37. Bayn
BAYN
I felt more than saw Izzy’s transformation. Then my mother went flying backward, which distracted me enough for my father to land a heavy blow to my chest, knocking me back and winding me.
I’d never tested myself against my father before.
I’d always assumed we were close in strength, with myself being slightly stronger.
That assumption was tested now. My father had gone absolutely berserk when the fight had started and I’d been on the defensive from the get-go.
Yet, I’d matched him, blow for blow, able to deflect or evade his strikes and even get in a couple of my own, though they didn’t land either.
We’d been fairly evenly matched… until now.
After my lapse in attention and my father’s stunning strike he pounced on that opportunity and swept my legs out from under me before I could move.
I fell, hard, the wind knocked out of me again.
And that gave my father another second’s advantage, dropping hard with both knees onto my chest and crushing the air out of me once more.
I raised my arms to block my face as his fists rained down. My forearms took the brunt of his beating, until he switched to pummeling my upper chest.
I panicked.
I couldn’t lose this fight.
Losing was death.
I’d lost so much already. I’d lost my home, my people, and so much of who I was. I’d been under someone else’s thumb so long I’d forgotten my pride and heritage. I couldn’t lose now.
I bucked hard, even though I couldn’t breathe, even with my father’s weight on me, even bruised and broken as I was, I put everything I had into the move.
My father slipped to one side and with a wild punch — which landed, surprising me — I knocked him off me, then I rolled away. I needed a second to recover, regain control, but my father was still raving mad and launched himself at me.
And hit Izzy.
She caught him in his wild charge and easily deflected him, throwing him with enough force to hurl him hundreds of feet into the wall of the arena, where he left a dent in the stone before he fell.
“You need a sec?” she asked, standing over me.
I did.
Even if I didn’t want to admit it. It felt like weakness… and yet…
I nodded.
I couldn’t deny the truth. Izzy had saved me. She’d protected me. No one had ever done that for me. As much as it felt like weakness, I was also overcome with gratitude. Did I want to fight my own fights? Sure. But I’d been on the back foot and needed time to recover.
I got up slowly as my breath returned, my strength finally rebounding.
When I looked over at Izzy, I finally noticed… she was stark naked. Of course she was. Her clothes wouldn’t have survived this growth.
“You look good kicking ass,” I breathed.
“Hell, yeah I do,” she retorted.
I laughed.
“If you want to finish your father yourself…?” She let that question hang.
I smiled. I did. I really did. But something was starting to dawn on me. Life could be easier when you had help. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t a weakness to ask for help, but a strength.
“Let’s do it together,” I said.
She smiled.
I had to admit, she looked damn good as a titan. I tore my eyes off her and back to my father, who’d recovered and was charging back at us.
And in that instant, I saw him for what he was.
The man was unhinged. He’d always been a pretentious blowhard.
A lot of that came with being a titan and literally the strongest of the strong.
He’d bested all challengers over his long life.
Yet his arrogance blinded him, unbalanced him.
He wasn’t the stalwart king I’d thought him to be as a boy.
He was a scared little man, afraid that one day someone stronger would come along.
Despite all his power, he still feared everyone around him…
…just like Valnea.
Maybe that’s why the two of them had hit it off.
It didn’t matter anymore. Here and now, I’d end him, we’d end him, Izzy and me. It was time for the titans to return to logic and rational behavior. Time to end the tyranny.
My father summoned earth to launch himself at me.
“Jump forward!” Izzy shouted and I did. At the same time a massive rock wall shunted up in front of my father mid-leap. He crashed into it, shattering the stone, slowing his advance. And I hit him a second later, driving him back, down to the ground, landing on him.
He grunted but was already trying to roll over and throw me off.
I blocked his elbow strike with a kick of my own, even as stone surged up over him trapping his legs in place while half rolled over.
My father shouted as his earth magic surged.
The stone didn’t budge.
Izzy strode into view. Proud and strong and sexy as fuck.
“He’s all yours,” she said.
“Elven whore!” my father shouted. “You’ve befouled my son! All of titan kind-shall—”
My foot landed so hard on his neck, his spine snapped and his head rolled away, still looking startled.
“—revere me as their queen?” Izzy finished. “Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say.”
She held out a hand to me and I took it, raising our joined hands above our head as Izzy — surprisingly — surged the stone beneath us and raised us up a few hundred feet for everyone to see.
“You remember you’re naked, right?” I whispered out of the side of my mouth.
“Let them see their new queen in all her glory,” she whispered back.
Fuck yeah. Right answer.
The crowd didn’t seem to know what to do.
“Trust me?” I whispered.
“Not entirely, but right now, sure.”
I used her hand in mine to pull her close then bent her back in a vicious dip of a kiss, one hand reaching up to crush her breast as I did so.
The crowd went nuts.
Izzy laughed against my lips. And when I pulled back enough for her to speak, she whispered. “Smart. Show them who’s boss? Claim your queen. I get it.”
She did.
She really did.
I’d needed to show these titans that I — a titan — was the one in charge. That I could dominate this woman who’d proven herself to be a force to be reckoned with.
Meanwhile, Izzy knew it was just a show.
Izzy had bested my mother — whom many said had been stronger than my father — in a matter of seconds, crushing her chest. Then she’d thrown my father across the ring. There was no denying her strength and power.
We left the arena, hand in hand, triumphant, making our way back to where we’d left Koar. And as we walked, I tried to sort through the surge of new emotions welling within me.
I felt… stronger with Izzy. Was that strange?
How could another person, who was clearly more powerful than me, make me feel stronger? The answer was clear, if unexpected. Because Izzy wasn’t like others in this world. She didn’t use her strength to push others down, but to lift them up. She made everyone around her better, stronger.
And with this strength and the knowledge of Izzy’s power, I felt…
safe. Not entirely, not fully, but there was a hint of this new emotion: security.
I’d never felt anything like this my entire life, always fighting, always proving myself, always scrambling for every inch of power, because I had to, to keep myself unharmed.
I’d never been truly safe. But I was safe with Izzy, even if I didn’t allow myself to give into this sensation quite yet.
Because I still didn’t fully trust her.
I was starting to, and that was a huge leap for me. I’d never trusted anyone except my sister and a few close friends. Though if I was being honest, even my friends I’d always wondered about. Would they betray me? Everyone else had. I hadn’t even fully trusted those closest to me.
But Izzy.
I could trust her. Even if I didn’t let myself admit it yet.
I trusted her because she was damn strong. She could control me — her binding still did control me — but she’d never once used her power or the binding to harm me. She didn’t lord it over me. She’d been trying to get rid of it, and I honestly believed she wanted it gone.
She didn’t make me feel small, controlled. She lifted me up and made me stronger.
Which shattered all my assumptions about power.
I’d thought power was control. I’d felt powerless for so long because I couldn’t control people the way I wished. But I’d been shown a different sort of power. One that wasn’t about posturing and manipulation and control, but was instead uplifting, giving and generous.
Maybe all my assumptions had been wrong.
Maybe I knew nothing of real power.
But now… I desperately wanted to learn.
And I had the perfect mentor to instruct me, the proud and stunning woman who would be my wife. And looking at her, another new and strange emotion crept into my heart, something… soft and giving and caring.
It felt so wrong.
But also very right.
Whatever it was… it was going to take some getting used to.