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His eyes were glacial as he looked down at Cherry who shrunk into herself and looked anywhere but at him. “What have I said about the level of noise you must maintain?”

Rowan watched, stunned, as the woman’s eyes welled up with tears and the smell of her fear permeated the room.

“I take it you are Antoni.” Rowan dragged his attention to herself.

He took her in, slowly. As he had about a foot on her, he bent down to examine her more closely. “You have been difficult to track down, Rowan Dahl. I saw the pictures, but I imagined you taller.”

“I imagined you frightening, but all you look like is a coward to me. Can’t handle a face-to-face confrontation, so you use tricks to trap.” She looked around. “It’s shoddy work at best, this cage.”

“Shoddy work that will keep you in place while I fix what you have broken.” He moved to stand as close to her as the cage would allow. A scent of fresh mountain air filled her nostrils, but it was hiding the smell of rotting meat. “And I will only ask you once to keep quiet while you’re a guest. I despise unnecessary noise.”

“Oh, a guest? That means I can leave, right? Cause this really isn’t my kind of scene.”

The man smirked. “Shall I break you like I’ve broken your companion?” He snapped his head back to Cherry, whose color drained from her face immediately.

She hated it. Seeing a man who thought his physical prowess could control a woman’s will and actions. It filled her mouth with a taste of bile.

“Oh, I would like to see you try,” She said with a laugh, “I really would like to see it.”

The man examined her, understanding lighting up his eyes, and he gave a chuckle. “Oh, you’re one of those, aren’t you? A warrior trapped in the female body of modern times. Hiding your power behind soft curves and round cheeks.” He stood to his full height. “I knew a woman like you once, and she had a glaring weakness. I wonder if you have it as well” He backed off and pivoted his attention to Cherry.

Panic rose in Rowan’s throat as she figured out his train of thought. “Don’t you dare touch her.” She snarled and wrapped her hands around the cell’s bars. Blinding hot pain shot through her already raw palms, up her arms and through to her head. For a moment, she felt as if she was flying out of her physical body and her vision filled with an unfamiliar landscape. She was sitting on the edge of a rock, the branches of a weeping willow dipping into the calm surface of an ocean, a reflection of a brown-eyed woman with sweeping brown hair that danced in the wind staring back at her.

Then she slammed back into her body, ears buzzing, aware that Antoni was undoing the locks on Cherry’s cage. “I will shred you to pieces when I get out of here.”

Antoni let out a laugh that chilled her bones before he stepped in

The sounds of skin on skin followed by the cracking bones were not as terrible at the shrieks of pain Cherry let out.

Rowan roared, fingers gripping the bars of her cage.

It was difficult to catch her breath when the begging began. Never in all her years of being harassed by the Coven could she have imagined wanting to defend Cherry Young. To want to take the pain from the witch and pour it into herself.

She fell away from the bars in horror as minutes later the man exited the cage, blood dripping on his robes and his knuckles torn to shreds from his brutality.

“Next time I have to warn you to be quiet, I might just kill her.”

Rowan didn’t speak as the witch left the room, the door shutting with a soft click.

She turned her attention to the puddle that was Cherry Young. She had fallen silent even before Antoni was through with hisshow of force. From the distance Rowan couldn’t tell if the woman was even conscious, but the sound of her heart was pounding in Rowan’s ears and she knew she was alive.

Antoni had already been on Rowan’s shit list for his attacks, but now she would make sure it hurt when she took him down.

XOXOXOXO

Alessandro didn’t know what to make of the video that showed Rowan being phased out of existence as she walked away from her colleagues.

His initial thought had been that she had just phased out, unable to face either of them as she took in the fairy’s death. But the looks from both the kitsune and vampiress told him immediately that something was off.

He rewatched the video before concluding that the way the magic folded around her was not of her creation. It was sloppy and forced, while Rowan’s magic was usually fluid and natural.

Rowan Dahl, kidnapped, and local news had already aired bystander videos that caught the entire incident.

The kitsune, with his face morphed into someone unrecognizable to Alessandro, informed the reporters that the ‘Dragon Hero’, as they’d dubbed her locally, had stepped away in shock and that they wouldn’t be answering questions until she returned.

“What are we going to do?” The fire-dragon asked.

Alessandro tried to keep the smirk from his face. The elf had earned herself a fan amongst one of his generals. It took a great deal of power to impress the hothead, but her stunt with the rune tree had stunned even him.