Page 11 of Faerie Fate
Horror moved my limbs, my wolf and I in accord. I slammed my head into his face, cracking the top of my skull against Kendrick’s nose.
He reared back with a roar and blood poured from the broken cartilage.
I struggled against the ropes but they held firm. I sent a wave of magic out to them.Loosen!It was a gamble to use my mental manipulation but I was desperate. Somethinghadto work.
The magic was there, boiling inside me, ready to be used if I pushed hard enough.
The little bit of give on my left wrist grew and at last I slid my hand free, slashing my claws at Kendrick when he grabbed for me again. Fighting back. I’d always fight back.
I’d always use whatever I had to make sure he never touched me again. “You animal!”
It was an insult to animals, though.
He batted my claws like swatting an annoying bug. Our palms connected but the force of his hit sent me, and the chair, careening into the wall. Wood cracked against stone. I tumbled to the floor.
My skin chilled, then went inferno hot, broke out in bumps as I slashed through the second binding on my right wrist with my claws. Circulation returned to my wrists so fast it made me dizzy.
As soon as the bindings on my ankles were off, my magic returned to me in a rush. My awareness of it, anyway. The ropes must have been charged with magic dampening spells or runes or something.
What an asshole.
Magic helped me stand when my legs refused to hold me, and the moment I rose, my wolf demanded supremacy. I gave it to her. Kendrick was not my alpha, and he never would be.
He had no right to touch me this way. No right to force a mate bond on me when I didn’t consent.
“You wretched fucking bitch!” Kendrick sneered at me through the cascading blood, his face flushing.
I launched myself at him with as much strength as I could muster. The momentum of the clash sent us both careening across the room, and I dug my thumbs into the corners of his eyes, ready to carve them out.
Then he’d never look at me again.
His roar shifted from outrage to just pure fury. He wasn’t the only one. I sent every bit of magic inside of me toward him, shooting it like an arrow to his heart.
Die, already!
Kendrick did not, in fact, die.
He barely faltered as I threw spells at him, using every last bit of knowledge I’d taken from the fae academy. Nothing hit him. The magic was useless although I knew the toll it took on me. My strength flagged.
Bit by bit, the deep well of magic inside of me drained until I was left half shifted and confused.
Kendrick moved with a fluid if brutal grace, meeting my attacks like he was playing along and biding his time before I ultimately lost.
But I wasn’t giving up that easily. I fought for my survival, for my freedom, physically using arms and legs and fists against him when the spellwork bounced right off.
Screeching, I launched myself again at Kendrick, landing on his back and sending a spell slamming into either side of his head.
This time, you’re going down.
If I couldn’t kill him with magic, then I’d incapacitate him long enough to get the hell out of there.
It churned my stomach to touch him this way, to feel his energy as I reached into him, drawing him into me so I could use a more concentrated blast of cognitive manipulation to drop him.
Kendrick chuckled. “Oh, I don’t think so.”
A small ripple of shock doused me like cold water before he flung himself backward. He slammed the full weight of his body into mine, hard enough to crush my bones, to grind my insides into dust.
“None of that fae shit here. It reeks.”
