The crowd erupts with wild hurrahs. “SHARP CLAWS! SHARP CLAWS SHARP CLAWS!”
Looks like I have another nickname. I could definitely get used to that one.
Margorate shakes her head, then bellows to her people. “Tomorrow, I’ll see you all at dawn. No exceptions.” Disappointed grunts ripple through the crowd as they begin to disperse, leaving the arena. She walks towards me, her hips swaying deliberately from side to side.
I take a deep breath of relief, but it’s short-lived, because hunger hits me like a hurricane.
I need more. I need everything.
“You are going with me,” she says and raises a hand, cuts herself and releases those grumbling males of mine to the salt circle.
“I don’t think so,” I say, ignoring her as I change course towards my tea, towards Karo.
Riven is the first to reach me, snatching my arm. My blood boils. I conjure a net, but nothing happens; the damn hunger clouds the well in my mind.
I need to be satiated.
Jestin grabs my other hand, and I snap my arm again, trying to summon the power. But nothing happens. I stare at my hand, only now noticing the tremor in my fingers.
“Leave me the fuck alone,” I bark, squeezing my fists to minimise the shaking. The pit in my stomach makes me writhe in pain.
“My Lady!” I hear her voice and turn quickly towards Karo’s call.
“Why is she so fucking slow?” I mutter, pacing to meet her, but, of course, Aidon, that bloody mutt, interrupts.
I step right, trying to walk past him, but he mirrors me. Desperately, I move left and face the same result.
I raise my hand to strike him across his ugly face, but he slips aside as if he expected it. My patience snaps. “Move!” I bark and reach for the storm I always struggle to control. Instead I meet nothing but resistance. The surge never comes. The well thatusually leaks power is reduced to a faint, useless echo, and for a second I feel like a mortal woman.
I sense Karo, before she even speaks, “My Lady, you need to lie down.”
“Why? Why does she need to lie down?” Jestin asks from my left, panic lacing his tone.
“Something is clearly wrong,” Riven states.
“I think I know what,” Margorate steps closer.
I immediately pivot to face her, getting close and personal to the bloody bitch and only when I can feel her breath on mine do I deliver my warning. “Listen to me carefully.” I fix on her, unflinching. “Your alliance is with me, and me only. You will not betray me. They are my subjects, and you will not address them without my permission.” I point at the males. The shake in my fingers undermines my message, so I quickly hide my hands behind me.
“You are a nasty bitch, you know that?” Margorate drawls, dropping the insult like it could hurt me.
It cannot. I lived through my personal limbo and reemerged victorious. I know I’m a fucking bitch, a damn wolverine bringing havoc all around me.
“She normally isn’t like that…” Jestin explains, as if he was talking about a child or a pet.
I turn to him, drilling into his green gaze. “Am I not? Say it to your fucking father.”
A hint of remorse tingles in my chest, but so little that I can easily discard it. Jestin doesn’t say anything, and I look at each of them.
“Do you want him to hate you or not? Because I’m getting confused,” Aidon defends him. Him, not me. Finally. He is showing his true colours.
“As I am.” Jestin’s voice is like steel.
“Why are you upset? I’ve won, that’s what’s important, isn’t it?”
“But have you?” Jestin asks, his voice is flat and he avoids my gaze.
“How dare you undermine my victory?” I hiss and wince when the hunger reappears with increased force.
