Page 27

CHAPTER 27

CLAWDIA

S omething felt wrong. I awoke from my nap in the dark to find that all my men were still gone, doing their various jobs to save the realm. I felt redundant but also grateful for the rest.

I checked in on Savida and Daithi, who were curled up with each other in bed, fast asleep, and smiled at the sight of them. They are so cute. Savida’s wings wrapped around them like a cocoon, and his red hair flopped onto the pillow, revealing his horns.

As I walked down the stairs, déjà vu struck me, and I frowned at the sensation. I looked over the banister and into the living room, but nothing struck me as strange. Until I stepped down again and froze.

Fafnir stood in the doorway. The door had been smashed into wooden pieces on the floor, although I hadn’t heard a thing. He was framed by the red light from a fire wall as tall as the house itself, which burned yet made no noise. It made him look like the devil.

Yet I heard my gasp and shivered as I met his gaze. Fear choked me.

Eyes so dark they could have been black bore into me, pinning me in place on the stairs. His slick back hair glowed from the fire outside, and his handsome face wore a threatening smile, revealing perfect teeth.

“Hello, wife.” He leaned against the door frame casually as I struggled for breath. “Or should I have started this another way? Do you not get bored when the reality is a repetition of something you’ve already seen in a vision? Perhaps I should start my greeting with Jewel since I didn’t call you that in the other versions of the future you glimpsed.”

My eyes widened as I realized what he was telling me.

It was him. He was in my dreamscape. He was the shadow thing watching me.

He didn’t need my questions or encouragement to continue. Since he was so sure he’d won, he wanted to brag about outsmarting us.

“Oh yes, you thought you were safe from me, but I found you in your dreams, seeing the future of my attack. I saw it all.”

“How?” I croaked. My hands shook, and my mind spun as hope faded in my heart.

If he saw what I did, we have no advantage. I’m alone. I can’t contact the others or use my threads. What am I going to do?

“Remember this?” From his pocket, he pulled out a white lace ribbon. One I recognized as the one my mother tied in my hair the day I was married. “I found it in a box of my belongings, which my witches had stored for me. Very helpful of them, because it allowed me to find you in your dreams.”

How did he know he would see visions in my dreamscape? I didn’t even know that. He must have read the question in my face or, even more horrifying, my mind, because he responded as though I’d spoken aloud.

“I once met a faei who was a seer. He told me dreams are protective and allow us to process information that could damage us when we are conscious. I knew, as a new seer, you would rely on the dreamscape. And I was right. Although, I have to say, I found myself quite uninspiring in those visions, so I’ve taken the time to really, truly plan this out.”

I heard the threat in his words, and fear took over. I backed away, my mind racing through options, then my body shimmered, form blurred as bones shifted, muscles reconfigured. In the space between heartbeats, I was no longer human but a cat.

Fafnir’s laugh echoed through the house, a sound that seemed to come from everywhere at once. “Changing forms won’t save you.”

In the horror films, running up the stairs meant the hero became trapped on the roof with the villain, but I didn’t want to be a stupid, fear-driven heroine who needlessly died.

I jumped through the spindles of the stairs, landing on the table below, knocking off the pint-glass with the dead flower I’d “caught.” I’d been meaning to throw it away for days, and as I dodged the shards of glass, my paws scrambling in the filthy water, I wished I had.

I raced into the kitchen and jumped onto the table, then onto the counter, and just as I launched myself from the counter and toward the open window, invisible hands seized me. I struggled and squirmed against the binding spell, throwing every scrap of energy I possessed against it, but I remained frozen mid-air. Trapped.

“You thought you could escape that way, Jewel? When you know I can stop you from moving with just a few words of a dark spell?” He sighed and shook his head as he walked into the kitchen after me. “I’m embarrassed for you.”

Panicking, I continued to strain against the spell, but nothing worked, and with every step he took closer, the faster my heart beat. Without thinking, I changed form and let out a whoop of delight, overjoyed to be free of the spell. But I didn’t move. I remained frozen. Only now, I was frozen, naked and bare to a man who beat me and tried to rape me.

