Page 58 of The Bound Mage
The words fell from Araya’s lips before she could stop them. She whirled to face him, the chaos of the square fading to a dull roar in her ears. His guilt was written plainly across his face, his jaw tight, his eyes wide with the realization that he had been caught.
“You let me stand here and laugh,” Araya whispered, the words like glass in her throat. “You let medance—” she choked, the sweet, metallic tang of aether flooding her mouth.
“I was going to tell you.” Loren stepped forward, heedless of the hundreds of eyes on them both. “Please,ael’sura, let me explain?—”
“How long?” she demanded. Power roared through her, her voice rising. “How long did you know he was killing people because of me?”
Loren lifted a hand like he would catch her arm and draw her back—but the pressure that had been building under her skin broke first, engulfing the square in a wave of searing, crackling energy. Someone screamed, people stumbling back as it curved into a shimmering wall between them.
But Loren stayed, reaching for her despite the way her power lashed out at him, striking him hard enough to draw blood.
“Control it,ael’sura,” he begged, blood flecking the corners of his mouth. “Your power answers to you. Your will, your intentions. I know you don’t want to hurt all these people.”
A child’s cry broke through the roaring in her ears, the screams and shouts of the terrified crowd suddenly deafening. Blackened petals drifted down around her, burning her skin and singing her beautiful dress. One landed on the float, and then another—until the masterpiece of flowers and foliage became a pyre, its flames reaching for the stars above them as it consumed the bodies of the females Jaxon had murdered just to send her a message.
Araya sucked in a deep breath, immediately choking on the smoke. Loren’s shadows surrounded them both, shielding the crowd from her wrath—but he stood inside of them. Unshielded and vulnerable, bleeding from where she had struck him in her fury. Her power recoiled at the sight of it, twisting in on itself as her chest tightened, panic rising in her throat.
“It’s alright,ael’sura,” Loren took another step forward, heedless of the danger. “You’re safe. I have you.”
Araya dropped to the cobblestones, barely feeling the pain that lanced through her knees. Loren’s shadows surged to catch her—only to break against her power as the magic she’d unleashed folded in on itself, collapsing around her. Her headbuzzed, the world around her tilting sickeningly as she took it all back—too much, too fast.
The last thing she saw was Loren’s face, her name on his tongue and his green eyes wide with fear as he fought to reach her—and then the world went dark.
Chapter
Twenty-Five
“This isn’thow we do things, Loren.”
“And hanging bodies from parade floats is?” Loren didn’t even look at his sister, his eyes locked on the male who had attacked his mate in the street.
The male whimpered, clutching the hem of his tunic with shaking hands as he tried and failed to hide the spreading stain from where he’d pissed himself. All around him, Loren’s shadows crawled across the floor like living ink, draining the warmth from the air and smothering the aetherlamps with their thick, pulsing tendrils.
The Small Council sat around the table, most of them looking like they’d rather be anywhere else—too terrified to speak or even breathe too loudly lest Loren might turn his rage on them next. Only Eloria dared challenge him, her hands braced on the scarred table as she pleaded with him.
“Of course not,” she said. “But you need to stop and think. She needs you more than she needs you to do this.”
“Thorne is with her,” Loren snapped.
He could still feel the lingering heat of her magic licking across his skin as he fell to his knees beside her in the center of the devastation she’d wrought. She hadn’t moved. Not whenthe shadows rushed over her to cool her. Not when he called her name. Not when he scooped her limp body into his arms and carried her from the scorched square beneath the shocked, terrified eyes of his people.
He’d stormed into the Central Hall and gone straight to Thorne, leaving his best friend with a single command—watch over her.
Now, someone needed to pay for the hurt they’d caused her.
And Loren would start with the fool who’d dared accost her on the street in front of everyone.
No one dared stopped him as he stepped forward, the shadows seething eagerly around him. United in purpose and desire at last, both of them wanting nothing more than to make this male feel every bit of the terror and despair he’d forced on Araya.
“Tell me who gave you the order,” Loren said.
“Please—” the male whimpered, his shoulders curling inward like he could shield himself from Loren’s wrath. “I still have family in Aetheris. They’re suffering?—”
“I didn’t askwhy,” Loren growled. “I want to knowwho.”
The shadows lashed across the room, striking stone so hard that several of the councilors gasped aloud. The male kneeling in front of him sobbed, tears cutting tracks through the dirt that smeared his cheeks as he cast a single, desperate glance to the side?—
Loren’s eyes followed the line of his gaze, landing on Cormac. The commander’s fingers tightened around the arms of his chair, his knuckles turning white. His jaw worked, the tendons in his neck straining as he fought to maintain his composure.
