Page 54 of A Song of Air
“I am not going to hurt her.” He looked disgusted at the very idea.
“Then what do you want? Moreover, why should I help you? Leave the woman alone. You bother everyone else enough already.”
Weylyn glared. “Bryson is my mate.”
Iona rocked back as if he’d punched her. She... hadn’t been expectingthat.Mana, was the whole group of men in their party destined to find mates within the Elementals? It was a running joke between them all, and they’d even placed bets on it before they’d left Dana. It had all been good fun, and no one had really taken it seriously.
And now...
Fuck.
Iona pitied Bryson immediately.
The poor woman was stuck with Weylyn as afucking mate.
Did he even deserve one? She wondered, then shook her head.
“And what exactly do you want me to do about that information?”
“I need your help in conquering her heart.”
Of all the things he could have asked... Iona threw her head back and cackled. Upon seeing his unamused glare, she took a breath and blinked at him. “You’re fucking serious.”
He gritted his teeth and she saw the hard work of his jaw. He looked away. “You are aware she has a...” He choked on the word.
“Boyfriend?” Yeah, everyone got that. The pretty human man with the long, dark hair and big ego.
“She is proving difficult to convince.”
“Mana, Weylyn, you just met her two minutes ago. She’s not going to fall into your arms right away.”
“You fucked Julius within days.”
Her face heated. “I did kick him in the dick first.”
“Semantics.”
“Look,” she snapped. “Even if I did help you, which I won’t—”
“You will.”
Her hackles rose at the promise of a threat in his voice. The tips of her fingers frosted over, and she closed her hand into a fist, feeling the crack of the ice. “I won’t.”
He moved silently, quickly, in a way in which she couldn’t sense him or expect it. He was in front of her, his face so close that she could taste the scent of his body on her tongue. His glare was a force, his golden eyes flashing in the darkness, pupils dilating, his canines grating together.
“This is not afuckingrequest.”
Her blade was in her hand before she even blinked, pressed the edge just against the flesh of his neck, nicking the skin with the blade.
“Get. Away. From. Me.”
He didn’t. He didn’t move. He just pressed his neck against her blade himself, bending down until she was close enough to see the crazy gleam in his eyes and feelfear.
“I asked you as a courtesy,” he whispered. “But now you leave me no choice.”
A pain crippled her arm. Burning. Searing. Like something was being carved into her skin. Iona screamed and her sword of ice disintegrated into snow between them. She jerked back, clutching her forearm, watching as her flesh began to burn. It heated, not as painful as the scars along her back had been. This was a different kind of pain. A different kind of mark. It appeared on her ebony skin like a tattoo of a stamped, golden leaf just below her wrist.
“What thefuck?!” Iona screamed.
