Before I could murmur the only one that came to mind, Graham’s other hand wrapped around my throat. His fingers clenched hard, cutting off my breath and my ability to speak, even as he murmured a new spell of his own.
My body went totally still.
“Stop it with the spells, Shadow,” he warned. “Or I’ll be a lot less nice.”
I couldn’t speak. I fought to use my seeing ability, and found I still could.
Bring me back. Now,I snarled at his mind.Or I’ll rip your spine out of your body when I can use my magic again…
He chuckled aloud, enough to tell me he’d obviously heard me.
I fought with everything in me to get free of the spell he’d used to paralyze my body, but I couldn’t budge it. I couldn’t even concentrate my magic well enough to get a handle on the spell itself. I just saw symbols rotating around me, dizzyingly fast, dipping and blurring violently. I couldn’t slow any of it down enough to see what they were.
In desperation, I grasped for the sun-like light above my head, my real primal, but I couldn’t reach it. It lived somewhere above those rotating runes and symbols, too far away to see, much less operate.
My monocerus primal was running around on the floor, bucking its clawed back legs, its serpent-like tail lashing theair as it snorted and screamed. Unfortunately, no one passing would hear anything; its scream was as silent as I was, despite its obvious agitation.
Seeming to realize I couldn’t move, that his spell worked, Graham released me briefly, as if to test it. When I didn’t make a move to get off his lap, he chuckled again. His fingers wrapped back around my throat and squeezed, and I felt his satisfaction.
“That’s better,” he said. “Nice to know you can be made to play nice, despite that mouth of yours.”
I will fucking kill you,I thought at him, before I’d considered whether that was wise.
“I’d take it easy on the threats right now, if I were you,” he warned. “You don’t want to give me the wrong idea, Shadow.”
I fought back and forth with that, trying to make sense of the menace I could feel behind his words, and realized he was threatening my life. Did he mean it? And did he really think he would get away with it?
Then again, maybe he would.
I had to assume none of my friends had any idea where I was, or who I was with.
And anyway, if he ended up being wrong, that wouldn’t exactly help me.
I tried screaming in his mind when his free hand began groping over my chest. I wondered why he hadn’t blocked me out once he realized I could use my mind, then it occurred to me he probably wanted to hear me struggle.
“You’re not wrong on that, love,” he breathed hotly into my ear.
Gods of the Underworld, I should have pressed Jolie harder when I picked up that she didn’t like Graham. When she’d barely hid her relief when I told her I wasn’t interested in Strangemore like that, I should have pressed her about why. I’d known there wassomething,so why hadn’t I asked her, point blank, to tellme what it was? Then again, why hadn’tshetold me, if it was something that could evenpossiblylead to this?
But she couldn’t have known.
I had to believe Jolie couldn’t have known or suspected this.
“Come on, Shadow. Maybe I want to hear you change your mind, when you realize you don’t mind me so much after all…”
HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME!I screamed it out with my mind, fighting to reach Jolie, Draken, Luc, Miranda, any of them. I guessed the shield would keep out my attempts to reach them, but I had to try.HELP ME GODS PLEASE HELP ME HELP ME! HE HAS ME IN THE CHIMAERA… IN FORSOOTH’S CASTLE… HELP ME!
“Apollo’s ruddy bollocks, Shadow,” Graham complained. I heard the wince in his voice as he gripped my inner thigh under the dress. “Are you trying to blow out my eardrums? Or do you really want me to silence that mind of yours?”
Before I could gear up to scream into the void again, Strangemore’s hand slid roughly between my legs. He clamped his other hand around my throat.
HELP! HELP ME! HELP HELP HELP! GODS PLEASE!
“Thoth’s bollocks, Shadow. Who do you think is coming for you, exactly?” McLaggen chuckled, his breath tickling my ear. “You think Joran’s smart enough to find you? Or one of your other ridiculous mates? Even if you could get past my shield, which you can’t, your mates are too thick to be able to hear––”
“What’s this?” a sharp voice asked.
Relief washed over me, before my mind had even identified the speaker. It was so visceral, so intense, my heart leapt violently sideways in my chest. If I’d been able to move, to even exhale a real breath, I might have burst out in a sob.