My eyes widened as he approached me, his gaze looking over my body. I felt cold.

“And to think I could have enjoyed such a lovely body before you took it from me.” He narrowed his eyes and ran a finger over my thigh. “Maybe I’ll do it now, while you’re at my mercy. Perhaps then I’ll sate this unquenchable desire and curiosity I have for you.”

“Don’t,” I spat. “Don’t touch me.”

“You’re in no position to tell me what to do. You were my wife, and you belonged to me.” He gripped my jaw, his thumb and finger digging into my cheeks. “Do you know what steps I took to crush your soul so I may unlock the magic you possessed? It should have been mine, but you took it from me before I could reap my rewards.”

“I’d do it again,” I said, trembling.

I might have to. I don’t want to die, but I’d sooner take my life, and the lives of my bonds if it stopped him from getting what he wanted from us.

He let out a cruel laugh. “You won’t get the chance. This time, I can hold you still because I took the time to practice my power, to use it to my benefit, to mold it and build it to a power greater than all other witches. I’m not crushed under the weight of rules or morality. I transcended them and now I’m feared. Unstoppable.”

I have to do something … but what? I couldn’t use my threads. I couldn’t contact the others. I had to believe that they could sense something strange with the bond or even see the fire outside.

I just need to stall. I have to get him … monologuing. Please let Charlie be right about the monologuing.

My voice trembled as I replied, “Yet all you want is to be human, a hunter.”

“What do you know about it?” His eyes flashed dangerously, but I couldn’t allow that to scare me.

“I know all about it, Fafnir. You were an innocent young boy, and your village was wrong to treat you so poorly for being different. The hunters were kind to you only because they thought you were human. They would have killed you if they knew you were anything else, but you craved that affection too much to leave as you should have. You should have found haven with someone who could love you for you.”

His one hand gripped my throat, cutting off my air, while the other squeezed my thigh so hard his nails cut my skin.

“Don’t pity me!” he screamed. “The hunters and my children loved me, but I am not a child seeking love anymore. I’m seeking revenge and glory.”

He took a deep breath and relaxed his grip on my neck, allowing me to take a desperate gulp of air. Then he trailed a finger from my neck and down my sternum, stopping between my breasts.

He stared and drew something on my skin as he confessed softly, “I will tell you a secret. I’m going to take the magic from you and your mates to complete a new spell. One which will wipe the memories of my descendants and the hunters so I can rejoin them, destroy the supernaturals of the human realm, all the while becoming the most powerful being in the world.”

He looked up and smiled so widely I shivered. Then he looked back down at my body, and every part of me strained against the magic that held me so I could hide myself from him.

I knew I was in real danger of being raped unless I could distract him, so stuttering and completely terrified, I asked, “How d—does separating from your d—dragon make you more p—powerful?”

I distracted him, but I also enraged him again. His lip curled, his nostrils flared, and his hand wrapped around my throat again, squeezing so hard I thought my head was popping off my shoulders.

“You weren’t supposed to kill it. The stupid beast wanted freedom, and I wanted another weapon to control. It was the perfect plan until you murdered it.” He growled, spittle hitting my cheek, but he sighed, released my neck, and backed away. “Now, as nice as it’s been to catch up, Jewel, it’s time for you to die.”

He muttered something, and then the blade appeared in his hand. The one that killed Winnie. The one Mary made for him to poison the victim. The mesmerizing, enchanted dagger that had decorated the mantlepiece in their rented home.

I gasped and coughed, my throat burning and so sore I couldn’t even protest.

“You recognize it, no?” He sneered. “I thought it was a nice touch, killing you with the blade that should have killed you, along with your witch. But you’ve always been able to escape the tightest of nooses.”

The dagger in Fafnir’s hand struck in a blur of motion, its blade gleaming with the reflection of the red fire light as it cut through the air toward my throat.

