Chapter 31
“ S o, none of you thought to tell me he’d be fucking me with his giant shifter cock? Truly, none of you thought that was worth mentioning?”
Seven sets of eyes snap to mine, and goddess, save me from this embarrassment . I should have scanned the private dining hall before blurting out my question, having expected only my family to be eating in here. My neck warms as Aeverie looks at me from the head of the table, blinks once, twice, then a wispy sound falls from her lips. A laugh, I think.
The high priestess’s chuckle shatters the ice in the room, followed by Eldridge’s booming laugh. Ileana’s dark cheeks redden as her eyes suddenly find fascination in the plate in front of her, and Zorina hooks a hand over her lips in an attempt to mask her sudden giggles. Cosmina and Theon share an amused look before glancing back to me, while Cornelius diverts his eyes, quickly burying his face behind the rim of his mug. Thank the goddess Morrinne is working in the kitchens this morning, or I think I might, quite literally, pass away right here in the dining hall.
“Mina and I have been waiting for you to ask us about this, but I dare say we expected it to be more of a private manner, sister,” Zorina says through her giggles.
“And have me miss that look on her face just now?” Eldridge howls with laughter, then smacks the table, rattling a few plates. “Hell, I’d give my other arm to have seen her face when Sin first told her.”
I scoff, rolling my eyes so far back in my head it strains my sockets, but a small light beams in my chest at Eldridge’s reaction. At his immense amusement, and not the anger I have come to expect from him anytime Sin and my relationship is mentioned, particularly the Bonding. I also don’t miss that his hand is on Ileana’s knee, or the way she dares a glance at him through her long lashes, her cheeks still flushed. The Black Hand is nervous . Hardly an expression I’d ever expect to catch on her face. The half curl to her lips tells me she isn’t just nervous… she’s giddy .
No one guards their heart more fiercely than she, and yet, the overbearing, gruff, red-headed male brute I call my best friend has somehow charmed her. I smile inwardly. I suppose it doesn’t surprise me they’d be so drawn to one another. Eldridge has always valued strength and resilience, and nothing is more important to Ileana than honesty and devotion. They each possess what the other needs in stride.
I dip my knees in a quick curtsy. “Apologies, Madam Priestess. I wasn’t expecting you to be joining us for breakfast.”
She reaches one of the burgundy cloth napkins to her chin and gives it a few pats before placing it back onto her lap. “Never bend your knees for me again. You are to be Her Black Grace. You do not bow to anyone now, and especially not in the presence of others.”
Oh. She is right, but I suppose it is still strange for me to accept that when I Bond myself to Singard, I will share more with him than just this union. I will share his station.
I will be his queen.
“Would be silly for either of us to feign ignorance that when our fight with Baelliarah is over, ours may begin. I know the elves cannot be pleased with the thought of the kingdom returning to power.”
Aeverie’s white sclera spear me with their intensity, and she levels her gaze with mine when she responds. “You are correct, and the kingdom will not be returning to power.” I step farther into the room, ensuring my face betrays none of the unease her words seep into me. “Great losses birth great gains, blood mage. We have our differences, and I foresee we always will to an extent, but you lead with your heart. Perhaps that is why your magic is so powerful—the heart pumps the blood, and the blood agitates your power. The more passionate the heart, the more potent the brew.
“The wanderer leads with his head. His experience has birthed strength, and his strength has destroyed as much as it built. A cycle that was likely to repeat had it not been violently interrupted.”
“Forgive me, Madam Priestess, but I’ve never been adept at solving riddles,” I say, her words ricocheting around in my mind, searching for purchase and finding none.
“It is not a riddle, blood mage,” she huffs. “It is balance. A heart too tender will surely split under pressure, and a sword too rigid will break when thrust too hard. A gentle heart slows a swinging sword. As I said, the kingdom will not return to power. There will be a new empire, governed by man and woman, not a wayward goddess intent on meddling in human affairs. Your rule will be mighty, but it will be just.”
