Wrathborn #2
I raise my blades a fraction higher. “And yet,” I say quietly, “you both still made the choice for me.”
Power floods over me, and a sense of calm invades, simmering my rage. Pollock. His attempt to subdue me.
A fierce growl tears from my chest.
“Don’t you dare try to control me, Serpent.” I unleash the power in my own veins—not wild, not chaotic, but honed. Forged into place with surgical clarity. The beast coils tight beneath my skin, snarling, begging to be let out. I use her strength, her senses, and nothing more as I move.
Pollock strides forward at the same instant I do. He rips a useless lamp from the side table as I strike. Blade meets glass and explodes between us, shards raining down like shrapnel. I twist through it, bare feet sliding over hardwood, already repositioning.
He lunges.
I’m gone.
I pivot, slash low, and feel the bite of my blade slice deep through his thigh. He grunts—not in pain, but surprise—and I follow through, sweeping his legs out from under him. He hits the floor hard and immediately springs back up with predatory grace to face me once more.
“Back to that, are we?” he says, a smile blooming like this is a great game. “Fine, little one. I’ll be the bad guy if that’s what you need. I was only doing what I thought best.”
“My mind,” I snarl, advancing, tracking his every movement, “is not a maze for you to fucking play in.”
“Noted.”
“Oh no, Horseman.” I circle him, forcing him to turn, to react. “My point hasn’t been made yet, but when more of your immortal blood stains these blades, it will be.”
His eyes flare, wolf-bright, a feralness replacing all else. “Going to make me pay for my sins?” he asks with derision. “Make me repent?”
“You’re damn right I am.”
I strike again, faster this time, power singing through my arms.
He blocks with his forearm, then twists aside and back as my second blade whistles past his throat.
“You think I need another man,” I sneer while advancing, “bending my thoughts to his will?”
“Should I start my Hail Marys now,” he taunts, retreating a step, overturning a chair with his heel to keep distance between us, “or would a caning suffice as punishment?”
“Pollock!” Orán shouts as he steps forward.
Pollock doesn’t take his eyes off me. He lifts one hand, palm out. “No. You stay out of this.”
Then his voice slips into my skull—silk-wrapped steel, intimate and infuriating.
This is between you and me. Isn’t that right, Anam-cheangailte?
“Fuck you!”
His gaze traverses down my bare body. Oh, I plan on it, he murmurs back, satisfaction threading through the words. But first, it seems we have a few things to work out.
The unholy screech that leaves me is not fully human. “Get out of my fucking head!”
I go back further and recite the names to those faces inside my mind.
Before our identities were stripped from us.
Before the day we began to bleed. No more than children, but forced to bear unimaginable abuse and pain over and over again.
To have things stolen from us that never should have been.
Forced to bend. Forced to obey. This asshole has no idea what true punishment is, but he will.
I leap across the room, jump over the overturned couch, and let one of the daggers fly.
He catches it out of the air and fires it back at me. It whizzes past my face and buries itself in a kitchen cabinet with a thunk.
I stomp on the floorboard beneath my foot and kick it aside to reveal a hidey-hole. I bend slowly and keep my eyes on Pollock as he circles the couch.
When he sees his sword, his eyes flash with recognition and narrow on it.
“Look familiar? I’ve gotten quite good with it.” Dagger in one hand, his blade in the other, I attack.
Pollock doesn’t dodge. He takes the dagger in the gut so he can get within my reach. A painful grunt that borders on a growl leaves him. One hand clamps around my other wrist with crushing force, bones screaming as my fingers slacken and his blade hits the floor.
I twist the dagger in his stomach and take a bit of merriment in the agony that crosses his features. His brows pinch together, and his jaw flexes as it rearranges his insides.
Through gritted teeth, I say, “The last fucking thing I need, Mate, is another man asserting dominion over me.”
I rip the dagger free. Blood—dark and luminous—spills down his abdomen.
His other hand lashes out, knocking the blade from my grip as I try to drive it back into him. Metal skids across the floor. He crowds me, pressing forward, forcing me back step by step until my shoulders hit the wall.
I bring my knee up and crush his balls with all the strength I can manage. He folds forward. I headbutt him, then force him back with a shove. One kick sends him stumbling over the hole in the floor. His growl is all animal—rage and frustration tangled together—as he loses his footing and drops.
