Page 106 of Wrath

Beating the shit out of ten humans.

The human warriors all rushed at him at the same time, their faces drawn tight in concentration, but Ryland dived out of the way without even breaking a sweat. He straightened, glared, andthen threw his hand out, shadows cracking against the back of the nearest soldier and taking him to his knees.

A second man ran at Ryland, but my shadow prince simply dematerialized in a cloud of darkness before reappearing directly behind him. Two shadows coiled around the stranger’s neck, and the man fell limp, his eyes fluttering shut.

“What the fuck is going on?” I whispered, joining Mali and a few other humans and nightmares.

All of them watched the fight in rapt fascination.

“Training,” Mali responded, then winced as Ryland landed a particularly brutal blow to the head of an encroaching soldier.

“And that involves beating the shit out of our men and women?” I asked, arching an eyebrow.

Mali dragged a hand down her face. She looked tired, with violet bags underneath both of her glassy eyes. Then again, she always looked tired, as if her time with Aaliyah had physically altered something inside of her.

It made my heart hurt to see her like this.

“Ryland has been in a…” She canted her head from side to side, searching for the right word. “Mood.”

“A mood,” I repeated.

She nodded and refocused on the fight.

Ryland had just used his shadows to throw another soldier down. I wished I could see his expression, but the same darkness he used as weapons hovered around his face, obscuring his features from view. I knew it was because of his scarring. He didn’t like it when people stared, or worse—pitied him.

But I’d never seen him act quite like this before, as if he barely had control of the rage percolating inside of him.

“Did something happen?” Immediately, my mind traveled to Seth—Ryland’s father—who we’d left behind.

If something had happened to him…

“Not that I know of.” Mali’s brows puckered in contemplation. “At the very least, Atta didn’t say anything in her last letter.”

Something heavy and poignant settled in the air between us. I shuffled from foot to foot as I debated my next words.

“How are things going with Atta?” I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye before refocusing straight ahead.

Mali sighed, the noise rife with unencumbered pain. “I miss her so damn much. But she won’t talk to me outside of letters. With the majority of the mages on our side, she has the ability to, but she just…won’t.” Tears glistened in her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. “I think I really screwed things up with her.”

Hesitantly, I reached for her and placed an arm around her waist. She immediately dropped her head onto my shoulder, tiny sniffles escaping her. This reminded me so much of how we were with each other way back when, before life went to shit. A pang reverberated in my chest.

I missed her almost as much as I missed Diego. It was a different type of nostalgic ache, though. Diego hadn’t chosen to die, but Malididchoose to leave us and join Aaliyah. Yes, she’d done it in a misguided attempt to protect us all, but it didn’t change matters. Her actions were solely her own, and others got hurt because of them.

Yet, despite all we’d been through together, my heart hadn’t hardened enough to shut her out completely.

“You’ll win her back, Mal. I know that for a fact.” I placed my head overtop of hers briefly before releasing her and stepping away. “You’re too…”

I struggled to find a word.

“Annoying? Pigheaded? Determined?” Mali filled in, chuckling blithely.

She rubbed at her eyes with the backs of her hands.

“Tenacious,” I settled on at last. “You won’t give up without one hell of a fight.”

Shouting pulled my attention back to the fighting ring, just in time to see one of our soldiers sail through the air and land with a threatening crack against the nearest tree. Immediately, the few healers we had on staff ran to check on him, but I couldn’t pull my attention off of a trembling Ryland, standing near the edge of the ring with his back bowed.

“Ry!” I snapped, hurrying forward, anger thrumming through my veins like an electric wire.

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