I unconsciously loosen my hold on her. “I’m sorry that happened to you. That’s what the Uprising has been fighting for, a way for us to regain our rights.”
She laughs in my face. “If you believe that, you are even more naïve than I thought. The Uprising is out for themselves. Everyone is.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” I say quietly.
“It’s always been this way.” She pushes my hand away from her throat.
I take a step away. When she lunges at me, I bring the butt of the dagger down on the back of her skull, knocking her out. I don’t stop to see if she’s still breathing because I don’t know if I can handle it if she’s not.
My dearest Grecia,
I know it has now been many years since we last saw each other. That doesn’t mean you haven’t been very much present in my heart, and in my mind.
I am writing to you today because La Puissance is in trouble, and I think you might be the only one who can save her. I know there are many conversations we need to have. So many words have gone unspoken because it would have been too painful to say them, and to hear them. But I think now is the time.
Despite the distance between us, we are Bonded, Grecia. A piece of my heart has always belonged to you, and I hope your heart still belongs to me.
With your permission, I would like to come visit you, so we may have those conversations and perhaps give our Bond the attention it needs to flourish once more.
I will not lie to you, Grecia. There have been many nights when the loneliness nearly overwhelmed me. I have often reached for the comfort of another’s arms. But I have never been unfaithful to you. You are the only one for me, and I have felt the need to be back in your embrace growing in recent days.
Please allow me to come visit.
All my love,
Harry
30
Callum
I was hoping thiswouldn’t come to a fight for obvious reasons, and my list did not include the fact that Lady M seems fully equipped to kick my ass as thoroughly as Dom usually does. As Dom used to. The reminder of her absence, not just in this battle but for the rest of my life, doesn’t help me concentrate on the fight before me.
I spin out of the way of one of Lady M’s strikes, only to be hit from behind and knocked to my knees. I look up just in time to see Cate knocking a woman unconscious.
“Behind you!” I call out, watching her turn just in time to block a strike.
All around me, Gifted are fighting Gifted. Powers burst across the room. Lightning bursts fling from one woman’s fingers; another lifts Meri off her feet with just a wave of her hand.
This is exactly what we have been afraid of for more than two hundred years. The Gifted banding together and creating an unstoppable army.
No, my mind argues. That isn’t what’s happening here. Because there are Gifted fighting on both sides. Cate and her sisters want to do this the right way, work with the Uprising to regain their rights. It’s this Lady M who has created this toxic group.
I sense her at my back, springing to my knees to deliver a blow to Lady M’s stomach that should knock the wind out of her.
Lady M grunts but doesn’t fall, a wicked smile tugging on her lips. “You are not going to win this, Your Highness.”
I watch through the corner of my eye, keeping tabs on the women around me. Cate and the others are holding their own, all of them still standing, still fighting. The unconscious bodies of several other Gifted litter the ground, but Lady M doesn’t seem to care much about her fallen soldiers.
“I will die before I let you win, Lady M.” I move to strike her, feinting, spinning to her other side as I rip a dagger from the sheath at my waist. I bring it down, slashing.
She moves just in time, the knife grazing her arm, leaving a bloody gash in its wake. “Are you going to kill me, Your Highness? How will your Bonded feel if you are responsible for killing her mother?”
I dodge her next advance, but just barely. “I think she will thank me for it.”
Lady M whistles, the sound sharp and harsh. Two Gifted move immediately to her side, their eyes locked on me.
I raise my knife, not sure where the attack is going to come from, or if a knife is even going to do me any good.
