Page 74 of Realm of Wind and Vines
He swings again.
I scramble backwards over the floor. But not fast enough. The sword whooshes down towards me. I yank my legs apart. The blade slams into the floor between my spread legs a moment later.
Still trying to gasp air back into my lungs, I scramble the final distance away while he is busy yanking the sword back out of the wood. Leaping to my feet, I reach desperately for my magic. But I don’t even have time to visualize it before a sword speeds for my face. Panic blares inside me, and I throw myself backwards to evade it.
A foot appears behind mine, yanking my leg forward.
The move pulls me off balance and sends me crashing down back first on the floor. I gasp as the hit knocks the air from my lungs again. Blood drips down over my face as the wounded man bends down over me and rams the sword towards my throat.
My mind screams at me.
I slam a massive pale pink wildfire into his chest.
Pleasure floods my body.
And the sword stops moving towards my throat.
While still increasing the wildfire of sympathy that I created and shoved into his chest, I crawl out of range and gasp in deep breaths to refill my lungs. The soldier straightens, and lowers his sword, while I quickly climb back to my feet.
Pleasure continues thrumming inside me, washing away theterrible rage and hatred that is always strangling my chest, as I continue to increase that pale pink wildfire of sympathy that the soldier now feels towards me even though I almost cut his tongue in half.
He watches me, his eyes sad and indecisive.
I ram my dagger into his throat.
Shock pulses across his face, and he drops his sword as his hands instead fly up to his throat. I yank the dagger back out and keep increasing his sympathy for me. Pleasure continues vibrating inside my soul like a cloud of golden sparkles while I watch the man die without trying to hurt me in return since he now has too much sympathy for me.
When he dies, the connection of magic is broken.
Cold emptiness crashes over me as that warm sparkly feeling disappears. I drag in a strangled breath, suddenly desperate to feel it again so that I don’t have to feel everything else.
“You really shouldn’t have come here,” a voice suddenly says from the same doorway that the soldier appeared from.
I snap my gaze up to it.
Ice sinks into my stomach as I find Lavendera standing there. Out of all the people who could have been staying in this house tonight, she is by far the worst for me. Because for some reason, she is so messed up in the head that she seems to be immune to my magic.
Briefly, I wonder what kind of torture the Icehearts have put her through to make her mind snap like this. But that just makes me think about what Jessina is putting Draven through right now. Which, in turn, makes the searing rage and hatred inside me flare up dangerously again.
“You took Draven,” I retort while wiping the bloody knife on my pants.
Lavendera’s eyes soften for a moment. “Yes.” Then that blank mask returns to her features again. “But you still shouldn’t have come here. Because now, I need to capture you.”
“No, you don’t.”
I hold her gaze while starting to discreetly back towards the front door. This earlier fight with the dragon shifter yet again proved that I can’t win a sword fight against trained soldiers. I’m simply not skilled enough with a blade for that. What gives me an advantage is my magic. But if that doesn’t work against Lavendera, my chances of making it out of here are very slim.
“You don’t have to serve them,” I continue while I keep discreetly edging backwards. “You can join us instead.”
“I don’t want to join you.”
“Why not?”
“Because only they can give me what I want.”
“And what is that?”
The front door gets closer behind me. Lavendera doesn’t seem to notice. She just walks after me across the floor at an unhurried pace. She hasn’t drawn a weapon or summoned her magic. But there is no hesitation in her eyes. She is going to capture me because that is what Jessina has ordered her to do.
