“Hold her.” This time, a firm command hardened Evera’s words. Desperation. She needed to do this. Could not leave the child suffering, even as it put us both in peril, put her family at risk for the gossip that would follow. This was impulse, emotion, purer than reasoning. Even as it held such bitterness and peril, I admired her for it. It was as Calix said:She is good.
Heart pounding, monster scratching beneath my skin, heat flooding my veins, I restrained the child. With my left hand, I held her down by her good arm, and with my knee, I braced her legs to keep her still. My breaths came in rasps.
Evera drew the child’s arm straight against her side, then out. The girl writhed, but I held her still. In a quick motion, Evera raised the arm up, and the bone popped as it slipped back into place. When it did, the child screamed, then fainted, and for the briefest of moments, everything was entirely still.
Then the quiet broke.
One of the men was upon us, disdain written in the curl of his lip. In my hesitation, my need to support Evera, I’d made a mistake.
He grasped her before I could react, yanking her up and toward him by the wrist. In the same instant, my right arm was seized by one of the remaining three men.
Evera screamed.The sound overpowered all else—the muffled sobs of the child’s mother,my monster’s gripping claws, fear of capture, and even thoughts of my brother. Every part of me focused on the vile man pulling my mate by her wrist, dragging her away from me.
A snarl escaped my chest from a place so deep inside, it was more beast than man. Bile rose in my throat, and I pulled against the hands that restrained me, freeing myself only briefly before the other two men closed in, blocking off my path to Evera and grasping for me, keeping me from my blade. The blade I would take to their throats in an instant, given the chance.
27
EVERA
My scream soundedlike one from my nightmares. A sinking horror threatened to pull me beneath its slick, dark surface, and the rush of fear quickened my heart. Memories just out of reach—lost, buried—called to me.
I began to fall, but the man dragged me. The calluses of his fingers were rough on my wrist, and something inside of me clicked open—a will to fight. Gritting my teeth, I pushed panic down and dug the heels of my boots into the earth. Dirt churned up, but still the man pulled me, his strength greater than my own.
“Bastard!” I cried out, wrenching my arm back even as the motion strained my joints.
His grasp gave, slackened by my efforts, and I fell back. But I didn’t catch myself fast enough, and my head struck the dirt. A ringing filled my head. Blinking the fog from my eyes, I saw my brother approach from up the ramp. He froze, fear rounding his eyes, face pale. It brought the flash of a memory—I saw him as a boy, cowering behind a wooden dresser.
A shadow leaned over me, and in the next breath, the farmer was pulling me up to my knees by my hair. The tugging pain surpassed that of the pounding in my head. I reached up andgrabbed his wrist. I dug my nails into his skin. Hissing a curse, he released his grip.
I braced myself on my knees and palms before him as he looked down at me with a snarl. I met his gaze and faced his anger. He struck me. A prickling sting radiated at my cheek, immediately followed by a burning soreness. Somewhere behind me, Neirin roared, but his words were lost to me. Wetness threatened at my eyes, but a fierce determination not to cower beat back the tears.
“How dare you put your hands on my daughter?” the farmer snarled down at me. Another time, I may have tried to force logic upon the brute, told him what he was about to accuse me of, and what he believed me to be, but it held no basis in fact. If I were a witch, an Alidian, I would strike him down where he stood, not fight back tooth and nail. If I aimed to bring harm to his child, I would not have set her arm. But he could not see reasoning beyond his rage. He saw only his daughter unconscious and the rumored witch of Elrune before him. I was sick of offering logic that went unheard, sick of being pushed down and told my place. Rage fueled me, funneled my pain. The man before me stood for everything I despised, and I refused to heed my place and allow him to beat me, scorn me, without retaliating with all the force I possessed.
My dagger was impossible to reach while I knelt, so I grasped one of the man’s legs and pulled hard, sending him off balance. He fumbled back, but as he fell, one of his boots caught my jaw. The force was enough to jar me, disorient me, and before I could come back to my senses, the man was upon me again, shoving me fully to the ground.
I fell sideways. A boot struck my side, and I gasped; the wind rushed from my lungs. I curled into the pain, drawing my knees to my chest. Through the pounding of my head and my wavering vision, I saw Neirin, being held back by three men. Though helashed out, they restrained him. For a brief moment, his gaze met mine. With shaking arms, I willed myself to rise, but the farmer’s boot struck again.
I flinched and shut my eyes, gasping for air. The fight left me, and I lay, bracing myself for the next blow, but it didn’t come. A strange sensation heated my chest. A burning and a slick blackness.
“You,” Neirin snarled. I opened my eyes.
He stood above me, a formidable form shielding me. The light hit his sword, sleek and silver, and in a distant place, my mind noted the lack of blood on it. How had he broken free of the men who held him?
My attention moved past him to where the three lay on the ground, unmoving. A static energy crackled in the air, and the panic that gripped me struck harder than the farmer’s boots had. My eyes found Calix standing in the shadow of my mare, his eyes black pools fading back to cobalt.
The farmer took a step back, and Neirin matched him. He reached out and grasped the man by the front of his shirt. The growl that came from him was low, animalistic, and powerful.
“How dare you touch her, how—” His seething, the extent of his anger, was clearly too fierce to put into words.
The farmer swallowed, a knot bobbing in his throat. Fine beads of sweat formed at his temples.
“You will repent for what you’ve done.” Neirin brought his sword level to the fist that clasped the man’s shirt. One motion, one quick slit, and the man’s throat would be severed.
“Stop,” I called out, voice rasping.
A muscle at Neirin’s jaw flexed, and he held his stance. The farmer’s chest rose and fell in rapid succession. A faint wind blew, ruffling Neirin’s hair. It gave a strange air of stillness to the moment.
Pushing to my knees, I wet my lips. “Let him go. He’s not worth it. Please, I want to leave.”
