He lifted Ire half off the ground, using everything: back, shoulders, hips. Ire slammed an elbow down into Blake’s back, but Blake simply adjusted his grip and pivoted, slamming Ire sideways into the dirt with a sickening thud.
Ire tried to scramble up. Blake kicked him in the side of the knee with a steel-toed boot. Full force. The crack rang out clear. The joint dislocated, and Ire bellowed, but Blake was already moving.
“You dared to take her?”
His voice was deathly calm, more terrifying than if he’d yelled.
Blake crouched low, eyes wild.
This time, he didn’t use his body.
The metal of Ire’s skin, his one weapon, suddenly pulled tight. Blake squeezed his skin and bones andbody.
“You touched her,” Blake rasped, voice barely human. “You caged her. Beat her. I warned you. You will die for touching what’s mine.”
Ire’s lips parted, but there was no air to make a sound. He was bleeding from the mouth. He fell back and Blake followed, pushing his booted foot atop his chest, pressing—the metal was killing Ire slowly, agonizingly.
Blake studied him. Then, with a slow, inexorable motion, he twisted the metal further. The wet grind of bone and iron meeting made my stomach turn, but I didn’t look away. I wouldn’t look away.
“This is for Rubi,” Blake murmured, and the metal tightened, sinking deeper into muscle, making Ire sob silently.
Blake settled atop Ire, knees astride him, as his blade—his brother’s thundervein blade—reappeared in his hand.
“Now, tell me who—”
A slice through the air echoed in the space, a blade lodging into Ire’s throat before he choked on red blood spilling from his neck and mouth.
Blake, furious, tore his eyes over his left shoulder to where Malissa strutted through the wreckage of the room, her other knife still in her hand.
“Damn it, Malissa,” Blake cursed. “We needed to question him.”
“Please. He’s an oaf. We both know he knows nothing. Besides, you got your Pair back,” Malissa said. “Maybe worry about her,considering she looks a few seconds from death.” Blake spun toward me, eyeing where the collar still hung around my neck, the only metal restraint that hadn’t been broken by his magic.
“Holy gods,” a low voice murmured, and my eyes shot to the doorway, where Quinn stood over the wreckage of Ire’s body.
Jace’s face was hard and unreadable. Then his eyes lifted to me, taking in the collar, the marks on my skin. His breath caught, and his jaw tightened. He took a single step toward me before stopping, his fists clenching at his sides, fury radiating from him.
I hadn’t seen Blake move, but he was there, wrapping his cloak around me with the utmost tenderness. His nostrils flared as he looked over the rune-engraved collar still around my throat.
He concentrated upon it, and I felt a sharp snap of pain, crying out and pushing away from him suddenly.
“Stop, please,” I begged, hating my own weakness, but too tired to pretend I wasn’t in agony. Whatever he’d tried to do to the metal at my neck hadn’t worked. It hurt memore. I tried to picture encasing the collar in a shield again, but it didn’t work, as if the collar had adapted to my defense.
His eyes burned.
“Can you help her?” another voice said, and I blinked my eyes at Calla—touched that she had come. She knelt by my side, lifting my head to her lap. “Merciful Nuwa—you have to do something, Blake.”
“Iknow,” he snapped at her, something dark breaking loose in his voice, a deep well of pain that had ripped open. “Rubi, love. I’m sorry—”
“Blake, please,” I begged, cutting off into a cry as the pain burrowed further. I jerked up and away from him again. “Don’t—”
“I can’t,” he said, horror threading through every word. Another burst of pain from the collar around my neck had me screaming again.
“What’s happening to her?” a familiar voice cried. I thought it was Quinn, but I didn’t have the strength to open my eyes and find out. “Ribbon girl?”
“The collar,” Calla said, quiet. Heartbroken, the sound of tears in her words. “It’s dark magic. Blake can’t break it.”
50
