Page 82 of Crown of Light and Ashes
"Aslan, stop!" I plead through swelling lips, struggling against his grip. "This isn't you!"
"Isn't it?" he challenges, backhanding me across the other cheek. The force tears my lip completely, blood trickling down my chin. One hand moves to my throat while the other grabs a fistful of my hair, yanking my head back. "How would you know? You replaced me the moment I was gone."
I bring my knee up sharply, connecting with his groin. He doubles over with a curse, and I shove him away, scrambling for the door on hands and knees. But the drug and beating have left me weaker than I realized. My legs give out halfway across the room, sending me crashing face-first to the floor. Wood splinters bite into my palms and cheeks.
He recovers too quickly, grabbing my ankle and dragging me back across the rough planks. I kick and fight, my fingers clawing at the wooden floor until my nails tear and bleed, but I'm no match forhis strength in my current state. He flips me over and drives his knee into my ribs. I gasp, the wind knocked out of me.
"Get the potion," he commands, straddling my hips to immobilize me, his weight pressing against my bruised ribs. When I continue to struggle, his fist crashes into my left eye. Pain explodes through my skull, and I know it will swell shut within minutes. "Drink it, and this all ends."
"No!" I twist beneath him, but he captures my wrists, pinning them above my head with one strong hand. My torn lip throbs, my eye is already swelling, and scrapes burn along my cheek and palms where the rough wood tore my skin.
"Then I'll make you," he growls, reaching for the vial with his free hand.
I buck upward, trying to throw him off despite my battered state. The movement makes my dress ride up, and something in his expression changes—darkens with an intent that sends ice through my veins.
"So eager to move against me now," he says, voice dropping to a dangerous purr that sounds nothing like Aslan. "Were you this responsive with him? Did you fight before surrendering?"
"Let me go," I demand, renewing my struggles despite the pain in my ribs and the throbbing in my swollen eye.
His hand leaves my wrists, but before I can capitalize on the freedom, it clamps around my throat instead. My vision clouds as he squeezes, just enough to restrict my air without cutting it off completely—the taste of copper from my bleeding mouth pools on my tongue.
"I could take what you gave him,” he says, his other hand trailing down my body to the hem of my dress. "Show you the difference between a man who loves you and a monster who only wants to possess you."
Horror floods me as I understand his intention. "Aslan, no. Please."
But the eyes that stare down at me aren't Aslan's anymore. The amber warmth has been completely overtaken by flat, dead black—Damir's eyes, or something darker still.
"Aslan can't help you now," a voice that's no longer even pretending to be my former lover says. "He's buried too deep, screaming where no one can hear him."
I roll away, scrambling toward the fallen vial. Not to drink it—to use as a weapon if I must. My fingers close around the cool glass just as he grabs my injured arm again, sending waves of agony up to my shoulder as the wound reopens completely.
Crimson streams down my arm, dripping onto the floor as he drags me back, tearing my dress further in the process. The fabric hangs from my shoulders in tatters, exposing more skin than it covers. My wounded lip continues to bleed, and I can barely see through my swollen left eye.
"Let her go!" Banu screams, her voice finally penetrating the barrier as cracks in the walls widen. "Aslan, stop this!" Banu's voice alters, waves hit the windows, and glass cascades into the room. I turn my face away as shards become mini missiles, feeling them scrape against my already battered cheeks. A few lodge into Damir's face, but he pulls them out as if they are annoying flies. He doesn't slow down as he flips me onto my back. His hands now work at the fastenings of my underpants, yanking them down brutally. I claw at his scratched face again, hoping to deepen the cuts that I made earlier. A slap snaps my head to the left with a force that makes me see stars. My vision dims as panic overwhelms me, crimson from my reopened mouth spattering across the floor.
"Please," I beg through my swollen, bleeding mouth, no longer certain who I'm pleading with—Aslan, Damir, or whatever dark entity now controls them both. "Don't do this."
He forces my legs apart, positioninghimself between them. Tears stream down my face, mixing with the crimson from my torn lip and the scrapes on my cheek as I realize what's about to happen—the ultimate betrayal from the man I once loved. The magical bond, muted but not severed, suddenly flares to life as my terror peaks, and I realize Kaan can feel every moment of my agony.
The cottage shakes more violently, dust and debris raining down as Banu's assault on the barrier intensifies. A scream of agony from my friend outside squeezes my heart and the structure. A support beam cracks overhead, but the man who was once Aslan doesn't even look up, his focus entirely on the violation he's about to commit. A sob tears from me, my battered face a mask of pain and terror. "Please!"
I close my eyes, gathering what little strength remains. I won't surrender without a fight, even if it's hopeless. I know that means he will have to penetrate me first. An angry cry pours from me at the thought, crimson speckling my chin as I cry out.
The door explodes inward with a deafening crash, torn completely from its hinges by a wave of pure shadow. Cold air rushes in, and with it, a darkness so complete it devours the firelight, putting it out. I watch as frost coats the room within seconds, my breath coming in painful puffs that make my wounded lip sting.
Standing in the doorway, shadows writhing around him like living weapons, eyes blazing with murderous fury, is Kaan.
Chapter Twenty-three
The Shadow's Wrath
Kaan
THE COTTAGE TREMBLES as if the world itself recoils in fear. Frost crystallizes across the walls in delicate, deadly patterns, extinguishing the fire in an instant. The temperature plummets so rapidly that breath clouds in the air like frightened spirits.
I stand perfectly still in the doorway, my body rigid with a fury so intense it threatens to consume me from within. My shadows betray my wrath—they writhe in violent, frenzied coils around me, scraping the ceiling, lashing at the walls, responding to the molten rage coursing through my veins.
My eyes find Nesilhan first—my wife, my possession, mine—with her dress torn open, fear in her golden eyes, blood trickling from her arm. Purple bruises mottle her face, her lip split and swollen. Her left eye is nearly closed from what must have been a vicious blow.Something primal and vicious claws inside my chest at the sight of her violation. Then I see Damir straddling her, his intentions unmistakable, and something in me snaps. A cold, deadly clarity descends over my mind even as my magic threatens to rip the cottage apart.
