The blade sliced through her restraints, Trevor grabbed her upper arm the moment she was free, yanking her roughly to her feet. Rage surged through me at the sight of his hands on her.
“Let her go,” I said.
Trevor’s smile widened. “I don’t think you understand the situation. You don’t make demands anymore.” He shook Jade slightly, like a child showing off a new toy. “So here’s how this works. It’s now or never, Jade. Either you agree to marry me or I make your demon friend suffer until you change your mind.”
“Say no,” I told her firmly. “You don’t belong to him. You don’t marry a monster like that.”
Trevor’s grip on her arm tightened visibly. “Shut up,” he snapped at me before turning back to Jade. “Don’t listen to him. He’s trying to manipulate you.”
I kept my eyes locked on hers, ignoring Trevor as completely as if he’d ceased to exist. “You are not a bargaining chip. You are not something to be traded or owned.”
“I said SHUT UP!” Trevor shouted, his composure fracturing around the edges.
I continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Whatever happens to me is my choice. I chose this and you with open eyes and free will.” The binding tightened but I pushed through the pain. “Don’t let him take your choice away. Not again.”
Tears welled in Jade’s eyes, but beneath them burned a determination that made my heart swell with pride despite our desperate circumstances. She straightened her spine, chin lifting in that defiant tilt I‘d come to adore in our brief time together.
“No,” she said. “No, Trevor. I will never marry you.”
Trevor’s face transformed at Jade’s refusal, his features contorted, eyes bulging, veins standing out against his forehead as rage flooded his system. It was the expression of a man who had just watched his fantasy shatter before his eyes, and I knew with bone-deep certainty that what came next would be violence.
“You ungrateful bitch,” he snarled, yanking Jade closer to the circle containing me. His fingers dug into her arm, the skin around his knuckles going white with pressure. “After everything I’ve done for you?”
I strained against the binding, muscles trembling with effort as the restraints tightened in response but I could feel the imperfect symmetry of certain sigils. Not the work of a true warlock, but of someone working from incomplete knowledge. It wouldn’t matter if I couldn’t exploit those weaknesses in time.
“The only monster here is him!” Trevor shouted, spittle flying from his lips as he gestured wildly toward me with the knife. “You belong to me! Everything I’ve done has been for us!”
His eyes were wild now, unhinged in a way that made my blood run cold this was madness wrapped in delusion, the most dangerous kind of opponent. Predictable patterns broke down in the face of such fracturing reason.
Jade had stopped arguing. The shift in her posture was subtle, I recognized the change immediately, she was preparing to act. I wanted to tell her to wait, and find another way that didn’t involve putting herself in the direct path of Trevor’s blade. But I knew better than to telegraph her intentions to her captor.
Jade slammed her full body weight into Trevor’s chest, catching him completely off-guard with the suddenness andforce of her attack. His grip on the knife loosened in his surprise, the weapon slipping from his fingers and skittering across the concrete floor with a metallic scrape that echoed through the warehouse.
Pride surged through my chest as I watched my mate fight, they crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs.
“You fucking—“ Trevor’s curse cut off as Jade’s elbow connected with his solar plexus, driving the air from his lungs.
I pulled against the binding circle with renewed determination, focusing my efforts on the weakest point in the pattern. The effort sent pain lancing through my body but I persisted. Every second I could distract Trevor with my struggles was another second Jade had to fight.
On the concrete floor, they grappled violently, Trevor trying to pin Jade beneath him, Jade twisting and striking with elbows, knees, anything that could connect with vulnerable flesh. She managed to land a solid hit to his face, her knuckles connecting with his nose with enough force to send a spray of blood across the floor.
“Fucking bitch!” he howled, one hand clutching his face as Jade scrambled away from him.
She didn’t run for the exit as I’d expected. Instead her eyes scanned the floor until they locked onto something near the edge of the larger binding circle. The knife. She was going for the knife.
Trevor realized her intention at the same moment I did. He lunged after her, fingers grasping at her ankle. She kicked back violently, her bare heel connecting with his reaching hand. The sound of bone meeting bone echoed through the warehouse, followed by Trevor’s howl of pain and rage.
Jade’s palm slapped against the concrete as she pushed herself forward, the rough surface scraping her skin raw. A small trailof blood marked her path as she crawled toward the weapon, determination etched into every line of her body.
“I’ll kill you for this,” Trevor snarled, recovering faster than I’d expected. “I’ll make you watch while I tear your demon apart piece by piece.”
The hatred in his voice was absolute, any pretense of love or concern for Jade obliterated by her defiance. It was the voice of a man who would rather destroy what he claimed to love than see it belong to another.
Jade’s bleeding palm slapped against the concrete as she pushed herself the final distance toward the knife. The movement left a smear of her blood across the floor, wiping away parts of the sigil that had circled her chair. The sigils hissed and flickered, a crack appeared in the pattern, then another, spreading like lightning through the entire structure of the spell.
And then, between one heartbeat and the next, the thread between us snapped back into existence. I gasped at the intensity the immediate awareness of Jade’s presence flooding back into my mind after the aching void of our separation.
Jade froze in her crawl toward the knife, her head snapping up as she felt it too. Our eyes met across the distance, relief and power flowing between us through the restored connection. She pivoted toward me and I could sense the singular thought driving her forward with the knowledge her blood could be used to break through the chalk which would free me.Get to him. Break the circle. Free him.
