Edric’s composure splintered. “You think this is a game?” When he spoke again, his voice was smooth and cold. “You forget your place.”
My pulse thundered, rattling through my skull until I could feel it in my teeth.
“You were promised to me. Chosen for me.” He paced a slow, predatory circle around me. “Your life, your magic, your body—they aremine.”
I refused to track him; to grant him the satisfaction of my fear.
“You think this is pride?” he asked, circling closer. “It’s survival.” The hairs at my nape rose. “You are the last Twilight, and I’ve waited a very, very long time to bind that bloodline to mine.”
My stomach turned to stone.
“I’ve been patient with your follies.”
I winced as he grabbed my shoulder hard enough to bruise.
“But I don’t take kindly to people touching my belongings.”
Fury rose through the fog of fear. “I do not belong to anyone.”
“You belong tome!” His eyes narrowed to slits as he removed the gloves from his hands. “And now I shall ensure you never forget it.”
An unsettling certainty claimed his features.
All at once, I understood.
Cold surged through me, violent as a winter tide.
He was not going to strike me again.
He was going to forcibly take what he believed to be his.
My limbs locked. The air roared in my ears, a rising rush of blood and fear. My skin prickled, as if it understood before I did. My every instinct screamed for me to run.
Edric lunged.
I shrieked, kicking, scrambling backward. His hand closed around my ankle.
“No!”
He dragged me to him. His weight pinned me against the cold stone floor.
“Get off me!” I screamed, thrashing.
My nails gouged any skin within reach. I slammed my knee upward. He yowled when I sank my teeth into his wrist until blood flooded my mouth. The copper tang mingled with the reek of wormwood and rotting pears.
Nothing deterred him. He was stronger than me by far.
“Stop fighting,” he snarled, breath hot and vile against my ear. “It will be easier if?—”
Terror sent lightning through my veins.
No, no, no.
I reached inward. Past pain. Past fear. Past the yawning hollow where Mav’s thread had been severed.
To my magic.
The last thing that was mine.
