60
JACE
13 DAYS
The air is thick as she gazes up at him, her chest heaving. I want to break every finger he has wrapped around her neck. But she doesn’t seem to mind. The shift in her scent tells me she’s actually enjoying this.
It’s a sickening realization.
My clap bounds off the walls of the ring, and they break apart as if just remembering my presence.
“That’s enough for today.”
Zadyn guides her toward the wooden bench, his hand on the small of her back.
He better watch that placement…
“We need to come up with an actual plan for Kylian,” I bark as they take a seat and chug down some water.
“Stabbing sounds like fun,” Serena breathes, wiping her mouth on her sleeve.
“He’s bigger and stronger than you.”
“So are you, and I handle you just fine.”
“Only on your best day, witch. Don’t overestimate your abilities.”
She fires a mild glare at me, cheeks beet red, dark strands of hairclinging to her neck.
“We need to figure out his weakness and exploit it.”
“He doesn’t have a weakness. I mean he lost it anytime someone hit me or touched my face…”
Zadyn and I both tense. She stares at the ground, turning over a thought. “Actually, there is something. But it definitely doesn’t play to our advantage. It seemed like Kylian was able to read my thoughts.”
“Fucking sirens,” I curse under my breath.
“I need the element of surprise on my side if I’m going to kill him. There has to be a way to keep him out of my head long enough for me to do what I need to do.”
“It’s not going to come to that,” Zadyn assures her.
Placating is still his first line of defense when it comes to her. What he should be doing is trying to talk sense into her. Scaring her. Because apparently she lacks the sense to be scared on her own.
“What if it does? I’m the only one who’s going to get close enough to him to do this.”
The thought of her going anywhere near Kylian again is enough to boil my blood.
“Kylian’s power is strong—strong enough to shred the minds of the Guardians. Strong enough to put out my fire. And he has shadows. They looked like mine, only he didn’t use them to walk. I could feel them. They were more solid.”
Great. Another problem to solve. I decide to stick with the one thing we might be able to manage.
“You need to work on shielding your mind,” I tell her.
“How do I do that?”
“Well, first you need to fix your face. It’s a dead giveaway of every thought passing through your head.”
She frowns, further proving my point.
