Her opponent countered and swung a sharp punch, his fist slamming hard into her stomach. Pain lanced through her core and rattled her ribs. Erinna cringed and choked down rising bile as the soldier wrested the sword from her hand.
By the time her head stopped spinning, her arm had been painfully bent behind her back. She winced, kicking and flailing against her captor’s hold.
Resistance was met with harsh force. The soldier yanked her closer, locking his arm around her neck. He squeezed. Hard.
She tried to suck in air. Her vision hazed from insufficient oxygen. Through a blur of tears, she saw another soldier round on Inez just before she made it around the corner and out of the alleyway. He caught her by the hair and dragged her forcefully to the ground.
Doom.
They had failed.
Shehad failed.
Erinna’s lungs burned, desperate for air. The guard would hold her until she passed out.
Or died.
Then, for the first time in ten years, the cold hum of energy buzzed beneath her skin. It had been a decade since she last felt her Talent, and this time, there was no way to fight it.
The soldier’s heartbeat thrummed loudly in her ears. A taste of ash formed in the back of her throat, and the sticky warmth of his lifeforce wrapped around her fingers. If she pulled hard enough, perhaps…
The arm around her throat went limp as his body crumpled at her feet. The smell of burning flesh permeated the air. Erinna fell to her knees, gasping for air. The ringing in her ears subsidedin time for her to hear the sickening thud of a sword meeting flesh. The tide of power receded as quickly as it came. Her Talent falling back into its useless slumber.
“Yarrow?” asked a voice that filled her with dread. Erinna blinked the haze from her eyes and stared as Captain Kane Atwater appeared among the carnage of his own violence as if summoned from the depths themselves.
He stepped over the bloody, charred body of the soldier who had nearly stripped Erinna of her own life. Her eyes flitted to the string of bodies crumpled on the ground. Every soldier was reduced to a lifeless husk. Erinna nearly gagged from the smell of burned flesh and blood as it invaded her senses.
Kane neared, and Erinna snapped her attention back to the pirate. Blood splattered his jaw and decorated the collar of his shirt. His chest rose and fell in steady rhythm as if he had done nothing more strenuous than climb a flight of stairs.
His amber eyes bore into hers, and Erinna couldn’t find the strength to move away. It was easy to hate him from afar. For the bodies he left in his wake, the boats he sent to the bottom of the ocean. But up close, it was fear that gripped her.
She’d just witnessed what he was capable of. His ability to cut and burn through trained guards like they were nothing. But why was he here, of all places? Why had he saved her life? Erinna bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted copper, all in an effort to keep from trembling, to remind herself not to show weakness.
Kane was so close she could feel the heat from his body as he offered his hand to her. Erinna swatted the gesture away on instinct.
In return, Kane wrapped his fingers around her forearm and hauled her to her feet. Erinna tried to pull free, but his hold wouldn’t budge. His eyes narrowed, near predatory, his face inches from her own.
“You reek.” In one swift move, Kane pushed her sleeve up with his free hand, exposing the mark. He eyed the inky black constellation of bleeding stars.
He arched a brow, returning his focus to Erinna’s face. “You shouldn’t be awake.” His tone was more curious than anything else.
“You shouldn’t be alive,” she spat with immediate post-insult regret. She was lashing out—using her distaste to distract herself from despair.
Kane grinned and released her. “I guess that makes three of us.”
His humor didn’t land. Erinna stared back at him, rubbing the mark on her arm, trying to figure out how to put as much distance between them as possible.
Everything about him was lethal, from the way he deftly used a blade to his posture that seemed ready to pounce if they tried to run.
Kane shoved his hands into his pockets as his eyes carved a path to the mark, then back to her face. “It’s a curse.”
Panic. Erinna rubbed the sweat from her brow as the word settled over her.Curse.
“What do you mean?” Her throat tightened. “What kind?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know, just know it’s a curse. A witch or mage would know more. But it is old magic, that’s for sure.”
Erinna’s chest squeezed, and she dropped her arm back to her side, shoving her sleeve back down to her wrist.
