“Who…who are you?” she stuttered. Despite the fear permeating my soul, the ice blue of her eyes cut like glacialspears at Valik, just a hint of a latent viciousness glinting through.
Valik snatched his attention from the princess to scrutinize me. I sensed frustration bubbling from his aura and in the tightness around his saturated green eyes. I got the message. We would be meeting again. “I’m a friend of Chrome’s. Just heard so much about the rising Kinetic princess. Once you get trained, you’ll be formidable.”
Gray furrowed her brow at Valik. Despite her tensed shoulders and closed fists, I could practically see the wheels churning through the many questions that tumbled within her brain. “How do you know that I’m getting trained?” she demanded, her eyes narrowing.
Valik chewed on his lip. “Don’t you all start training at age thirteen?”
Gray’s face relaxed before she nodded. “Oh, well. Yeah, I guess that’s common knowledge.” She sighed, and I felt her relief flood through me, but it was soon replaced with more suspicion again. “Wait. What are you?”
Valik laughed a deep rich sound. The light beard on his jaws contrasted against his tanned skin. “I’m no enemy, Princess. Just a friend passing through.”
Gray shot an accusatory glare at me.
I smiled at her, feeling the tightening of my fucking pants again. Godsdamn hormones.
The princess rolled her eyes and peered over the building again, staring down at the busy street below. “I wanna go back now, please.”
“Wait,” Valik said. He held his palm outward facing Gray. Black ink began to spread across his skin and radiated down his arm, forming intricate foreign designs that were nothing I recognized. The tension in his face returned, his lip twitching as he kept his focus fixed on the princess.
Gray’s body locked up, her mouth falling open in shock that followed a gasp. “What…”
I lunged toward Valik, my dagger ready to slice his throat, but was stopped mid-step as my body lifted from the rooftop, levitating but having zero control. I couldn’t move any part of my body, frozen in a paralyzed stasis above the roof, unable to do nothing but watch Valik perform whatever cast on Gray that he wished.
My protective rage flared to an inferno as it reached untapped heights. I needed to kill him. Nothing less.
How dare he touch her?
Not even words would form in my throat to shout at him to leave her alone. My fury was trapped inside my body, along with my power. I couldn’t do shit.
Gray’s eyes glazed over to a glassy film while she stood stiff, appearing just as trapped as me.
The black webbing of markings spread up Valik’s neck and jaws to cover his face. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his nostrils flared from the exertion he summoned to cast whatever magic he possessed onto the princess.
Iciness spiderwebbed through my veins as fear doused the rage consuming me. What the fuck was he doing to her? The fact that I had no way of knowing what type of magic he wielded made my heart bludgeon through my ribcage.
After what felt like an eternity, the black markings began to retreat from Valik’s face, then disappeared from his neck. He dropped his arm to his side, his back and shoulders slumping forward.
I still hung there, locked and suspended from the gravel. The moment my feet touched the rooftop, I’d be on him. Knife to his throat. Blood everywhere. I needed to see it. Feel its warmth on my face and hands. I needed to watch the life dim from his eyes.
With a glance up at me, he said, “You’re welcome. Now, she won’t remember me. So, I’m going to go now before her mind clears from the disoriented fog she’s in.”
I might as well have been punched in the face. He… “You…erasedher memory?”
With a breathless nod, Valik straightened. “I don’t have much left in me. I need to get back, but my magic drains ten times faster here. Can I trust you not to kill me before I leave?”
“No.”
Valik chuckled to himself, exhausted, and looked up at the azure sky. “Fucking Twin Soul bond strikes again,” he muttered to the clouds. “Thanks, assholes.”
“Who are you talking to?” I asked, once again confused by his peculiar behavior.
“The dickheads responsible for everything,” he said with an exasperated sigh, waving nonchalantly. “Anyway, I must be off. I’ll find you again soon. Hopefully, without the princess in tow, since she is completely in the dark about literally everything. I presumed she hadsomeknowledge of shit…”
“Dude, if Forest suspects she knows anything, he’ll hurt her…more. I can’t risk that.”
Valik dipped his chin in understanding, then sighed. “Ah, very well, then.”
Like the last time I saw him in the nightclub, he dropped into a lunging position and began to pull open an invisible door using what appeared to be every bit of strength he possessed.
