Page 67 of Body of Echoes

Fletcher’s illuminated hand reached for my arm, but Graff was faster. We were swept up with wind, and with being utterly exhausted, I let him steer us to our room in the castle where I collapsed to the floor. My lungs crushed and shrunk, expelling all the oxygen I had left. No noise came out of my arid throat as I desperately tried to inhale. But my lungs could not expand. Panic raised the hairs at the base of my neck and heated my face. There was no air to breathe.

My hand to my throat, I reached out for Graff to help, tugging on his pants.

His eyes latched to mine, assessing. “Fuck! Ripley! Did you give up your magic?”

He scooped me into his arms, and we faded with the wind again, coming together outside the barrier. Air drowned my lungs as he bellowed, “You gave up your magic?”

He set me down on the grass as I wheezed in the relief of breathing.

“Are you serious?”

Tears watered my eyes from the pain. Even if I hadn’t attained everything I wanted, I was grateful for what I had gotten away with.

“You’ve locked yourself out of Elizy!”

I growled and spurted, “And we are no longer married.”

His fists clenched at his sides. “Like hell we aren’t. You may have gotten her to break the marriage bond, but that doesn’t mean you still aren’t my wife.”

I snarled at him, getting on my hands and knees. “Yes, it does. We are over.”

“It needs to be broken with an announcement from the king or queen. So as of right now, youarestill my wife.”

I sat back with my legs folded under me, waiting for myself to rebalance. “Without a bond, we are nothing.”

“I am still bonded to you, just like I was prior to the marriage.”

I leered to signal for him to back the hell off.

Graff took a step toward me, and seeing his bulky figure towering over me sent a lick of fear down my spine. The rage emitting off his skin was intimidating. “Fletcher is going to kill you for what you’ve done, and I might not be able to stop him. Do you even know what you did to him?”

“I gave him our magic,” I spat back confidently.

“You might have given him yoursplit magicwhen he works at the Cidris Facility.”

I furrowed my brow in both confusion and realization. “How do you know about my split magic?”

Before I could get an answer, Fletcher materialized with tendrils of fury lashing at his aura. His harsh gaze turned to Graff as he said through clenched teeth, “Leave us.”

Graff turned from me to Fletcher, standing his ground and puffing his chest. With a quick step, he stood in between both of us. “I see that look you have, and I will not allow you to harm her.”

He gave a perilous sneer as his voice sank low. “You’re scared of me without magic. You really want to see how dangerous I can be with it?”

Graff remained unmoving, clenching his fists as his magic weaved down his arms.

Without another word, Fletcher ignited his arms in lavender sparks that needed no time to gather in his fingers.

The way he wielded his own magic was both equivocally beautiful and utterly terrifying. He was in complete control, a force of nature as he commanded his magic to bend to his will. Did my magic—my split magic even exist in his body?

Graff was sent flying into the distance, screaming as he did. And when he teleported back in front of me, Fletcher grabbed him by the throat as metal cuffs wrapped around Graff’s wrists, cutting off his circulation and his magic. Then, he was sent flying back through the barrier and across to the other side of Elizy.

I put a hand up in front of me, shifting to my bottom and crawling backward, needing distance while his anger flared. “Fletcher…” I winced, shrinking back at his dominance. “Calm down.”

His brows pulled down and his eyes darkened. “You’ve just damned yourself,” he shouted with nasty grit.

He took a step toward me and I flinched. He ignored it as he knelt on one knee and pulled the collar of my shirt down to expose the ink embedded just below my clavicle. He inspected the tattoo, stood, and turned his back to me. When he turned around, he roared, “Eighteen years, Ripley! You’re going to die eighteen years early!”

I stood, steeling my spine, officially annoyed with his anger. “Well, I couldn’t let you dietenyears early. What answers were you even looking for to get that much, Fletcher?”

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