For the moment, I remain exactly where I am, although I succumb to the urge to shrug my shoulders. “What were you trying to compel me to do?”
“Submit to my will.”
“Huh.” I purse my lips. “Well, I’m not inclined to do that.”
“I suspected as much,” she says. “Which sadly meansI’mmore inclined to kill you.”
The calm breaks, the air shrieking with the sound of a whip’s deadly tips coming straight at me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Idart away from the tree just as three metal-tipped lashes smash across the wooden trunk.
They hit the wood right where I was standing and flay it as effectively as my claws would have.
Wooden shards fly around me as I come to a stop farther inside the clearing, my ears ringing with the shrieking whip’s movement as it recoils only inches from my face.
Fuck!
I force myself to stay where I am, crouched and ready to fight.
A lone woman levitates above the ground only five feet away from me.
She retracts her whip with an expertise that tells me it may as well be another limb to her. Completely under her control.
Some aspects of her appearance align with what I imagined a fury would look like. She has lush, golden hair and is dressed in a skin-tight, black, leather bodice and long pants.
Her black whip consists of a shorter central rope that splits into three long, metal-tipped lashes. I don’t know the technical names of the parts of a whip, but I know I need to avoid all of them. Even the handle can be used as a bludgeon.
Surprisingly, it appears that only a single snake slithers around her body, and, while it hisses as it slides across her torso, it stays close to her skin instead of baring its fangs at me. It, too, is golden like her hair.
I was certain that furies had more than one snake. I also check for the other two furies since they always move in threes, and I’m concerned when I don’t see or sense them.
The woman doesn’t waste time with words.
She moves fast.
Her whip was already in motion, and now, with a flick of her wrist, it changes direction, once against whistling toward my head.
I dart left, ducking and rolling and judging a safe distance by a matter of inches. My right hand snaps out, claws extended, aimed perfectly to cut right through the whip’s nearest lash before it reaches me.
To my shock, my claws rake across the side of the lash but don’t slice through it.
What the…?
The force of my push causes the lash’s tip to recoil right toward my face. At the same moment, a zap of energy rushes back through my arm, a nasty sting.
I throw myself backward, retracting my claws and backflipping through the air, landing clear.
Or so I thought.
Pain spreads through my cheekbone, and a quick touch tells me I’m bleeding, black blood dripping down to my chin.
My healing power kicks in quickly, and, judging by the look on the woman’s face, she isn’t happy that the wound is closing so quickly.
As I regain my balance, the lashes recoil and the woman raises her arm, spinning her whip around above her head.
The lasheswhooshas they pass through the air.
