Page 17 of Reigning
And I meet brilliant-green eyes.
“Did you say hi for me?” Ellise smiles widely, her hands folded neatly in front of her deep-red dress as she stands at my cell looking down on me. “Rime and I were really getting on well until recently.” Her attention drifts to the dozing shifter wrapped around me. “I don’t know what you’re doing to my device, but the control I have is stronger than whatever it is you’re doing.”
I part my lips to explain in the calmest way possible, but she cuts me off.
“I want to prove it to you.”
I dig my fingers into Rime’s arm. What did I just get him into?
“If you wanted your lovers here, all you had to ask, my darling.” Her fingers fist into her palm, and her body shakes with energy that I can physically feel snapping against my skin. Hot magic bites into my flesh; it sizzles all around us.
The door to my cell bangs on its hinges, rattling so hard I think it might fly off entirely. The press of the cold wind is so strong it steals my breath away, forcing me to close my eyes to the stinging feel of it.
The air cuts away. The stabbing energy prickling my skin dissolves. The magic in the air burns out.
His voice lights up the room.
“What did you hear? What did she say to you? Is she safe? Is she fucking safe, Chaos?” Kain’s words are slice into my life, and I open my eyes in a flash.
Three men stand at the center of the dungeon.
Chaos and Kain wear strangely elaborate black fur coats that cover them from head to toe. Sinister wears nothing but a thin black shirt and jeans. He’s the first to notice the obviously abrupt change in their scenery.
“Guys?” Sin turns on the heel of his boot, and his crimson eyes light up when he spots me.
He’s thrown against the far wall before he can say another word. His lean body spasms, but Ellise only drags him higher until he’s pinned like a moth to the center of the brick wall.
She holds him in place. Her gaze drifts, and with a twist of her wrist, I know she’s doing the same to Chaos. It seems she’s doing the same to Kain as well.
But he’s different.
He’s all lethal strength. And now someone’s fucking with his mate. It seems not even magic can stop him right now.
Kain’s body shakes with a growling roar climbing up his throat.
Ellise narrows her green eyes on him and arches her fingers even more but in the most subtle way. The clawing scratch of her power crawls over my skin in waves.
Rime stands, and his head tilts when he sees Chaos pressed hard into the far wall. He takes several steps toward his friend and waits there at the cell, but Chaos never moves a single inch.
Rage shudders through Rime’s shoulders, and any inkling of logic that was in his head vanishes. His fingers grip the bars until his knuckles turn white. The metal groans. The bulging curve of his biceps tenses, and the bars bow beneath his unnatural strength.
How much aggression can these men hold before true beasts lash out in growing form?
I press my back to the wall, measuring the limited space there is in my small cell.
Kain lifts his chin higher, takes a stumbling step against his unseen restraints, and then rushes her. His big body lunges, shoulders tense, legs pumping, ripping across the room with pure, determined speed. He crashes into her petite frame. A surprised scream echoes around the room. It’s all a blur of chaotic aggression, but it does exactly what he intends, it seems.
Sinister falls to the floor, landing on his feet and cracking his neck from side to side before striding forward. Chaos shakes to release the dragon he always turns to during a fight, but he reins it in.
There isn’t room down here. If any of them lose control, we could be buried under thousands of heavy bricks.
Rime physically calms the moment Chaos takes a single step. The rigid lines of his arms relax as a heavy breath slips from his lips. He visibly calms, and I go to him then, sliding my fingers down the length of his arm until he captures my hand in his.
My other hand secretly steals the key in his pocket.
I barely grind it into its lock before magic explodes through the room. I’m sent backward in the cell. Brick scrapes my back as I soar over the rough flooring. My head slams into the wall with slicing pain. Ringing circles in my mind. A trickle of warmth glides down my temple, but through my haze, all I can focus on is the way Ellise is standing over Kain.
“I, too, am a tamer.” Her palm pushes a stray hair back into her now messy blonde locks.