“You have seen it, then? We survive this war?” I ask, unable to disguise the ring of hope in my voice.
Several moments pass between us, each one more agonizing than the last as I wait for her answer. To assure me that this constant weight in my chest will soon be in the past. Her expression betrays nothing as she stares at me, her mouth completely fucking silent.
“Have you seen it, Aeverie?” I demand, forceful now.
“I have seen many things, blood mage, but fate is ever turning, never content to hold shape for long.”
I exhale, tucking my hands in the divots of my waist, my joyful mood now soured from the priestess’s… prophecy? Warning? Mumbling nonsense? Cosmina slides her plate towards me, offering me the leftover eggs and melon.
One of the servants rushes into the room, her hands flitting about as she reaches to remove my sister’s half empty plate, an apology stammering out of her mouth for not seeing me enter. I gently wave her away and stab a fork into one of the pieces of melon. I wouldn’t be able to stomach a fresh plate, my gut already stuffed full with anxiety.
My betrothed was more than reluctant to agree to the plan I proposed last night, but I refused to accept his growly ‘no’ for an answer. It is a good plan, not to mention our only plan, and even Sin couldn’t deny that. He eventually agreed, but his mood was gravely tainted for the rest of the evening, so at odds with the way his hands fawned over me. He spent the night offering gentle, reassuring squeezes beneath the blankets, and he softly kissed along my neck well into the wee hours of the morning. From what he’s read about seering magic during his studies, Sin believes the headaches to be instantaneous the moment she sinks her claws into his collective. It’s why we clung to each other without fear, tangled together in our sheets without the risk of a phantom spectator.
But the Black Art hardly slept, haunted by the horrors of what he must do when daylight found us.
“May we forget the damn bloody war for a minute—we have something far more important to plan.” Zorina leans around Cornelius to smile widely at me.
I stare at her expectantly, causing her lips to droop like a parched rose. “Your Bonding!” she finally screeches, as if the answer had been obvious.
“Aeverie told us about the seer,” Cosmina supplies.
“And your disturbing plan to cloak the castle,” Eldridge adds with a grumble before tilting his water cup upwards.
It’s not cloaking the castle that is disturbing, but rather how we intend to gain justifiable cause to cast the grounds in illusive magic without revealing our ruse to the seer.
“It is our only option,” I say, lips firm. “It’s not something either of us wants to do, Sin especially, but if we have any hope for a better future, we must play the roles we are dealt now.”
“Apologies if you wished to tell them yourself, blood mage, but after Singard Kilbreth and I convened this morning, I thought it best to inform those closest to you immediately. As there is no telling when these roles must snap back into place,” Aeverie says, giving a quick tap of her long, curved fingernails against the wood grain of the table.
“She means she didn’t want us dogpiling on Singard the second he put hands on you,” Eldridge adds gruffly, inciting a chuckle from Ileana. “Particularly from that one,” he continues, making the sound of a pissed-off cat while motioning with his cup to where his sister sits across from him.
The slow smile that spreads across Zorina’s face tells me she is not offended by her brother’s mockery, but rather takes pride in it. “Wren is well aware I hate that son-of-a-bitch and trust him as far as I can throw him, but that does not stop me from being ecstatic ,” she drags out the word, “about planning the perfect ceremony for our sister. If she loves the fucker, so be it. Mina and I will make sure every last detail is perfect, from the color of the dinner linens to the salves I’ll have stocked in your chambers for your… well, for after the Hunt,” she finishes with a snicker that has me scoffing audibly.
“And what of female transcendents? When you Bond with a human male? You just get a free pass on having your insides ripped apart, then?” I look to Cosmina for support, but she merely grins to herself, her hand reaching to fumble with the sapphire necklace draped over her prominent collarbones.
Zorina tortures her bottom lip as she chuckles once to herself. “Oh, we have our own measures to keep our newfound Mate well tethered to us.” She turns to look at Cornelius, the two of them sharing a teasing smile, and Eldridge makes a sound of feigned gagging.
