26. Bayn
BAYN
Oh hell, no!
She did NOT just put a binding on me.
The fuck?
I tried to slap her, like she’d done to me, but my arm only got so far, frozen in the air. I pushed harder, muscles bunching so hard they’d hurt tomorrow.
I roared my fury in her face… or I would have, but nothing came out. In fact, my rage was slowly draining out of me, despite that I should feel even more enraged at this violation.
“What… did… you… do?” I forced those words out, inwardly irate at how calm I sounded.
“Fuck,” she hissed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to do that. It just happened. I’m not trying to control you, but you were a smidge terrifying there, so forgive me if I acted on instinct. Still, I was wrong to bind you, let me undo it.”
No!
I wanted to recoil. I would not let her touch me again. But my body didn’t get the message. My head nodded as I knelt to her level, tilting up my face for her to touch as she had before.
This binding forced me to obey her.
It galled me to no end, how easily she’d subdued me. I was nothing to her, a pawn, a toy. And that should have infuriated me, but it didn’t, because she’d even somehow mastered my emotions.
I’d been more than a little distracted by my rage at the time, but I tried to recall what she’d said when I’d felt her power take me.
Listen to me. Calm. The fuck. Down!
The command implicit in both phrases had been imprinted on my soul. I would listen to her, do whatever she asked, and I would do it all like a passive little baby. She hadn’t even left me my own feelings!
This was outrageous!
But also, acceptable.
No! It wasn’t acceptable at all! But I couldn’t stay mad at her for any length of time because of the binding!
She placed her hands on my face as she’d done before and closed her eyes.
Nothing happened. Her power flowed into me… but my fury didn’t return.
She grimaced, face tightening. “Ah… I know how to break a binding,” she mumbled. “And I should be able to break my own, but… nothing’s happening.”
Fucking hell!
Or rather, this was fine, I was sure she was trying really hard.
No! Fuck! Stop that!
“Izzy? You okay?” the dragon asked. “What’s wrong?”
She released me with a huff.
“Sorry,” she whispered intently at me, then turned to him. “I don’t know. I put a binding on him, but now I can’t remove it, and I really should. No one should be forced to serve another like this. It’s wrong.”
Hell right, it is!
And since I agreed with her, some anger returned. I’d been allowed to feel that one.
“Please,” I asked politely, which should have galled me. “I humbly ask you to remove this binding.”
Both she and the dragon looked at me like I had two heads.
“Wow… is the binding making you… nice?” she asked. She didn’t have to make it sound like such a foreign concept.
“Yes,” I answered honestly. “My fury has been… quelled.”
Her eyes went wide and she gave a nervous little laugh. “Huh, didn’t know I could do that. Sorry. Ah… let me try and undo it again.”
She touched me once more.
Without my fury, other emotions took its place.
Her soft hands, cupping my face, drew forth a pleasant warmth, a soft arousal.
I certainly couldn’t deny her strength now, not after she’d subdued me like a meek little lamb.
And her beauty was… rather awe-inspiring, now that I was calm enough to see it and bask in it.
The truly strange part was, when I questioned myself and these feelings, wondering if they were part of the binding, I discovered… they weren’t. She was not making me desire her. That was all me.
Her power flowed again. This time, she added words.
“I release you,” she whispered. “You can feel what you like and do as you like.”
Nothing.
“Come on!” she hissed.
The words may have been an expression of her desire to free me, but no words were needed to make or break a binding, just intent.
More power flowed into me, and I was a little startled at the scale of her abilities.
She was far stronger than me. I should have expected as much.
I’d assumed I was roughly as strong as Saldrea, though I’d never had a chance to test myself against the false princess.
And Izzy had easily defeated Saldrea, so of course her power would exceed mine.
Still.
This woman’s power was…
…turning me on.
Fuck. No. I didn’t want a strong woman. Well, I did, but I wanted a strong woman who willingly submitted to me and let me control her. It had to be that way, so I could be sure she’d never betray me.
“Come on!” Izzy grunted and even more power flowed into me.
Something snapped.
All my fury came rushing back in a flood so powerful it physically pushed me away from Izzy. I screamed in rage, not even having the words to convey how fucking pissed I was.
And as thankful as I was that Izzy had let me go, I was also going to teach her a lesson about controlling another.
“I’m going to…” I growled, but I couldn’t finish that sentence. As blindingly enraged as I was, I couldn’t focus that fury on her. I couldn’t hurt her. Only part of the binding had been undone.
“Fuck, you only removed part of it!” I roared. “Let me go!”
“Well, your emotions are back. Yay?” she said, with a tired smile. “Sorry, but I tried as hard as I could to remove the binding, the rest… seems stuck for some reason.”
Stuck?
Stuck!
“You’d better find a way to unstick it, fast!” I screamed at her, then since looking at her was only inducing more fury — and giving me a headache because I couldn’t act on it — I stormed out.
Most of the royal residences on campus were along the cliff overlooking the ocean.
I headed for that drop off and leaped right off it.
Hardening my body and strengthening my legs, I landed on my feet, throwing up a massive cloud of sand, creating a five-foot-deep crater.
Then I turned and began punching the rock wall behind me.
I tried to imagine the rock was Izzy, but I couldn’t. Hurting her, even in my own thoughts, wasn’t possible. So, I hammered my fists into the rock until my power waned, my fists turned bloody, and I’d carved a cave thirty feet deep into the cliffside.
Even then, exhausted as I collapsed onto the rock, my anger still rode me.
How could she do this? Controlling me. It went against everything I stood for to have a woman control me… again!
There was no way I’d ever trust her. The thought of our political marriage sickened me. Though, that seemed unlikely now, since I’d failed to bring the titans to our side.
My rage turned into a vicious self-loathing, and I threw myself against the jagged rock in this cave over and over to punish myself.
I’d failed.
I’d failed myself.
I’d failed my sister.
I’d failed my own kind.
I’d failed the world!
Never in history had there been a more epic failure than me.
Izzy — treacherous bitch that she was — didn’t deserve me.
Perhaps I’d walk into the ocean and die.
I didn’t, but I stayed in the cave, bloody and broken, contemplating it for a long time.