Eyes on Me
When I came around, hands with tight grips were holding my upper arms and a rough rope bound my wrists in front of me.
They were carrying me with my feet dragging on the ground as my chin rested on my chest. The back of my head throbbed.
I couldn’t tell if my eyes were open or not, but the smell of potatoes and metallic blood met my nose.
I would have found the fact that these unknown people covered my head with a potato sack funny if I didn’t feel the beast in my chest waking up and stretching its claws. My anger was building.
I was thrown to the ground before a booted foot connected with my stomach, then another to the back of my thighs, making me curl inward from the pain.
Over the blood pounding in my ears, all I could hear were grunts from my attackers. None spoke. But I knew there had to be at least two.
I let out a cry of pain when one kick connected somewhere around my kidney, making me still.
Over and over, they kicked me, dragging me mentally back to the banshee’s truth trial, where I’d watched Nella get beaten to death by Cassius and Aemilia—I was bound both in body and in mind.
Every place they kicked felt like bruises were already forming, and I was desperately trying to protect my organs and face, curled up like a poor, pathetic, and helpless little child.
I hated that tears fell. Besides the pain, I felt weak and alone. Powerless.
The beast was awake and snarling. Thoughts of retribution started swirling through my mind, but I tried to keep the beast from reacting further. I hated these people for what they were doing to me, but even more so, I feared what would happen if the beast lashed out.
“Stop…dangerous,” I coughed out, tasting blood.
“That’s right, you are dangerous.” It was a male voice I didn’t recognize.
“Naci? What’s going on?”
The next kick hit my face, and I felt a splitting pain across my cheekbone, as if it might have fractured. I could feel the shadows moving through my veins, getting ready to strike. I was trying to hold it in, tell it no, but…
But before I could answer Noxie my mind went suddenly calm. These fuckers wanted to fight? They deserved a fight then.
I felt vaguely that those weren’t my thoughts. Or maybe they were my thoughts, but the monster’s desires tainted them. I still wasn’t sure.
“I suggest you leave this camp. If you don’t, we’ll kill you. We saw what you did the night you got here. You’re a threat to us all,” a second, still unknown, voice said.
“If you saw that, then you know how idiotic it was for you to do this,” I said through gritted teeth as I rolled over, trying to push myself up onto all fours with my hands still tied.
I didn’t know what was happening beyond the sack over my head, but I heard their retreating steps over the gravel, followed by a panicked, “Come on, let’s go!”
I felt shadow tendrils extend from me. They connected with three bodies and lifted them—I could feel their racing heartbeats, fast-pumping blood, strained muscles under my grip. So they thought three against one blindfolded and bound female was a fair fight?
Game on.
They’d awoken the beast, so I guessed it was fair now, I thought with a smile. Their shouts of fear were deeply satisfying. I didn’t want to kill them—not yet—I wanted to toy with them first, to give them a taste of their own medicine.
I freed my hands from the rope easily and reached up to pull the sack off my head, and what I saw sent a pang through my raging heart. I didn’t know two of the males suspended before me, but the third was the young one from the blacksmith’s. His face was full of so much hatred.
I didn’t want to hurt him. He was just scared. I’d seen it in his face at the blacksmith’s too.
But fifteen was close enough to be a man—a male, in his case—and he came here tonight. He probably delivered a few kicks that now had aches blooming across my body. He deserved the same as the other two.
Gods, the warring thoughts were making my head spin.
Before I could do or think anything else, another voice joined the mix from behind me.
“Naci! Put them down!”
Drayce.
“They blinded me, bound me, beat me! They deserve this!” My voice was hysterical and terrifying. I barely recognized it as mine.
Drayce stepped in front of me, inches from my face, and took up my entire plane of sight.
“And I will make them pay for what they’ve done.
But let me do that. Don’t become what they fear you are.
You are not a monster. You are in control.
” His eyes softened, searching my face. “Come back to me, Naci.”
His words gave both the beast and me pause.
Come back to me, Naci, he’d said.
I lowered my eyes to find his golden glow was pulsing frantically, red and black swirling at the edges. I couldn’t tell what magic he used, or what I was seeing.
“Eyes on mine, Naci. Listen to my voice. These assholes deserve punishment, but you don’t deserve to bear the burden of giving it.”
I heard more boot steps approaching behind me, but Drayce just looked over my shoulder and held up a hand, telling them to stop.
“But I want to give it!” Black tinted my vision.
