CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I gasped, my head spinning from the impact. Pain rushed down my neck and back. Immediately I tried to fight, to scratch and kick as Stephen descended on me, his hand covering my mouth and nose, his arm pushing down on my chest, pushing down and down, until I couldn’t breathe.
“Don,” Stephen ordered, “hold down her legs, and Erick, take her arms.”
All Jaron’s knights from the river. Stephen, Erick, and Donovan. They fumbled in the dark, searching for my limbs, groping me as they did so, but finally, as I kicked and flailed, rough hands pinned my hands and legs to the ground.
I could make out the light from the bonfires of the lodge, just behind the trees.
Gods, I’d been so close to safety. But there was nothing where we were hidden—not even a sliver of moonlight reached us.
Even if someone were to walk right by, they weren’t likely to see a thing.
I blinked, desperately willing my eyes to adjust, but I could only see shapes.
Silhouettes. Three men leered over me. One bald.
My chest heaved, and I struggled desperately for breath, for any way to escape.
But in my current form, a human girl with regular human strength and no claws for fingers or blades for hands, I didn’t stand a chance.
Not of fighting all three, not without shifting.
I would have to become something else, something stronger and darker.
But then after that, I’d still have one more shift to perform.
And after all I’d just done, I had just enough energy left in me for one.
Olivay. Olivay, who was as complicated and difficult to become as a dozen shifts.
Fuck! These Godsdamned men should have been drained from my last encounter.
I’d stolen at least a year from each of them.
But I’d forgotten how anger, spawned from humiliation, could reinvigorate a man.
Could give him fresh strength. Rebirth his hatred.
They were all holding me so tight, pushing me down so hard.
“Stop fighting. You know you like it.”
“Jaron, please. Please don’t. Don’t do this.”
No! No! I shook the memories away. This wasn’t the same situation. I wasn’t the same girl. I would shapeshift before they fucking tried anything else. I’d leave them with scars to match their dear leader’s. If I left them alive at all.
But I needed to fucking think. Something that felt impossible as I panicked.
If I shapeshifted into something stronger, something that could fight back, I wouldn’t have enough magic left to become Olivay again.
And no matter what, that had to happen, and before I escaped, before I cried out for help.
Before anyone found me in my current form and realized I looked exactly like the Azete that Jaron had plastered all over Eskalon.
Fucking bastard.
I stared at the distant light. I could even make out the sounds of the nobles talking. We were so Godsdamned close to the lodge. One good scream was all I needed. But my chest tightened, my scar burning, and my energy fading.
No matter what happened, I had to become Olivay again.
Which meant I had to conserve the energy and magic that remained until I could feed.
It should have started already. But there was no lust in their minds–not yet.
Their emotions were spiked. It was mostly anger, one fueled by humiliation, and rage.
And hatred–but not even a hatred directed at me.
It was toward all women, all witches. Anyone they thought had power over them.
And by the fucking Gods, that hatred was saving them at that moment, blocking the Azere.
I needed them to be focused, to direct their anger to me, and only me.
And until it did, I could only protect myself with the limited resources I had.
My pulse raced, my body rejecting what I was about to do. But I forced myself to go still, my limbs limp. And though panic surged inside of me, I stopped fighting them, stopping kicking and thrashing, stopping trying to fight back through the pain in my lungs.
Stephen sneered, sensing my surrender, and he eased his hold on me, just a little.
“Not so brave now, are you, Alyra?” he crooned in my ear. “See, we got you into submission.”
“Fucking demonos,” Donovan hissed, sliding his gloved hands up my legs. “Can’t wait to pull these apart.”
My pulse raced, but I quickly sent the tiniest bit of magic to my boots, returning them to the slippers Olivay had been wearing earlier.
I felt like I was going to burst, going to explode.
I wanted to scream as I lay there, willing myself to comply.
My stomach twisted. But I had to follow the plan.
I couldn’t give myself away. I shook my legs as a distraction and sent magic to my pants, pushing against every instinct inside of me.
I restored them back to Olivay’s flowing skirts, feeling the hems flared out around my ankles.
I trembled, waiting to see if Donovan had noticed, if he’d felt the change.
But he didn’t react, nor made any indication that anything was wrong.
He only gripped my legs harder, pushing the material down.
By the fucking Gods, I’d gotten away with it. But I still had to shift my upper half, my face, my body, my hair.
