Page 98 of Soulbound
Cleo gathered her own power and reached out, hauling him back sharply. He staggered as she used telepathy against him, ripping at his coat. It was never her forte, and she barely managed to stop him in time, but he didn't take that final, fatal step.
"Under the rug," she gasped, as he looked back at her. "It's a trap."
Cold green eyes cut her way, Morgana's lips thinning. "You're starting to get on my nerves, dear daughter-in-law."
Cleo dragged herself to her feet, and cried out in surprise when one of the mage globes suddenly hurtled toward her.
* * *
Cleo crossed her wrists at the last moment, a ward coalescing around her. Red heat exploded over the ward, the impact driving her to the floor.
Sebastian's heart leaped into his throat, his hand outstretched toward her.
But the heat died down, and Cleo looked up at him, wary, but untouched. "I'll shield myself."
He turned back to his mother, rage turning into crystalline clarity. There was nothing Morgana could ever do to him to break him. But this... this crossed every line he owned.
The walls of the house started shaking again, and wind whipped through the house as he summoned it into a vortex. Glass smashed somewhere else as the pressure in the house mounted, and the windstorm increased. Pottery smashed, Morgana's skirts blowing back behind her, and her arm flung up in front of her face to protect herself.
"You won't touch her again," he said, in a deadly soft voice, utterly devoid of feeling.
The center of his own deadly whirlwind, he took the attack to his mother.
Mage globes hammered her, one after the other. A new one formed above his hand just as the previous one battered his mother's wards, and he could feel his strength fine-tuning itself. Morgana went to her knees, holding her wrists crossed, strain twisting her face.
Yes. He stepped around the hall runner with its deadly trap and advanced. A heat spot formed in his mother's shield. His next mage globe struck it in the dead center and Morgana's wards exploded.
She hit the floor, sliding back on the polished marble several feet. Blood dripped from her nose, and a sense of exhilaration choked him.
All of Bishop's lessons seemed to coalesce in his head. He formed a manacle of pure energy and flung it toward her wrist. The glowing manacle snapped shut, locking her hand to the floor.
"You want to know why I could never be your mother?" Morgana spat. "Because I was warned this would happen. Your wife's not the only seer out there. I was always going to die because of you." A sob broke loose. "You're a monster. A monster I held to my breast."
The words picked him apart, and Sebastian paused, only to have her throw a tangled golden web of spell work at him.
It wrapped around his body, cutting into his skin like snaking wires. He screamed and went to his knees. Fire in his blood, wrapping around his bones... then his mother was upon him, lifting a knife and trying to drive it into his chest—
Bishop's training made him react in time. He slammed a palm to her shoulder, shifting her deadly trajectory. Sharp pain slashed across his shoulder, as he used her momentum to drive her murderous hand toward the floor. The knife clattered free from her outstretched hand, and Morgana scrambled to get it, the glowing manacle sucking her toward the marble again.
It buzzed suddenly, the current in it evaporating.
One hand wrapped around her throat and the other scrambled for the knife. There was blood all down his arm. Everywhere. She'd genuinely tried to kill him. It broke him. If you'd only fucking loved me, I would have been yours....
A seer had done this. Turned his mother against him as a boy. Years of abuse hammered through him: the collar locking around his throat; the first time Morgana used the control ring to drive him to his knees with the pain; the last time she'd locked him in a box as a little boy; women touching him, pawing at him....
He lifted the knife. She'd been more torturer than mother, but.... But....
"Do it," Morgana hissed at him, her nails digging into his wrist. "Go ahead and fulfill your destiny."
Cleo. His heart broke again, and he held the knife in the air above her, suddenly realizing what this all looked like.
Morgana started laughing. "She'll never look at you the same way."
"Sebastian, no!" Cleo reached out for him, her hair whipping behind her in the whirlwind.
He looked up at her, the knife in his hand. His mother sprawled beneath him, still spewing her vile poison.
"This doesn't end until she does." His voice broke. "You don't understand, she'll never stop! She'll keep coming, she'll try to ruin me every second she still draws breath, and she'll... she'll destroy everything that I... that I care for. I can stop her. I can stop her."