“No, you don’t. I know you don’t.”
The incessant pulse behind my anger slowed.
I shook my head, trying to decouple my honest thoughts from those influenced by the beast’s rage. I swore I heard the thing laugh in the recesses of my mind.
My face hurt so badly, hot blood still dripping down my cheek and nose. Drayce’s jaw was clenched, and I swore his honey eyes were turning black.
He was angry. So very angry. Gods, I didn’t want him to be angry at me.
With a deep breath, I pulled the shadows back into my heart. I didn’t know how. There was no conscious thought behind it, it just…happened. I heard the three attackers fall to the ground behind Drayce, but his eyes never left mine.
“Leave.”
They didn’t hesitate. They scattered.
“I’ll deal with them later, I promise. But right now, I need you to focus on me.”
His hand came up to cup my nonbroken cheek, shocking me with the intimacy and gentleness. I closed my eyes to his touch and felt the final clutches of shadow recede from my veins, leaving me to collapse in pain and exhaustion, feeling every kick that had been bestowed on my bruised body.
Drayce caught me before I hit the ground and lifted me into his arms. Clutched to his chest, I could feel him shaking, but his steps were steady.
I wasn’t sure where he was taking me, but prickling tears poured from my eyes. There was no fight left in me, not even to protest the closeness.
“They all hate me here,” I said.
“They fear your powers. There is a difference. But that doesn’t make your powers bad, Naci. I need you to understand that. You pulled them back tonight. You can control them.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him it wasn’t me, that the beast let go for a reason I was unaware of.
He walked in silence until we reached a building I hadn’t been inside yet. But immediately upon entering, I knew it was an infirmary. He laid me on a bed. All around us were shelves with salves, liquids, and herbs. A young female rushed in from the back as Drayce told her what they had done.
“I’d like to put her to sleep before I set to work on the facial injuries. Will that be alright?” the healer asked.
She had a kind face and a soothing voice. She was uniquely beautiful, with rosy cheeks on her porcelain skin and blue-gray eyes that were mesmerizing. I’d never seen blonde hair so light it was nearly white.
Drayce knelt beside the bed and squeezed my hand. “Elene will take good care of you, and I’ll be right here when you wake up.”
I despised being so vulnerable and relying on him so much, but I nodded.
Elene handed me a small green bottle. “Drink that, and you’ll fall right into a warm sleep. When you wake, you’ll be completely back to normal.”
I lifted my head and raised the bottle to my lips, drinking every last drop. It was bitter, tasting of unripe berries with a bit of spice. Instantly, I felt a drowsy warmth spreading through my limbs.
“Drayce, I don’t want you to be angry with me. I’m sorry,” I said as I fought to keep my eyes open.
“Don’t. You have nothing to apologize for.” He said something else that I didn’t fully register as the warmth turned to blissful weightlessness.
“Noxie, I’m…”
The last thing I heard before the world ceased around me was a bellow of rage, feral and terrifying.
* * *
When I woke, I opened my eyes to find Drayce sleeping in a chair nearby in the empty room of beds. His golden glow was calm and steady as sunlight poured through the window.
I touched my face where my nose and cheek had been bruised and bleeding to feel nothing, no pain. I laid there for a few minutes thinking through the events of the night before. More than the anger from what those males had done, I just felt confused by the shadows’ retreat.
And by the shift in Drayce’s demeanor.
“Jeez, Naci, I was worried sick! Are you okay?” As always, Noxie was there.
“I’m growing tired of worrying you and hearing you ask me if I’m okay…”
“Aerie told me what happened. I felt your pain while I was out hunting and you weren’t responding. By the time I got there, you were already here. We saw Drayce with those guys late last night. It wasn’t pretty.”
Was it twisted that Drayce punishing them for me gave me immense satisfaction? Most likely.
“I’m okay, Noxie.”
I wondered how many people knew about last night, if Aerie already knew.
“How do you feel?” Drayce was awake, eyes worried, boring into me.
“Like Garrick is gonna kick my ass for missing his workout this morning.”
He huffed a rare laugh, bringing a small smile to my face.
“Most likely.” He paused, looking at the open window above me. “I don’t want to talk about last night here. But I would like you to take combat and defensive lessons with Bramick. When you feel up to it.”
“I only took a couple of kicks to the face and vital organs. I’m not dying or anything. I can handle some fighting lessons.”
He laughed again.
“Where are they?” I asked tentatively.