He wanted me to fight? Fine. I’d fucking fight. If it could wipe that self-satisfied smirk away from his face, I’d drive one of my ice daggers into his gut. But before I could summon one, he’d reached me, delivering a punishing blow to the back of my knee. My leg gave beneath me. I did not even have time to soften the ice on the ground, pain screaming as my full weight landed on the joint.
But now I had rage to fuel me. I did not aim for his feet, but his chest. A blast of frigid wind knocked him back long enough for me to invadehisspace. He recovered too fast. I swiped the new blade from my belt, determined to draw blood. But Garrick grabbed my belt with one hand, dragging me forward and throwing me completely off balance, while his other hand swung up and caught my wrist, holding it tight over our heads.
I hadn’t even noticed him dropping or throwing or sheathing his own blade. He had me, one arm pinned between our bodies,the other overhead. Fury raged through me, ice cold. I tried to rip my hands free, but he held me tight.
“That is what I meant,” Garrick breathed, our faces too close for the words to form a cloud of condensation. The fury inside of me threatened to melt with the heat of his body, flush against mine. “Good girl.”
My blood thrummed wildly through my veins, my pulse points pounding with a new, hotter fire than the cold power that had hummed through them seconds before.
Garrick’s eyes flared wide, his mouth curling upward. Not a smirk, but a smile. The first genuine smile I’d seen on his face. His fingers were folded right around the pulse point on the inside of my wrist, right beneath the tattoo that marked our bond.
“Good to know,” he murmured.
For a second, I considered closing that space between us. I’d challenge that infuriating smirk. I’d take what I wanted from him—his mouth, his touch, to have him as out of control as I was. I would drive him there, make him experience all of the agony I did. But… why? What would I gain? What would I do, other than make the impossible situation between us worse?
I ripped my arm free, and this time he let me go. “What is the point?”
Without asking, I knew that he understood the question was bigger than this moment of ill-conceived training he’d tried to force upon me. He didn’t answer, and he did not try to regain the space I’d put between us. He reached down, retrieving his curved blade from the ground and tucking it back into place across his chest.
“You will die,” he finally said, dropping down on his side of the fire and picking up the bowl of food I’d turned down. “We will die.”
I watched him eat through the flames. My stomach rumbled, but I had no desire to feed it. The weight of the day pressed in on me, making even sitting up too painful to bear. “You were at the Justice Gate. You heard the crimes,” I said as I settled in, pulling the fur-lined cloak up over my shoulder. “Maybe we don’t deserve to live.”
CHAPTER 28
He waiteduntil I’d been asleep for well over an hour. I did not know Garrick well enough to detect his tells, if he had any at all. But that disadvantage worked both ways. He did not realize I was feigning sleep. Not because I did not trust him, but because I couldn’t handle another argument. All I wanted was silence.
As for the existence of trust between us… I trusted that Garrick cared about his own life enough to protect mine. Whoever or whatever had pushed him through the gates only bolstered that motivation. If he was feeling reckless with his life, there were easier ways to die in Velora than the Seven Gates. But apparently that feeble trust was not returned, because once he felt certain I was asleep, he snuck away into the woods.
And because the Dark God had a well-known appreciation for torture, he started hiking up the mountain, rather than down it.
I dragged myself up, leaving the thick cloak behind. Its heavy layers caught too easily on the forest brambles. My body protested the exertion as we hiked up the mountain, reminding me rudely that I’d hardly eaten in the last day. Despite my boasts to Garrick earlier, the only reserves I had when I got hungry were temper and sass. A winning combination.
But I pushed on, moving as quickly as I dared. Little puffs of snow softened my footsteps, a slow but steady release of power that actually felt soothing rather than draining. I used my power only because without it, Garrick would have caught me in a second. We climbed for nearly an hour. I was ready to give in and start the trudge back down the mountain when I heard voices.
Garrick had snuck away to meet with someone.
A few careful steps to conceal myself behind a tree later, and I recognized the voice. He’d gone to all this trouble to meet with Alize.
Fae bitch.
CHAPTER 29
BEFORE
A witch’spower originated from two sources—the Dark God and her coven. Her active power, derived from the manner of her death, was a gift directly from the king of hell himself. But her ability to cast came from her coven. Their collective power fueled every spell, whether uttered by one or all.
A witch is nothing without her coven.
She may utter the words, but the power would be weakened and temporary. The coven itself was only as strong as its weakest member. Its rules must be obeyed at all costs, or the power of the whole would suffer.
A witch is nothing without her coven.
Maura drove those words into me night after night. They were my new lullaby, the only prayer I said to the Dark God that had subsumed all others.
When my thoughts turned to my past, to the family I’d left behind, the sister whose life I’d ruined, Maura had an answer for that as well.
“You have true sisters now,” she murmured, catching a lock of my dark hair and pulling it free from where I’d tucked it behind my ear. “Sisters who truly understand you, as your others did not.”
