His underestimation would be his undoing.
I broke right, back toward the stream. There, the ground was even, and I didn’t risk tripping over a root. Calling on my light magic, I held what little remained just beneath the surface of my skin, readying to throw up a shield the next time he attempted to snatch me.
The Issaraeth burst from the treeline behind me. My next step upward revealed the carved stone of the temple.
“Help!” I called out, risking a breath on the chance someone inside would come to my aid.
The hairs on the back of my neck raised as he closed in. Even though my legs were long and graceful, they were nothing compared to a trained warrior’s.
White magic tangled around my limbs. I yanked on my own and pulled my wings into existence.
I would not let him have me.
Three wingbeats got me airborne. Three wingbeats made the outline of Vaelsur visible through the canopies.
I had to beat fate. I had to do something.
But it was too late.
More power encased me. I squeezed my eyes shut.
Because as the scent of stormwood enveloped my nostrils, there was no denying that I was about to be the Issaraeth’s prisoner.
10
White feathers flared beneath the brutal sun as Sylaira launched herself into the sky. I barreled beside the stream after her, heart a riot of heat and hunger from the anticipation of the capture.
A smirk rose to my lips. She thought she was going to get away, to enter the temple and hide from my power.
But lone prey never survived the predator—not when he’d already tasted blood.
In two steps, I was airborne and closing in on her.
With a twist of my hands, white snapped out of me, coiling around her ankle and ripping her out of the sky. The scream that sliced the forest as she fell sent a thrill straight down myspine.
I snatched her from midair, banding my arms around her waist.
And Goddess, how good it felt to cage her against my body. For that ghostflower scent to overpower my senses and get me high on her.
Too fucking good. And very, very dangerous for me.
A foot collided with my knee as she struggled in my hold. I gritted my teeth, breathing through the sharp punch of pain. It was nothing compared to what I’d experienced before.
I had the scars to prove it.
“Stop struggling,” I snarled in her ear, holding us both aloft with the steady beat of my wings.
“Make me,” she hissed back.
A crack split my composure. My nostrils flared at those two words. No one, fucking no one, had ever challenged me like this.
And it was the entirely wrong thing to do. My grip tightened, compressing her ribs.
Air fled her lungs in a harsh gasp. “Fuck you.”
The low melody of her curse bit into me, rendering me unable to do anything but force myself to take a breath, to regain control.
Because with this body, this scent, this voice?
