30. My Woman
My Woman
ROHEN
Narrowly avoiding the blade that Caspian had scarred me with during our last altercation, I pivoted, chasing the length of his steel with my own. Sparks erupted between us as he challenged my strength, and I hissed between clenched teeth, trying to match the vigor with which he wielded his weapon.
Lips curling into a smile, his self-satisfied sense of superiority appeared in the form of those infuriating fucking dimples. “There’s that fire of yours, little siren. Give me more.”
“You’re fucking aggravating!” I snarled, shucking my sword down his.
“So you’ve made me aware.” His steps became deliberate, and he circled me as a bird would to pinpoint its prey. “Tell me, are you capable of forming any other insult or—?”
My ire fueled my responsiveness, and I slammed my foot into the center of his chest. Using my heel as the driving force, I rode my momentum. His groan earned a grin from me, the intensity of the blow proving sufficient to knock him off balance. As he stumbled, I darted in, using my size advantage.
Distance no longer accessible, my forearm greeted his sternum, and I grabbed a fistful of his shirt. I ripped him to the right, and he met my boot, strategically positioned against the back of his ankle. With the kick of my leg, he toppled, but not without taking me with him.
Metal clanked against cobblestone first, its chime a warning of our proximity. Or perhaps a… celebration? An indication of all that Ellira had shared with me, things that made me question my sanity and my mental stability.
Blades no longer within reach, and with us fixated on our descent, it barely registered when Caspian’s fingers curled around my waist. In response, a searing warmth spread through my body, causing my breath to hitch.
My core followed suit, tightening in a way it never had, and when I fell flush against him, I had to bite my cheek to bring me back to reality.
I never buckled to a man’s touch. Hell, I had never even considered the possibility of something so idiotic. So why now? Why Caspian?
“Hm. It’s as if I haven’t already enlightened you on the matter,” my mother hummed, reigniting my billowing agitation.
“You may deny it for as long as you wish, but fate remains true, Rohen. He is your Mizani, your soul tie, your other half. No amount of denial or refusal will rid you of such factualities.”
“Shut up,” I snarled, heat spreading across my cheeks at her intrusion.
“I shall do no such thing.”
Palm planted against the chilled street, I forced myself back an inch to stare down at Caspian as he remained beneath me.
Crimson eyes glowing with hunger, he ran his tongue along his teeth.
It was an expression I was used to seeing him wear, but when I caught a subtle flicker of blue in his irises, I recoiled.
Rocking back, I tried to get off him, but he caught the motion.
Grip tightening, he stalled me from my retreat.
And when his fingertips brushed along a sliver of skin, I retrieved my dagger.
I pressed the sharpened edge against the scar on his throat and growled, “Get your fucking hands off me, Caspian Vayne.”
“Or what, little siren? Are you finally going to carve your way through my neck and bathe in my blood?” Testing the validity of my claim, he inched up my side. “Or is it easier for you to threaten harm because the mere idea of you contemplating anything else goes against all you believe you are?”
My jaw feathered, demeanor wavering in the same way it always had around him. “You believe yourself worthy of someone—?”
A gasp erupted from me as he bucked his hips, tossing me from mount with ease. In a breath, the ground became the sky, and it wasn’t until my attention settled on the pair of near-white eyes glaring down at me that I realized what Caspian had done.
Malrik stood over us, his lapis blue hair loose, except for a few strands that had been braided by someone with a far gentler hand than his.
A black bandana clashed with his locks, yet seemed to meld with his facial hair.
The corners of his mouth twisted in cruel satisfaction as he sluggishly turned the blade he wielded—the one he buried into Caspian’s back without so much as batting an eye.
The one that should’ve been piercing through the center of my chest instead.
“Well, well, well,” Malrik crooned, his gaze transfixed on me. “Figures I would find the two of you on top of one another and not an ounce of blood in sight. Though I suppose”—he ripped the steel free from Caspian’s flesh—“his lineage on my sword shall suffice. For now, anyway.”
Unrelenting rage festered within me, reawakened by the part of my essence that Ellira constantly insisted existed.
Unfurling the power resting within me, it ignited every fiber of my being with a craving for vengeance.
Except this time it wasn’t a deep-seated need for personal justice.
No, it was for Caspian and how he had fallen victim to Malrik’s cruelty because of his entanglement with me.
Chuckling over me, Caspian settled his palm over the leaking wound. “Did you not learn your lesson on the ship, Ravelle?”
On the ship?