His gaze flicks to Orán then. “A little help here, Brother.”
Orán leans against the doorway, his gaze fixed on me. Our eyes meet for a beat, then his look slides to Pollock. “Oh, now you want my help.” His voice is dry as bone. “No. I think not. Instead of de-escalating, you’ve only made things worse.”
Power begins to bleed from Pollock as he gets to his feet. Think rationally, Eridessa. This doesn’t need to be a fight to the death. I was searching for answers, unlocking your past to see how those people corrupted your thoughts.
“So you can what?” I spit, “Do the same damn thing?”
I reach underneath the counter and tear the spear from its placement. I draw it back quickly, then the spear leaves my hand before Pollock can so much as take another breath.
The tip punches through Pollock’s abdomen with a wet, divine thunk, the blessed metal sinking deep enough that the back end hits the wall and the shaft rattles. For one suspended heartbeat, the room goes still.
He looks down in disbelief. Even the wolf inside him seems stunned as dark blood spills over the carved runes etched into the shaft. The holy metal smokes where it rests inside him.
Orán inhales sharply.
Pollock lifts his gaze to mine.
I smirk. “Still think I need saving?”
A growl builds and tears from him—no longer polished by wit or control. He grips the spear with both hands and rips it free in one violent motion, spraying blood everywhere.
Without breaking eye contact, he hurls the spear. It slices across my cheek, takes off the tip of my ear, and buries itself into the wall beside my head with a thunderous crack, the shaft a mere inch from my face.
A warning.
A promise.
That, my dear mate, was the last time you’ll spill my blood without consequence. His power, his influence over my emotions, doubles, and I fight to hold on to my anger, but it’s like fighting through a balm of quicksand.
A hymn comes to me then. One of Rayla’s favorites.
I begin to sing it—not for comfort, but to drown him out. To focus my thoughts. To steady my hands. To recall vows buried deep in the bones of who I am.
A Chosen.
The Chosen. The last of my Order.
Turning, I rip the painting from the wall and seize the whip strapped to the back of it before dropping it to the floor. The silver comes alive in my hands as it unravels, liquid-bright and humming. I test it once, flicking my wrist, then bring it overhead and crack it.
“Blessed daughters,
born of strife, born of flame,
carry light where night has risen,
speak His mercy,
guard His name.
“When the earth is torn,
when the faithful kneel alone,
let your hearts remain unbroken—
for no child walks unseen or unknown.”
On the next purposeful strike, the lash whistles through the air and lands across Pollock’s upper body. His flesh splits as easily as silk. The wound is deep and cuts him from throat to chest.
“You were saying, Mate?”
He brushes his hand over the wound as it slowly mends, his hand coming away coated and dripping blood.
You will pay for that. Put down the weapon, Eridessa.
No, I think not.
“If we are called to stand in shadow,
if we are called to bleed and fall,
let our suffering be an offering—
His love for those chosen endureth all.”
Who knew my mate had such a beautiful voice? Truly, I’m intrigued.
He doesn’t react at all when I whip him again. He just takes the hit and steadily strides toward me.
The next time I unleash it, he grabs the whip and coils it around his fist, slicing into his palm as he winds it tight and yanks. I am dragged forward hard enough that my boots leave the floor.
A humorless chuckle slips from my throat as I spin with the pull and close the distance deliberately. I drive my claws, which have grown sharp in seconds, into his new wound, fingers spearing inside torn muscle, and for the first time, I smile up at him.
“By silver moon and crimson morning,
by thorn and vow, by scar and star,
we meet the darkness without trembling—
for He remembers who we are.”
He smiles back, all teeth and fang—a malicious feral smile as he clamps a hand around my throat.
“I am not your enemy.”
I hiss, “Your actions say otherwise.”
His eyes search my face. For a fraction of a second, something shifts in his expression. Not dominance. Not fury. Something almost… contemplative as his anger recedes.
“We’re mates, Eridessa,” he says, quieter now. “I know you feel it. Your wolf recognizes the bond we share. But even before we became what we now are, you called to me. I believe there was a reason you sought me out. If you’d only stop to think, you’d see—”