“I changed my mind—I’d give both my fucking legs right now if we all agree to never talk about this in front of each other again.”
The dining hall fills with the guffaws of my family, but it dies quickly, the storm of what’s to come hanging above our heads like a terrible omen. Because in order for Sin and the elves to cloak the castle with enough illusive magic to block the seer, he needs to know about her. And given I am the only one here that supposedly knows she exists, I must be the rat that tells him about Torin’s plan.
The king knows I would not give up my one hope for freedom lightly. A bloodwitch is well accustomed to the sear of iron, and the bruising of flesh beneath vicious hands. For me to spill this secret to Sin, it must be in the light of something truly horrific.
Sin and I discussed this while in the privacy of the cell last night, but we did not settle on a means to pry the secret from my lips, deciding it was better if I did not know ahead of time so my reaction is more raw, more believable . One final game, I promised him between reassuring kisses.
“I do not want to hurt you.”
“Do not think of it as you doing something to me, but for me. Please, Sin. You must.”
Long moments endured then, our hearts a war drum between us.
“For you,” he finally agreed, voice smothered in his blackest shadows.
I do not know how Sin intends to torture me to the point of divulging Torin’s secrets, just as he doesn’t know when the next headache will seize him, alerting him of the seer’s presence.
“Whatever pain Sin inflicts upon me, I want you all to know I fully consent to it. He will take care of me after,” I say knowingly.
And he will, just as he does in our bedchamber. Sin is a dominant creature, and sex is no exception, his hands desperate to rob me of my breath, and his teeth itching to sink into my neck. Exactly how I prefer it.
He never fails to tend to me afterwards, massaging away the knots that come from being twisted into all sorts of angles, and applying salves to the bruised flesh along my hips and throat, and more to my tortured cunt.
The room grows eerily quiet at that, their attention suddenly on their plates, the bottom of their cups, the napkins draped across their laps… all except Cosmina, who looks at me with such seriousness that I straighten at once, thinking she might have fallen ill.
“What is it?”
Lines crease the corners of her lips, as if she wants to force a smile but can’t quite muster one. “You know I would do anything for you, right?” she asks quietly.
I tuck a few loose strands of hair behind her ear. I’ve caught myself doing it a lot lately—fawning at her as if I were the older sister. But ever since losing Cosmina, I’ve not been able to keep my eyes off her for long, my hands always passively touching her as if she might suddenly slip around a corner and disappear.
“Me too,” I say, dropping my hand.
She nods tightly and averts her eyes. I almost ask what provoked such a question from her, but Aeverie’s voice cuts through the otherwise silent room. “I have an important matter to discuss with you, blood mage, but best to do it in the conservatory so the hall can be reset for the officers’ luncheon. Can you join us, wanderer?” she asks, setting her clouded gaze on Eldridge.
He darts a glance at me, then clears his throat loudly. “Sure.”
I snicker, dark amusement lightening my mood at my friend’s less than subtle apprehension of the high priestess.
“Very well.” She rises from the high-backed chair, and Eldridge and I follow suit. The three of us walk to the conservatory in silence, Eldridge daring a pointed glance at me every few steps and widening his eyes in exaggerated concern as to what the priestess has planned for us. I elbow him in the ribs, coaxing a throaty chuckle that I silence with a look, not needing to provoke Aeverie with our not so quiet exchange.
The conservatory greets us like an oasis, a reprieve that feels uncomfortable given the horrors that cling to every surface in the castle, a constant reminder that everything in life is borrowed, and nothing more so than time. The water roars in the tiered fountain as we follow Aeverie into the nursery’s small courtyard. Streaks of amber glint off the rough stone ground, casting the morning in a sepia finish. A morning too beautiful given the state of?—
Eldridge’s howl slices through me sharper than any blade, and I spin around, my forearms already brimming with heat as sparks take shape in my palms. He grabs his head, his claws sinking into the side of his temple as his chin jerks skywards, his eyes squinted shut.
