Page 206 of Curse of Darkness
And he doesn’t fight in set patterns.
All my intelligence upon the White Wolf tells me that he’s a dangerous adversary. He’s centuries older than me. I don’t even know where he was birthed—or evenifhe was birthed. He and his brother bowed knee to Thiago sometime during the Wars of Light and Shadow, and he’s served that prick ever since.
I’m forced to meet him one-on-one. Body against body. One of my knives is gone with a shocking chop of his hand to my wrist. I make him earn it, spinning beneath the lock of his arm and driving my elbow back into his throat.
It’s a mistake.
And I don’t make mistakes. Ever.
But he barely even grunts, his forearm hauling me back against him and cutting off my air. I knew he had two inches on me, but there’s a difference to knowing it… and feeling it.
I twist my grip and throw him over my shoulder. He slams into the leaf mulch. “The bigger they are….”
Curling his abdomen up, he flips onto his feet, lashing out behind him with his claws. “The harder they can fuck.”
There’s that smile again as I leap over the swing of his claws.
I crouch low, my knife held backward along my forearm. “Is that what you tell yourself?”
“It’s what I know.”
Claws rake along my arm. My knife kisses his thigh. It’s a blur of movement, so fast it almost seems like dancing.
We slam together, and I force my body in tight, too close for him to do anything more than curl his arms around me and dig those claws in. They penetrate my shoulders, and I hiss as he throws me down. I have two seconds of grace, and then he’s on me again.
It feels good to give myself over to the rage.
It feels good to throw a punch and not have to pull it.
Yanking me back against him, he pins me again, his thighs grinding against the back of mine, and the crook of his arm locked beneath my chin.
The claws find my throat, tips digging deep into the suprasternal notch there.
I freeze. Breathing hard. My knife sheathed between his thighs, close enough to make him sing soprano if I twist my wrist.
And for a second I think about it…. Think about just letting him rip those claws across my artery.
But I don’t want to die.
I want to kill.
Lysander grabs me by the throat, fae fingers pressing firmly enough to yield a threat, even as he slides the claws of his right hand down my chest, digging the tip of them right into the point of my sternum. He’s been practicing, if he can shift one hand and not the other….
“Do it,” I whisper, setting my knife against the artery in his groin. “And it shall be the last thing you do.”
Turning my face, I stare into his eyes. Hot breath rasps over my face. We’re both heaving for breath.
He considers me.
And then he shoves me forward, onto my knees.
“No,” Lysander whispers, pushing to his feet. “Nothing I can do will ever punish you as much as what you’re doing to yourself right now.”
Maybe it’s the trace of mockery in that curl of a smile. The hint of satisfaction. The world vanishes in a haze of red.
A chasm splinters through my chest.
Sheer, blind rage.
