She purses her lips like she’s done with the emotional portion of this conversation and would like to return to business.
“Skye,” she says, “you promised. You don’t get to back out now.”
I swallow hard, trying to get my heartbeat back under control, trying to shove my panic into a neat little box so I can think. But it’s hard to think right now. I hate that my anger has nowhere to go except outward.
“I won’t back out,” I manage through my teeth.
The second the last word clears my mouth, Cassian and Nathaniel move. They procure the scythe-made daggers and attack. Cassian closes the space so fast it’s almost insulting. He cuts the blade toward her ribs. Nathaniel moves in sync, coming from the other side, not mirroring Cassian but complementing him, forcing her attention to split.
For a single, vicious heartbeat, relief flashes bright inside me.
Good.
Good, fuck her. Fuck the bitch who thinks she can hold my lungs hostage like a leash. And I’m sorry to Talon—sorry, I am—but if Rhea didn’t come looking for him for years, if she didn’t even try, then what was he to her? A pretty memory?
She doesn’t deserve him. He’s mine.
But she doesn’t even widen her eyes.
She slips between the attacks like she’s been waiting for them all along. A pivot of her hips, a ghost-step back, a turn of her shoulder. Cassian’s blade passes where her body was and hits nothing but cold air. Nathaniel’s slash catches the edge of her cloak and she’s out of it before it can snag.
And then she lifts her hand again.
My body reacts before my mind can. The pressure slams back down on me, sudden and absolute.
“Drop the daggers,” she says. “Or Skye suffers more.”
I try to suck air in and get nothing but a thin, humiliating sip.
Talon tightens around me immediately, one arm braced across my ribs, the other at my shoulders, like he can physically hold my organs in place if she tries to crush me from the inside. His hand is warm through my shirt. The contact should be comforting.
It isn’t.
It just reminds me that I’m small in his arms right now.
And when he looks at Rhea, it’s like he’s seeing the outline of someone he used to know… and realizing the shape doesn’t fit anymore.
“Rhea, stop it,” he says. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re hurting her!”
But she couldn’t care less.
“Drop them,” she says again, and this time there’s a faint edge under the calm. “Now.”
Cassian’s hand trembles.
Nathaniel exhales through his nose, slow, controlled, like he’s leashing himself too.
And I hate it.
I hate her. I really hate her.
Cassian lowers the dagger. The metal dips toward the floor. Nathaniel follows suit.
“Good,” Rhea murmurs.
Then she tightens her hold on me anyway, just for the hell of it.
Pain detonates down my spine and blooms behind my eyes. I arch against Talon without meaning to.