I look to Aeverie and find her with her back to us still, her spine perfectly straight, and not a single muscle tensed in her rigid form. I bare my teeth at her rear, but quickly force myself to absorb the magic back into my collective. Fighting her will be useless. I may be low-born with no formal education, but I only need to make a mistake once to learn to never do it again.
“Push me out,” she says, her voice far too calm for a person torturing someone with their mind alone.
Turning towards Eldridge again, I throw out my palm in his direction. Red drips from his temple where his claws punctured his head, slow and thick and mouthwatering. Saliva clots in the back of my throat at the sight, the smell , but I swallow it down.
My collective wrenches free from my mind and lunges for Eldridge. I find my mark immediately and slither around his collective. It quivers beneath my hold, each shout of his torment sending it teetering one way, then the next, but I punch my talons into his walls, refusing to relinquish my grip. I find Aeverie’s influence quickly and push against her. I push, and push, and push, but the priestess’s magic is a resistant cunt.
“Get her the fuck out of my head, Wren!” Eldridge bellows, peering at me from the narrow slits of his eyes.
“I’m trying!”
“Try faster.”
“You are resisting the call to Source,” Aeverie’s voice pierces my focus. “Imagine it entering your bloodstream, mixing with your very essence and flooding your veins. Let it in, blood mage. Let it in, then use it to push me out.”
I close my eyes, the dark purple veins now bulging in Eldridge’s neck a distraction I can’t afford, and I blow out a controlled breath between closed lips.
“Wren,” he growls.
“Just shut up for one godsdamned second, Eldridge!”
I focus on the chill nipping my veins, a sensation that I always thought was an effect of my magic, an aftershock from the power cresting into my forearms and pooling into my fingertips.
“Let it in,” Aeverie repeats. “Lock it in tight. Imagine your veins closing around Source and strangling it.”
I open and close my hands, shoving my fear down into the pit of my stomach and imagine my veins slowly opening. Ice encases my spine, freezing the matter around each of my vertebrae, and my blood turns bitter.
Source! It must be.
It rushes in, frigid and piercing, and I visualize my veins snapping shut around the ancient magic, choking it. My vessels swell with the intake, making room for the newfound power that writhes within them.
Tight, tight, tight. I close around it, the old magic stirring with my forbidden one, folding, mixing, agitating . I open my eyes and find Eldridge’s are still squeezed tight, his chest hammering out sharp, erratic breaths, the hand raised to his head now bearing a labyrinth of deep purple veins that continue down the underside of his forearm. Clenching my outstretched hand, my nails dig into his collective deeper, the layers parting for me until I find Aeverie’s influence again, her venomous magic turning his mind into a serpent’s nest.
But Aeverie isn’t the godsdamned viper here. I am.
I snatch her magic into my talons, again visualizing my claws curling tight to rob it of all escape. It squirms in my grip, and Eldridge jerks sharply to the side as if feeling the brawl inside his mind. Aeverie wrestles my grip, pecking at my fingers like a diseased raven, but my hold proves unyielding.
With a high-pitched cry wailing from my lips, I shove the priestess out of his mind.
Eldridge stumbles backwards, his arm windmilling to find his balance, and Aeverie turns to face me. The lines in her face are pulled tight, but I swear the sharp arcs of her cheekbones are sitting a little higher.
“Don’t delay next time. The quicker you let Source in, the quicker it will be yours to wield.”
I walk to Eldridge and steady him with a hand. “Apologies if Source and I haven’t exactly found our mutual trust yet, Madam Priestess, given the last time I let it in, it killed my lover right in front of me.”
“Embrace it sooner, or you will find far more than just your lover dead. No death is beautiful in war, blood mage. There will be no kneeling before a pyre, no slipping a final token onto their person before their ashes drift to the next realm. Bodies will be buried in rubble, children will watch as their parents are slaughtered, and the land will be littered with blood and rot and pain.
