My teeth gritted together, jaw flexing—knowing it would only be moments before the fight left her oxygen deprived limbs. I pressed her harder into the wall, biding my time until she finally sank against me—dizzy and uncoordinated.
Seren was helpless against me as I tossed her over my shoulder. I pinned her body against mine, dragging us back to the treeline where Equinox waited.
I let the air trickle back into her lungs little by little then dropped her to her feet, catching her elbow when she teetered. I convinced myself that it was only to prevent her from running again and not out of any misguided sense of care I might hold for her.
Retrieving a length of rope from the saddle pack, I made quick work of binding her wrists together. I secured the other end to Equinox’s saddle and mounted, leaving Seren standing on the ground below. I urged my mare into an easy walk. Seren emitted a disgruntled noise of protest as the rope yanked taut.
“You said you wanted to do this the hard way. Keep up.”
“Fuck… you…”
Time passed in a blur that was not uncommon for the Varázis Erva. My eyelids slipped open and closed over tired eyes until I was jolted back into awareness by the heavy thump that sounded at my back.
It was Seren, body dragging slack along the ground by her tethered wrists. Her eyes were closed, her fingers blue with cold and lack of blood flow. I cursed and stopped Equinox. With an unsteady dismount, I approached her.
Seren was breathing shallowly in the depths of unconsciousness. My eyes raised to the sky for a moment, cursing my terrible luck.
The hard way, indeed.
I gathered her limp body into my arms, straining as the wound in my side released a fresh wave of hot blood. It soaked into the fabric of my tunic, stiff with old blood and sweat. I draped Seren across Equinox and mounted as well as I could.
When we reached the cottage, I could have cried with relief.
I untied the rope binding Seren’s wrists and slid her back into my arms. I carried her into the cottage and deposited her on the settee.
Clumsily, I lit a fire and collapsed to the ground before it. I could already feel the edges of sleep pulling me under.
Sometime in the night, Seren stirred. My eyes blinked open sluggishly then fluttered shut. I reached out a hand, catching her fingers in mine as she rose from the settee.
“Don’t go, Ren. Please. Just sleep.”
“Okay,” she whispered, and I fell into the abyss once more.
Chapter twenty
Seren
That night, in place of dreams, his words echoed through me again and again—sleep slurred and honeyed. Drifting in the recesses of my mind, filling the black cavern of almost unconsciousness. Plaguing my not quite wakefulness. Turning my stomach in knots as my heart pounded a lapsing rhythm.
Don’t go, Ren. Please. Just sleep.
Despite everything—despite agreeing to stay in the dark hours of the night—I wanted to run. I wanted to never see Harkin or another Rázuri again. I wanted to escape to some far off land where I would never have to face the mess I had made of myself.
My rabbit heart jumped, eager, begging me to leave. But I couldn’t.
I tossed and turned on the lumpy settee. The slice on my arm throbbed, though the bleeding had quelled. My fingers buzzed with the lingering memory of his hand on mine. I flexed my hand, fingers splaying, as if that alone could purge me of this feeling.
The first light of dawn seeped through the fogged windows, catching the falling motes of dust on their journey through the shallow room.
Wishing I could see my stars and pray my forbidden hopes to the Goddesses I was meant to have forsaken, I counted the knots in the rough wooden beams of the cottage ceiling.
My mind raced to think of what I had done the day before. The way the mágik had gripped me in a vise of power that I could not control. I did not want to remember the feeling of panic that consumed me as Harkin buried his head in my neck, drowned by my own twisted will.
The feeling of his hands pushing away from me lingered on my hip bones. The sound of the retching—water spilling endlessly from his lips—rang through the quiet.
I had not been able to stop. My own immeasurable desire to harm him choked me, not with water in my lungs, but with hate in my heart. The mágik had swelled, a river in a rainstorm, crushing past the dam that was meant to provide safety.
I wanted to hurt him—to kill him—but not like that. Not with a power I did not understand. I could not bear to take a life by the same means my brother’s life had been taken from him.
