I haven’t screamed. I’ve reserved all of my energy, focusing on keeping him away from me, but I haven’t come close to using every defense available to me, including the chain.
With a swift left-to-right movement, I swing it over the back of his neck. He’s so intent on squeezing the life out of me that I suppose he doesn’t realize the danger. Or how exposed his own neck is.
With another swift movement, I loop the chain back around his throat.
Now, he jolts, but I’m already yanking the chain tight. As fast as I can, I swing my legs to the right, knocking the blanket aside, drawing on all the strength in my stomach muscles, kicking as hard as I can into his upper chest, not only ramming him backward but planting my feet and pushing.
His eyes fly wide as the chain pulls tight.
One end is attached to the bed. The other end is connected to my wrist. The middle is wrapped around his neck.
I slap my left hand behind my right wrist, focusing on supporting it so I don’t break my own hand under the pressure. At the same time, both of my feet push, push, push against his shoulders, harder and harder, forcing him away from the bed, tightening and tightening the chain.
Now I scream.
I cry with effort and with horror, because his eyes are bulging, he’s dropped his dagger, and he’s scrabbling at the chain with both hands, trying to loosen it, trying to swing himself free of it, trying to breathe, trying to live.
My scream peels out around me, strained and painful, my throat injured and my voice damaged, but that doesn’t matter to me right now.
I can’t die tonight.
His body is twitching, the chain is cutting through his flesh, and the pressure on my wrist is unbearable, but even in the haze of blood and rage and fear, I register the fact that the circlet is pulling most strongly against the inside of my wrist where the image of the blade’s cross-guard lies. It may as well be metal armor, protecting my skin.
The ruby circlet can’t cut my arm.
My earlier attempts to get the blade out would have failed.
But that, too, isn’t important to me right now.
Another scream leaves my lips. This one sobbing and sickening.
My attacker’s death isn’t quick. He continues to struggle, even as his eyes fill with blood and the flesh across his neck splits.
Life clings, and it doesn’t flee easily. Death is horrifying and gruesome, and there’s nothing heroicabout it.
I need it to be over. I’ve never killed anyone.
I’ve never ended a fae’s life.
Tears pour down my cheeks. I nearly loosen the chain, almost pull my legs back. I’m certain I’ve hurt him enough that I could knock him to the ground and tie him up somehow. Maybe. If the chain lets me move far enough?—
Across the room, the door bursts open.
Antony stands in the opening, naked from the waist up except for the leather strap over his heart.
His chest heaves, growls, leaving his lips like he’s some fucking ferocious beast.
He’s covered in blood, dripping with gore. So much blood that I can smell it across the distance between us.
I catch sight of a long, jagged bone gripped in his hand before he launches himself forward and rams the bone through my attacker’s exposed side.
The weapon strikes all the way through the man’s torso, plunging out the other side.
The life finally leaves the man’s eyes, and his arms flop to his sides, his head lolling.
My feet are still planted on his chest.
The chain is still taut around his neck.
