Page 196 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

Someone was screaming, and my hands flew to my temples as though I could hold the cracking seams together—as though the voices could push back the breaking, breaking, breaking.

“Stop,” I begged, grunting as the fire shoved against the knives, against the blinding white. “Get out!!!”

A sharp pinch wrenched me sideways—into a hard body. Heavy eyes locked on a sorrowful woman with white skin and whiter hair. But it was her eyes… brown, like his. She drew a needle from my skin. The world closed like lead curtains despite my will, but hands hooked beneath my arms and a husky voice demanded, “No, Ally. Don’t sleep. You can’t afford to sleep.” He shook me. “Look at me, Alvara. Get up, little one. Get up.”

With every scrap of strength I possessed, I forced my eyes open. For the briefest moment, they landed on gunmetal-gray irises. Odd. He had not called me that in…

An age, it seemed.

Hands shaking, body screaming for relief, a wall of flames burst from me as wolves and crowned demons descended on us—coming for the families stranded within the walls behind.

Agony. Unending, world-shattering agony slammed through me with the brutal finesse of a rusted blade, because Ansel was dead. Gone. In an instant, we lost a force beyond measure. A piece of my soul incinerated with him.

“No, don’t let him take you there—look at me, Alvara.”

But I couldn’t. No matter how desperate his voice was, my eyes wouldn’t open.

And then I was bucking, my body arching off something cold, metal biting into my skin. Wrists. Hips. Ankles. Neck. Agony shot through them all. The harder I fought, the more it burned. Swallowing felt like glass.

“Get her under control,” a familiar voice ordered. Another sharp pinch struck my neck, wrenching a whimper from me as I thrashed against unseen restraints.

That fire—that wall of protection—slipped, retreating inch by inch as the stabbing in my skull swelled into a roar.

“Pathetic,” another voice rumbled, and I blinked into a magnificent room, incandescently white, rustic tables groaning beneath platters of food. A man too large for life sat on the bench across from me.

A man I should have known, but did not.

“This is pathetic—you’re pathetic.” The words cut to marrow, and I fought the sting at the bridge of my nose. “You’ve always been a disappointment, Ally. I thought you knew we were merely humoring you.” Those icy blue eyes narrowed, his lip curling back.

The second man—the beautiful brunette beside him—stalked forward with a sick, satisfied smile. “I only ever wanted your power—thanks for that, by the way.” One corner of his mouth lifted, and fear drove me backward. “Your power, and that wet cunt.”

Pain. That smile promised pain.

“You’re useless now,” he chuckled, lowering to his haunches when I stumbled onto my ass. His hand snapped out and dug into my leg as sparks flared in his eyes. My skin burned beneath his palm as he dragged me closer. “Though I guess I could still pump that cunt full of my cum. Use you up like the good little whore you are. Maybe watch while they do the same.”

No. Wrong. The green-eyed man’s words were wrong. The disgust curling his lip was wrong, too.

“Ally, look at me,” The Old General demanded, cupping my face the instant he appeared between me and the others. Between me and those who meant to use me.

The others I… that I should know. Should know the way I knew Ansel.

Only… Ansel could not be here. Dead. He was dead.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he vowed, shaking his head. Stubble rasped beneath my fingers as they found his jaw. He closed those slate eyes. “I’m sorry I failed you, little one. Eyes on me, okay? We trained you for this, remember? To withstand this. Sort the lies from truth, Ally. Sort them out. August loves you—we all do. He would never say these things. Never. Don’t believe this bullshit.”

“No,” I breathed, blinking back at him. “I… I don’t know you.”

“Yes, you do, Ally. Look at me. Eyes on me. We fought together, you and I, shoulder to shoulder with Aren, for centuries. I know you, Ally.”

But Ansel… Ansel never touched me. Never allowed our skin to meet. Wrong. This was wrong.

As though the realization made him translucent, the green-eyed man stepped through Ansel’s shimmering form.

Pain.

That gleeful, sadistic look promised pain. I scrambled away, but he followed, a broad calloused hand closing around my throat. A whimper escaped me as I fought his grip, unable to kick because everything burned.

Everything burned. My throat. My skin. My skull. It burned until my vision went white, until my head screamed as I was slammed against the floor and my eyes flew open.