Malrik’s brows narrowed, a newfound lethality rippling through his soulless irises. “My lesson? Whose knees were on that deck while they sat hunched over like a pitiful fool? Who's the one who was vomiting their own life force as if it were poison running through their veins? As far as I’m—”
My anger prevented my former owner from finishing. Far hungrier for desolation, I replicated Caspian’s earlier move, our positions switching once more. With the hilt of my most trusted dagger in hand, I removed it from Caspian’s throat before lunging for Malrik.
He swung in response, and I caught the arc of his blade.
My lips peeled back in a venomous sneer with the clang of metal.
Weapons crossed, I met his glare with my own before twisting on the ball of my foot.
Using the formed bind to my advantage, I angled Malrik’s sword to my right before driving my elbow into his sternum.
“Did you forget how you knelt before me in Veilmar, whimpering like a little bitch about the approach of a dark sea monster?” I spat, sweeping my steel down his before adjusting my hold as he regained his footing. “You are the pitiful fool.”
Malrik laughed, a sound I had heard countless times as he forced me beneath his hand. “Oh? Have you come to care for the pirate, my little viper?”
The snarl that erupted from behind me mirrored the carnal wrath slithering through my veins. “She’s not yours.”
Chin snapping in Caspian’s direction, the Overseer of Assassins smiled maliciously. “You wish to meet your father early, Vayne?”
“I already have,” Caspian growled, the scuff of his clothing against cobblestone indicative of his move to standing. “So much so that his thirst for souls has leeched into me, and yours would very well serve as an adequate offering, even if it tastes as vile as your shit personality.”
A shrill and commanding whistle was Malrik’s response. It split the tension with a sharpness far more lethal than any blade, and it was then that I realized it was a guide, a call. The steady flap of wings confirmed my suspicions, the all-too-familiar creature making its unwanted appearance.
Dark skin stretched taut over its skeletal frame, highlighting every bone responsible for crafting such a hauntingly eerie being.
Its jagged horns jutted toward the sky, mouth agape to display its razor-sharp teeth.
Even with its talons flexed in a way that caused my body to recoil after experiencing their sharpness carve through my flesh, the monstrosity wasn’t the sole reason I stepped away from Malrik.
It was the cloaked figure straddling its back, blonde hair whipping wildly in the wind as it raised a bow in the air.
The man responsible for my childhood damnation swung at me once again as if anticipating my lapse in focus. I parried his attack, using the clash of our blades as an opportune moment to pivot and gain a clear visual of the bat-like creature.
As if desiring my full attention, the fabric enveloping the assailant whipped back, revealing a woman—no, not a woman; an Other.
The relics pulsed against her porcelain skin, trailing every inch of flesh they could taint.
Lips upturned in a grin, her mouth seemed to continue forever, large gashes stressing her unearthly presence.
Her scarlet gaze settled on me for a breath before shifting.
Illuminating with delight, the kohl lining her eyes accentuated the path in which she planned to unleash the arrow.
His name tore from me as an earth-shattering cry, the whoosh of the quiver entangling with my desperation. “Caspian!”
“Aht,” Malrik snapped, withdrawing his blade only to strike me hard enough to send me back another step. “Your focus stays on me!”
“Fuck you!” I shouted, meeting his conceit with my indignation.
“There you are, little viper!” he cackled, rotating his wrist to the left. “Feed me your fucking frenzy!”
My tendons protested under his strength, my dagger threatening to slip from my hold. Arm trembling beneath his bloodlust, I released another scream, and with it, a surge of power followed.
Weight settling into my heels, I pressed forward, relying on the connection of our steel to shove him backward.
My insurmountable wrath multiplied—something similar, yet slightly different from my mother’s presence—as Malrik faltered a fraction of an inch.
Pulling back just enough to free my weapon from his, I slashed the sharpened tip across his chest.
My ravishment of the pooling of his lineage was cut short as the back of his left hand collided with the side of my face. Pain exploded across my cheek, my eardrum throbbing beneath his ire as a slew of images from my past assaulted my mind.
Unable to gather my bearings, the agony multiplied as he fisted my hair.
Ripping my head back, his sword greeted my throat, his nose falling inches from mine.
“You ungrateful, disobedient cunt. I loosen your leash, and you fall back into the bitch you were before I tamed you. It's clear you’ve forgotten who—”
A booted foot crashed into his left hip, the vigor of the kick enough to send Malrik into the side of the tavern.
His collision with its unforgiving structure was audible, a groan slipping from him as a towering shadow came to stand beside me.
The snap of wood, a squelch of blood, and the thud of an arrow’s broken shaft hitting the ground as a hissed snarl rolled from the man—Caspian.
“I will see to it that you learn the color of your insides for ever laying a hand on my woman.”