It was clear she expected an answer. I had no intention of providing one. Partly because it was an answer I didn’t want her to have but mostly because she was starting to piss me off.
“No answer. That’s good. It’ll make this so much more fun if you insist on being difficult.”
The power that had been slithering through the room struck, wrapping around me. It was like being dropped into a lake of ice water.
Have you ever experienced a change in temperature that was so drastic it was like your entire system shut down? It was like my brain got its finger stuck in a toaster. There was no thinking, just shock and pure, unrelenting cold. My heart fluttered, even my vital organs protested. My lungs locked, unable to breath, to suck down air.
Black ate at the edges of my vision.
Then suddenly that unbearable cold was gone. Well, most of it. I had a feeling my lips would still be blue. My body had been too shocked before to fight for warmth, but now it was trying to make up for lost time as I experienced a full body tremble so fierce that my muscles cramped.
Son of a bitch. What the hell was that?
The shark in front of me smiled.
“Now, shall we try this again? Why did Liam allow you to run loose despite being a yearling?”
My teeth clattered as I bit out, “Fuck you, lady.”
Not the most eloquent of responses but it was all I could get out around the chattering.
Elinor’s mouth tightened with displeasure though a spark of pleasure ignited in her eyes. She was enjoying this.
That wave of cold hit me again. I gasped and then couldn’t get enough air in to breathe. With the iciness of death came a deep sense of despair and fear. Worse than I’d ever experienced.
It was the kind of despair that made me question what right I had to be standing before these perfect people who were so much higher up in God’s good graces than me. The thought was so out of character that it jarred me out of the depression spiral.
I never thought like that. Sure, I had self-doubt, but I never brought the big guy into it. My mistakes were my own. Never once have I felt that he was responsible for my problems.
She was messing with my mind. It was different than a telepath’s influence. That was more like a one way radio set on blast. The radio being my mind. This was more like she was creating the feelings she wanted me to have and then amplifying them in the worst possible ways.
The only time I’d felt anything like it was during my encounter with the draugr.
“Would you like to answer now?” she asked in a silky voice.
I closed my eyes, envisioning my forest around me. It was faint but the feeling of despair lightened just a bit. I added sunlight and imagined wild roses and bushes full of thorns. The fear lightened just a little more. Enough that I felt less like curling into a fetal position on the floor and more like killing the thing responsible for this feeling.
“I’ll take no for a thousand,” I said.
Her forehead furrowed as if she didn’t get the reference, but then she shrugged. I braced, knowing this would be bad.
“I’m sure the enforcer would not like knowing someone was messing with his little bird,” a voice said from the door.
Elinor gave the man behind me a superior smile. “Aiden, are you sure you want to interfere. It’s not like you to make such a huge misstep when it comes to politics.”
I couldn’t turn to see what he did, not wanting to take my eyes off the monster in front of me. Whatever he did caused Elinor to frown in displeasure.
A pair of nice men’s shoes appeared in my peripheral vision and a hand grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. I hadn’t even realized I’d fallen to my knees during Elinor’s little torture session.
“You’re not the select yet,” Aiden said.
“Being a Patriarch won’t always protect you,” Elinor warned.
“That’s exactly what it means,” Aiden said, giving her a cool smirk. “You forget, the select is not all powerful. You can only affect those less powerful than you.” He paused, running his eyes up and down her. “And darling, we both know that you don’t have enough power to force me to bow.”
“We’ll see.” Her red tinged lips turned up in a self-satisfied smile that said she knew something he didn’t. “There are always others around who can take your place.”
Aiden didn’t respond verbally. His hand tightened around my arm until it was a painful vise. I bit back my sound of protest and kept any hint of pain off my face. No way was I letting this bitch know that her barb had hit its mark.
