The general is distracted. Any one of them could sneak inside and—
The other woman rushes back with a large bottle in her hands. The amber liquid glints in the firelight as she disappears into the tent.
Valerian root.
A whisper of relief cascades down my spine.
It doesn’t last long. The captain and the other men seem to have finished their discussion. Two of the warriors climb the stairs to the platform where I’m bound.
The men are tall and heavily muscled—and vibrating with anticipation.
A meaty fist cracks into the side of my face.