Slimy hands of touch magic roved her form, sliding over her wide hips and bottom. She flinched as he pinched her—hard. Her only consolation was that he couldn’t feel her through his magic, only see what his actions did to her. She gave him nothing.
“Disgusting. Move.” He shoved George to the side.
She stumbled but didn’t fall.
“You should thank me for letting you live, you vile,sadexcuse for a woman.” Apparently satisfied that he’d humiliated her enough, the king addressed Helena, “Get me my drink.”
George’s heart did a little flip as the aide leaned forward.
With an extended arm, Gasparo indicated toward thelectuson his left. “Sit.”
Moving to take her spot, George was passing Helena when Gasparo spoke again, this time to the enslaved woman.
“Try it first, my pet.”
A glance showed Helena lifting the glass to her lips. George faltered.
The minuscule movement was all the confirmation he needed.
Red wine splattered the tiles as the glass shattered, smacked away by his magic before it slammed into George like a boulder, flinging her across the room into the solid stone wall. With the wind knocked out of her, she couldn’t even scream.
She slumped to the floor, her hair snagging on cracked plaster as she fell. A tiny trickle of warmth oozed down the back of her neck. Pain radiated from the point of impact. Black sparkles danced across her vision.
“You stupid bitch. You thought you could take me out with poison?Poison,Georgetta?! Please.” He scoffed as a firm grip of magic squeezed her neck.
Deiwa hathemi. She was going to die today. “I had to try,” she rasped when he released her throat.
The king let out an inhuman howl, tightening his grip on George’s arms and chest before he thrust her into the air.
Her back scraped up the wall, bare shoulders ravaged by rough plaster. A sharp pain shot up her chest as her ribs stabbed against her lungs. With her feet dangling helplessly just above her father’s head, she shoved at him with her own power, trying to throw him off balance.
He was expecting the onslaught and sent a wall of sheer force to counter her attack.
“Still?!” he shouted. “Still you fight back!?”
With the strength of four men, she was torn away from the wall to hover in the open air. Then George flew back, her headcracking painfully against stone. The scene before her vibrated and blurred, then the pain came, lancing through her skull, making her want to scream.
A muffled shout reverberated through the room.
No! No, Isahn. Stay hidden. Stay safe,she pleaded silently, helplessly as she struggled to distract her father. He couldnotturn around. He couldnotfind the spy in the wall. He’d kill Isahn too.
“Please!” George screamed as she scratched the surface of Gasparo's overwhelming strength, aiming her magic at the places where he grasped her. Magic snatched for magic; it was a guessing game.
An invisible hand clamped over her mouth.
Drawing from the depths of her well, she railed against her father’s putrid powers, touch against touch, sight against sight, a war outside of their bodies, unfelt by them, but a drain on their wells nonetheless. It wasn’t enough. He didn’t care.
George tore intohiminstead, switching tactics. Her ribs throbbed, and she sucked in a breath through her nose, fighting the spots dominating her vision. She ripped at his hideous beard, raked claws down his chest, and bloodied his shirt; vengeance, her only goal. Either his power was waning from fatigue, or he’d let her get in the hits. She didn’t know. It didn’t matter.
Magic snaked around George’s face, the hand over her mouth growing to beastly proportions before it closed tight over her nose and squeezed her jaw shut. She couldn’t breathe.
Georgetta raged power into her father, repeatedly stabbing with daggers of touch, barely puncturing skin, barely breaking through the touch-magic armor he’d built around his body. She was nowhere near powerful enough to end him.
The king shoved her magic away at the same time a solid punch blasted through her temple. He tore her from the wall, slamming her back into it, again and again.
She saw the sun.
Another shout, half-distant, slipped into the room.