“A bloodwitch may find beauty in such a display, but you are no bloodwitch ,” she spits the word. “You are a blood mage. Wielder of Source, breaker of bonds, liberator of the tyrannized. Finish your distrust, or all else will finish you.”
“I thought I was supposed to be practicing shielding others with my magic, not pushing yours out.” I release Eldridge, and he grimaces at the blood staining his fingers before giving his hand a few quick shakes and wiping the rest on his pants.
“Shielding is for defense, and it is imminent you continue to practice it. But there is something offensive you must do first.”
I flex my wielding hand, the priestess’s magic having tired the muscles. “And what is that?”
“You are going to kill the seer.”
Something like a choked laugh spits from my mouth. “And how exactly am I supposed to do that?”
Aeverie walks to where Eldridge is still wiping the blood from his face and swats his hand away. The look he gives her suggests he wants to toss her into the fountain like a sack of grains, but he doesn’t resist as she places a hand to his temple. “I would think that after everything you’ve demonstrated, you’d stop depreciating your own worth. You just reversed Source and flung it back at me. If your blood magic would have been coupled with that reversal, you could have killed me.”
“It didn’t look like it even phased you,” I say.
Aeverie drops her hand, the slit in Eldridge’s temple now freshly woven together from the priestess’s magic. “Source is my home, as I am its. You won’t kill an elf with Source alone, maybe not even a seer, but varnish it in blood, and you’ll rend her flesh to shreds.”
Her eyelids twitch, and I think she glances over my shoulder, just as Eldridge shuffles his feet in my periphery, his knuckles clenching around a buckle of his cuirass.
“How would you have me?—”
Slap!
The pain doesn’t register. Nothing registers past sheer surprise and— she slapped me!
“Did you truly think my commander would not inform me of your scheming, you manipulative fiend! ” Her lips part over the last word, showing her teeth in a warning that is pure elf, pure other .
My attention darts to Eldridge, fully expecting him to be at my side at once, preferably with the priestess’s neck in his grasp, but he hasn’t moved an inch. He’s not even looking at me, his gray eyes locked intensely on something behind my shoulder.
“There you are.”
Those three words, spoken with such rancor, hardens my bones to diamond. Because I recognize that voice, and it does not belong to the man I intend to marry.
It belongs to my captor.
His hand collars my throat a second later, jerking my back to his front. “Sneaking behind my back again, witch? What did I tell you in that cell, hmm?” Sin’s fingers reach to pinch my jowls, forcing my lips to pucker. “Tell me. What did I say?” he shouts.
Every hair on my body goes rigid at the anger in his voice, despite it being forced.
Sin reaches his other hand to deliver a controlled smack to my cheek. “Answer the question, witch,” he growls. And I hear the desperation hidden beneath the gravel. To play along so we can get this over with, to not live in the shadows of our past for longer than we must.
“That I would be punished,” I grind out through cockled lips.
He releases my jaw, that hand slowly dragging down the side of my neck, over my shoulder, and down my arm, leaving my skin a pebbled mess. “Iron injections aren’t torturous enough for you? You like when I hurt you personally, is that it, little witch?” I swallow at the nickname, knowing he uses it intentionally. A reminder that none of this is real, no matter how convincing he may seem.
Because the Black Art is really fucking good at playing the villain.
And I his helpless, little plaything.
A spark ignites low and deep in my belly. Goddess, drag my ass through Hell for how his words, his touch—that smack —excited me.
“Is that what you do in the lavish chambers I’ve allowed you to sleep in? Sit in my sheets and fill your quarters with filthy moans while you rub your cunt to thoughts of me hurting you?”
Sin angles his head so his lips speak directly into my ear. “Careful what you yearn for, love. If I hurt you the way I desire, you would be nothing but a whimpering, writhing mess in your chambers. Seeing as you are not just a bloodthirsty witch, but also a thief ,” he growls the word, “it is only fitting I take something equally as valuable to you as that dagger is to me.” He wrests my arms behind my back, holding both my wrists in one of his. “ Walk ,” he demands, his voice as deep as the ache it sends throbbing between my thighs.
