“Shut up.”
But he doesn’t shut up, doesn’t back down, doesn’t stop. Of course he doesn’t, because he’s Rip, and for some damn reason, he’s made it his mission to unravel me completely.
Starting with my ribbons.
Rip takes a step forward, gripping the space between us and tearing it to shreds. “You think of them as a weakness, but they are astrength, Auren.Use them.”
I can’t help the flash of fear that springs up in me like a pressed coil. For so long, I’ve taught myself to hide them, to keep them close, to not let anyone see.
Rip looms in front of me, blocking out the rest of the world, his presence all-consuming. “Stop thinking,” he growls in my face. “Stop thinking about everyone else. Abouthim. About hiding.”
I whirl, and my anger whirls with me. “Easy for you to say. You havenoidea how things were for me, how they are.”
There’s a flash of something over his face, something scary, giving me the feeling that I went too far. “No?” he snaps back. “I haveno idea?”
My throat bobs with dry fear that I can’t swallow down. He has me on a ledge, finger pressed to chest, ready to push me over.
“What are you, Auren.”
It’s not a question. It’s a demand, gnashed through teeth, pinched through the growl of his chest. It’s a test that I’m sure to fail, because there is no winning, not for me.
I shake my head, squeezing my eyes closed tight. “Stop.”
He refuses to let me escape him, though, because his aura presses in, just as demanding, just as unrelenting. Rip is tugging at my seams, trying to pull the bindings I’ve wrapped myself in, and my fingers are slipping around the knots.
“Say what you are.”
My head pounds. My ribbons writhe. I open my eyes to glare at him. “No.”
He’s ink in the water. A black cloud in the sky. An abyss in the ground that I’ll fall inside forever. I hate him for it. I hate him for every push, for every challenge he has no right to demand.
Fury flashes in his expression, jaw tightening around his words. “Say it, Auren.”
I try to walk away, but he prowls after me and matches my stride, not even giving me a second to think.
He cuts me off, gets in my space so I have nowhere to go. He shoves his demand down my throat until my entire body is shaking with anger and intimidation. The drum of my pulse slams in my skull as he looms over me like a thundercloud waiting to strike.
“Fucking say it!” he roars in my face, a yank to pull out my roots.
And I snap.
“I’M FAE!”
Fury rushes like a flood, so strong I can feel it sing down the length of my ribbons, flexing through them with a shudder as they come undone.
Spinning like golden tendrils of a cyclone, the edges of my ribbons fold like jaws ready to bite, lashing out in the blink of an eye.
My coat rips off my back from the force as they launch forward. They snap around his legs, pulling them out from under him, and then throw him across the circle with a vicious hurl.
Rip lands in a spray of snow, so hard that I feel his fall resonate up to my teeth. But I don’t care, because he fractured something integral inside of me, and I’m not sure if I can put it back.
I stalk toward him, gratification oozing off of me, something feral taking over. Something that’s intensely pleased that I’ve shovedhimdown into the snow, that it’s him on his back and not me.
I raise a single ribbon, end hardened, edge sharp. I send it shooting toward his prone body, ready to slice him, ready to make him hurt.
But in a move that even now I’m impressed by, he leaps upright, planting both feet, facing me. He’s ready, like he was waiting for me all along.
Right arm raising, Rip meets the sharpness of my attack, ribbon and spike clashing together like the blades of swords.