“I’m going to take your fucking cloak off,” Stephen snarled.
He pushed a knife against my throat, long and sharp.
He pressed the blade with just enough pressure to cut if I moved.
“And we’re going to have a little payback for what you did at the river.
You be a good girl, keep your mouth shut, and we’ll let you live.
But you make one sound—you call out,” he licked his lips, “and you die in a box.”
I whimpered, not even needing to act. I hated this. Hated him—hated all of them. Just a bunch of fucking Jarons.
“We don’t want to kill you before we finish, so I’m going to pull this knife back from your pretty little neck, and I want you to nod your fucking head that you’ll be quiet. Now show me you understand. You understand me, witch?”
I nodded, my pulse racing, chest heaving as I sent magic to my cloak.
I still had darkness on my side as I restored the rest of Olivay’s dress, and then I sent all the power I could spare to the hood.
I extended it past my shoulders into a full cloak reminiscent of the one that the Hermit had made me wear before the cave.
“Good,” Stephen said. “Pull those skirts up, Don—all the way. Show me the witch’s cunt.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, my stomach twisting. Why were men so fucking predictable? It was almost as infuriating as it was boring. Why—why—did it always come back to rape?
I tried to breathe through the panic. I just had to remember they were too stupid to be suspicious of me, too stupid to even realize I’d been wearing pants barely a minute ago.
Too stupid to realize that my slippers had just been boots.
That I was only waiting them out, preparing to scream at the right moment.
They only cared about their revenge, about proving they had power over me.
They didn’t.
Because as they greedily removed their gloves, and bared my legs, their hands grazing against them, the Azete began to feed. I could taste it, their jealousy of me, their fear of my kind, and their anger toward all women with power.
There was only one more thing to do. I imagined Olivay, conjuring her face, her dark eyes, her pink cheeks, her full lips, delicate nose, and neck.
I saw her in the cave, my reflection in the mirror beside her.
Shielded by the cloak and the dark, I shifted my red hair back to Olivay’s dark waves, then restored the long cloak back to my riding cape.
And at that moment, I finally heard the words I’d been praying would come.
“The crown prince! He returns! He lives!”
Brennan was back.
“Be quick,” Erick hissed.
“Maybe we should move her,” said Donovan.
I sent a burst of magic to my throat, using all I’d taken from them, because I had one shot at getting this right.
If I was going to scream, it was going to be the loudest thing they ever heard.
I was going to make sure the right person found me, the one who’d make these fuckers pay with their lives.
“brENNAN!” I screamed, my voice loud and scared, and all Olivay. “Brennan! Help!”
“Shut up,” hissed Stephen. “He don’t care about you!” His hand swung at my face, but I sent magic down my arm. I could finally stop holding back. I broke free and blocked his hit.
He let off a wave of terror. And I fed, gleefully.
“Yes, he does,” I hissed. “I’m Princess Olivay, of House Kanos! The crown prince’s betrothed!”
“No, you’re not!” Erick said. “You’re a Godsdamned witch. You’re Azete! Demonos!”
“I am the princess,” I roared. Then I screamed for help again, my voice perfectly mirroring Olivay’s desperate cries in the cave.
“Olivay?” Brennan’s voice called back. “Olivay!”
“Where is she?” someone else yelled.
“I don’t see her! Olivay!” Brennan cried out.
“In the trees! Help me!” I screamed again.
“No, no!” Donovan let go of me at once, stumbling backward. He was already weak from my draining. He would be passing out very soon.
“You lie!” Stephen sneered, pointing his knife at my throat. “I saw you!”
“Are you so sure?” My voice shook. “Pull back my hood. And take a look.”
“Get a fucking light!” he yelled.
Erick stumbled to his feet, and I managed to sit up, pushing my skirts back over my legs.
“No,” Erick yelled. “Fuck—no! No! The fucking princess! I’m not dying for this shit. Fuck!”
“Fuck! Fuck!” Stephen roared, his hands on his head. “Why didn’t you fucking say?”
“Because you covered my Godsdamned mouth!” I snarled.
“No! No, she can’t, she—” Donovan was spiraling. “She doesn’t speak like a princess. She didn’t look like one—we saw her, we tracked her—she’s the witch.”
“Could it be a trick?” Erick asked. “Maybe she shapeshifted.”