I don’t look at the others as I turn and let Sin steer me back through the conservatory and through the castle’s corridors. He pushes on my viced wrists to force me up the stairs, and up, up, up we climb to the highest story. I’ve never been up here before, but I presume these hallways must lead to the observation turrets.
A sharp shove of my wrists has me stumbling into the corridor in front of us. “Keep walking.”
We head down the carpeted walkway, past several doors to arrive at the single, windowless one at the end of the hallway. Nerves crest in my gut as I wonder what the Black Art has planned that requires him to have taken me this high up. Perhaps he’s accounting for the elven ears in the castle, wanting to ensure none of them hear our altercation, no matter how feigned it might be.
“Why have you brought me up here?” I ask, playing along.
A low sigh. “Because, witch, as much as I hurt you, it never seems to be enough. Broken bones will fuse, bruised flesh will heal. You don’t value your own life enough for it to be of any real consequence, so I had to find something you do value. A punishment you won’t soon forget.”
Sin pushes the door open and shoves me through, releasing my wrists so that I stumble into the room. No—not a room. A circular, open-air tower , with three large gaps of stone at waist-height that serve as curved rectangular windows.
Vox stands at the far window, his black eyes goring me as I right myself. Behind him, a woman turns around, the sunlight catching on her pearl skin and the dark hair whipping behind her in the wind. Dread grips my chest, and my mouth falls open as understanding overcomes me.
“Cosmina,” I breathe, my voice barely heard over the squall that tears through the open tower.
She doesn’t respond, the gag in her mouth leaving no room for words. Her hands are bound at her waist where they lay limp against the pale blue cotton of her dress, but it’s not the balled-up linen stuffed into her mouth, or the chains on her wrists that disturb me.
It’s the red veins striating her wet eyes. Cosmina rarely, and I mean rarely , cries. Petite in stature, but her will is iron-plated. But here she stands, tears streaming from her puffy, blue eyes.
“Why is she here?” I ask, the waver in my voice not entirely feigned.
The soles of Sin’s boots clack loudly against the stone as he enters the tower, the door groaning shut behind him as it seals closed. He gives me his back as he walks to the ledge, pulling on a pair of black gloves he retrieves from his pocket. It’s then I notice the pair of manacles resting on the stone. The gloves he wears are magicked to momentarily dampen the effects of iron, a convincing detail for Sin to remember as he picks up the manacles, giving the seer the impression they are forged from the toxic metal.
My eyes flit back to Cosmina who is watching me intensely through those bleary eyes, the skin beneath them swollen, and her cheeks flush. She looks awful, and I wonder how she managed to force such persuasive tears.
Sin turns, his serpentine eyes slicing into mine as he grabs my hands. “The iron injections do well to keep that feisty little magic of yours sedated, but let’s not take any chances.” The smirk that tugs on his lips is vindictive, and desire laps at my nerves as he moves to secure the cuffs around my wrists.
Desire that simmers out immediately.
My skin sears under the shackles, and I try to jerk my hands away, but Sin’s hold on them only tightens as he finishes fastening them to my wrists. The very real, iron shackles. I peer up at him, and if he feels any remorse for catching me off guard like this, he doesn’t show it. In fact, he looks downright malignant.
“Commander,” Sin says, not looking away from me.
Vox retrieves the dagger from his waist, his other hand grabbing my sister and forcing her back to his chest. He bands his arm around her front, the edge of his knife flirting with the thin skin of her neck.
My lips part, and a low hiss slips out from between my barred teeth. One that’s as real as the iron on my wrists. He’s going to threaten Cosmina to force me to tell him about the seer, which should be easy enough, but I do wish he would have told me about it beforehand. I consented to him catching me off guard, but involving my sister after what he did to her in the past… I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.
