Page 59 of Brutally Mated
His father is normal. Dominant, but mundane. The only other magic in this room sparks from Skor, and it does so with an intensity I have not felt before. His arousal is making him even more powerful than usual.
We sit and dinner is brought to us. It is good. Animal flesh, potato, other vegetables, and sauces of cheese and meat. It is a very good meal, and I turn my full attention to it at the cost of small talk.
Skar makes some small polite efforts at conversation, as do I.
Then, as the plates are cleared, he asks something that matters. “I am told you can call down the sun.”
“Yes,” I say. “I can.”
“I would like to see it done.”
“It is not a party trick.”
There is a snort of surprise, a sort of choking noise from Skor. Apparently one does not speak such a way to his father.
“I am sure it is not,” Skar says. “But the night is replete with vampiric predators.”
I find myself outside in due course, with two expectant men flanking me. This house has extensive grounds, and I am surprised that any vampire would dare be on them. We are not all that far from the back door when we encounter the first dead thing. We are within a hundred feet or so, and as it comes forward, Skor and Skar move back. This is a trial. I wonder if they plan to let me die if I fail. I wonder if Skar knows what love is, or if I have always been a tool to him.
It has been some time since I felt my power the same way I did in the mountains. I summon it now as the vampire slips through the shadows. It is a cruel thing, hunger in human form, desire without a heart. I know that I am doing it a service by ending its unlife, because there is nothing inside it anymore, nothing left to hope for. Nothing left to live for.
I lift my arm and I will the sun, and a beam answers me. Weak and wet, but still sun. It hits the creature and makes a moist, sizzling sound.
But it does not kill it. The vampire makes an awful sound, a screech of pain that it should not be able to feel. It should be dead. It should be ash on the wind, but instead it is a writhing, raging, contorting thing and it is begging for a merciful end.
I know in that moment that my power is not mine to wield alone. It is related deeply to the mountains. It comes from the hills themselves. And though they answer my call even at this distance, I cannot be as strong as I need to be.
In the moment I realize I have failed, I snap my fingers and green light flashes around me as I take my wolf form. My teeth have long yearned for blood. For days I have suffered as a captive, been humiliated as a thing to use and a body to claim and not honored as the animal I am.
It is the sun-mutilated vampire that pays the price for my rage. I bite it, again and again and again until it is so dead that no part of it will ever animate again. I destroy the heart. I eradicate the brain. I crush the spine. I let rotten marrow flow over my animal tongue and spit it onto the ground.
When it is gone, I take my human form and allow Skor to wrap his cloak around me. He’s dressed like a lord now, whichmakes sense. His family is obviously prominent and rich beyond imagination. He has privilege and power, but he rules over a rotting world.
“Messier than I imagined it would be,” Skar says. “But still impressive.”
“My power does not work well here. It comes from the mountains,” I say. “It won’t ever work well here. I should be on my own territory. I was a master of it. Here I am weak and I am useless and…”
“You just did something nobody here could ever do in a thousand years,” Skar says, speaking to me with a paternal kindness. “That was truly impressive.”
“I am weak,” I tell him. “I am weak and my power will probably dwindle to nothing if I am kept here. I have to go home.”
“Yes, dear,” Skor says, wrapping the cloak around me more tightly. “It could also be that you are tired and need rest. Come now, let’s get you into bed.”
Skor
When I have ensured Tabby is fast asleep, I return to my father. He is in the study, whiskey in hand, staring thoughtfully into the fire. I had hoped for him to be happy, perhaps even excited. He is neither of those things.
“I did not expect to see you again, son,” he says. “Even less did I expect to see you with a mate. She is impressive, and beautiful. You’ve done well. But…”
“But?”
“But you know that the prophecy involving a woman of her talents involves…” My father pauses. “Sacrifice. Much will be lost if you insist on doing this. It’s foolish, and there is no hope of it working.”
His grim attitude is not helpful, but he does not care. I think some part of him would be sad if we were to lose the dark and the rain and the death that stalks our family. Who would we be if we weren’t the cursed line?
“I was hoping we could skip that part,” I say. “She is far too precious to be allowed to die.”
“It wouldn’t be us killing her,” my father says. “Her death would be an inevitable part of the prophecy being fulfilled.”