I swallow hard, watching as Cosmina’s eyes strain downward to look at the dagger, her chest swelling in rapid beats. Just ask me about Torin so we can get this over with.
“You seem to think disobeying me is a game, so since you enjoy playing them so much, I’ve devised a game of my own. The rules are simple,” he says, reaching to trail the back of a glove clad finger down the side of my cheek, “but I don’t think you’re going to like them very much.”
“I’ll give you what you want, but do not dare lay a hand on my sister,” I warn through clenched teeth.
Sin chuckles, the sound low and menacing. “You see, I want to believe you, witch,” he says, dropping his finger as he begins to circle me, “but you have long severed that trust. How could I possibly know that you will tell me the truth, and not just feed me what you think I want to hear so that Commander Fionnlagh over there doesn’t run his dagger through her pretty, little neck?”
My pulse pounds in my pressure points, an ache forming in my temples. “Because you said it yourself—I value her life far more than my own.”
Sin pauses when he is directly behind me and tsks quietly. “I’m going to need far more convincing than that from a mouth I’ve only ever seen full of lies and my cum. The commander says he caught you trying to slip away with my magic, and I am just so curious , little witch, where you were taking it?” His voice wraps around each of my ribs and squeezes, threatening to collapse them in on my thumping heart.
I start to answer, but he cuts me off. “Uh-huh-huh,” he says, reaching around to slide the back of his finger down my cheek again, but this time, I feel the outline of his extended claw beneath his glove. “I haven’t explained the rules yet. Anika is waiting at the entrance to the western courtyard.” He lazily points a finger in the direction of the window behind Vox and Cosmina. “My most advanced healer. Rarely is there an injury she can’t heal, and I’ve seen her rip even the most maimed of bastards from the clutches of death. But even the most advanced of healing magic is at the mercy of time.
“A healer can clot one’s blood to keep it from rushing out of them, but they cannot ever put it back inside a body. Ironic how that works, don’t you agree?”
He doesn’t wait for an answer before continuing, tilting his head down so his breath warms the skin of my neck. “As soon as you tell me the truth, I will allow you to leave this tower. Run as fast as you can, because remember, time never yields, and when you reach Anika at the base of the stairs, and only then,” he adds in warning, “will she get to work. Do you understand the rules, little witch?”
“You don’t need to cut her for me to tell you what you want. The threat is enough, Your Grace ,” I spit his title at him.
My dread turns to anger as I eye Vox carefully, pissed that Sin would place my sister in such a compromising position. Ruse or not, the elf was furious with me just last night, and he did catch me trying to run off with the Black Art’s magic. That Sin would allow Cosmina to be subjected to the blade of a man I betrayed sends heat pounding through my veins.
The cuffs spark at my wrists, sensing the sudden rush of magic attempting to agitate there.
“I said nothing of cutting her,” Vox speaks for the first time, sunlight reflecting in the dagger as he slowly pivots his blade back and forth over the bob of her throat.
Cosmina closes her eyes, and her lips purse ever so slightly, as if she were steadying her own breath. Something is wrong. Actually wrong. But if?—
Oh. Oh no.
“Vox—stop!” I yell, very real panic now stampeding through my veins.
“I should have known better than to get too friendly with a prisoner, let alone a bloodwitch. Let this serve as a reminder of what happens when you betray an elf.”
Vox tosses his blade to the ground and grabs my sister with both hands, eliciting a sharp yelp from behind the gag. Sin grabs me as soon as I try to storm forward, both arms banding around me like a steel prison. I writhe, I kick, I scream .
“Shh, shh, shh,” he warns in my ear. “You’re going to miss the best part.”
Vox wrests Cosmina around his body, giving us both of their backs. Tears stream down my cheeks, hot and salty and stinging, and my knees buckle, collapsing to the stone and forcing Sin to drop to his own behind me.
“Do you want a warning, or should I surprise you?” Vox asks.
He doesn’t wait for an answer before he shoves her through the window.