I closed my eyes as they filled with tears. Regrets crossed my mind in a flash, and I longed to tell my men, my soul bonds, how much I loved them before we perished. I hoped they knew.

My muscles tensed as I waited for the killing blow, but the enchanted metal only caressed my neck in a whisper soft, almost painless, slice. My eyes shot open, and he laughed.

“I’m not letting you die so quickly,” he said simply. “I’ve waited a long time to take your magic, and poisoning you is revenge.”

“Why?” I croaked, my eyes glassy with tears that I wouldn’t let fall. He took too much joy in torturing me, and I wouldn’t let him see me cry, too.

He played with the knife as he told me a story. “When I first saw you on a bus, you were going to the hospital. I knew you weren’t a witch. I tried to take your magic, but it was locked away. Imagine my surprise when I went to your family home and found your father drunk and your mother so disinterested. It was almost too easy.”

Each breath felt like swallowing broken glass, but it wasn’t just the strangulation causing pain. It was the burning heat of poison spreading from the wound through my veins.

“I discovered your father was a distant relative. Apparently, my father had another child when I left. One who had more children. Even though he had no dragon, we had a family bond in which I spoke to him. I ensured the whispers in his mind never stopped. I ensured he was disgusted every time he saw you. He did the rest.”

I knew it already, but hearing him confess to it, to torturing me through my family before we’d even met, infuriated me.

“You were broken and perfect for the magic in your soul to be snatched, but even then, after you lost everything, you were still untouchable. Not a witch. Not a human. Not a dragon. A titan soul pair. The weak side. I guessed at it only when I was researching the realms after you’d died, and I was right.”

His hand wrapped around my calf, the touch burning so cold I shivered, and the horrible sensations of his magic-stealing spell began, working in tandem with the poison to make me scream. Streaks of fire danced along my veins, and his spell reached the magic in my soul and yanked until it spilled out.

“Your power … it’s delicious. I can do so much with it. I’m almost glad it worked out this way, because now you have more powerful bonds for me to draw on, too.”

I’m going to die. We are all going to die.

Just then, in a state of complete despair and delirium, inspiration struck me like lightning. Like the flash of a vision, information came together in my mind with a clap, and the jigsaw slotted together, giving me a way out.

It’s risky. It’s so risky. But if I trust in fate to save me like Nisha said, then maybe it would save us … rather than kill us.

Blocking out the pain as much as I could, I reached within myself where my bonds connected my souls to my men. Charlie’s bond was where I concentrated, especially on the black smokey line that ran through the bond. Our tether? I wasn’t sure, but I hoped it was. I hoped I could use it as a weapon against Fafnir in a last attempt to survive.

As I pulled at the black string, it lifted from the golden, thicker, and sturdy bond like a burned strand in wool. It crackled and faded away as I tried to disentangle it.

I was shaking and sweating from the pain of the poison and having my magic drained, but separating that bond from Charlie, from the golden bond, was like trying to unpick stitches from my heart while it still beat. The separation sent shards of pain through my entire being. It was excruciating. Not just physically, but emotionally, too.

As I ripped it out, I felt as if I’d cut away a piece of my soul and cast it adrift. Yet the golden bond to Charlie remained intact, although still muted, and I was still breathing … for now.

It seemed I wasn’t saying goodbye to Charlie. No, I was saying goodbye to something just as essential.

My familiar form.

The shadow magic which had brought me back to life, given me a second chance, and offered me the comfort of living as a cat as I healed from my past.

I mourned losing it already. I hated that I would never feel that safety again. I would never feel the kind of confidence a cat had, the agility, the shield from all the troubles of the world.

But I didn't need it anymore. I might have started my new life with scars from my past, but with the love and support of my new family, I was able to push past all the fears that kept me shackled to my familiar form.

So, I could sacrifice it to save us all.

It tried to escape, straining and wiggling in my grip, desperate to return to its homeland. I wasn’t supposed to use it like this. I wasn’t a shadow. I’d been lent the power, but I didn’t let the smokey black line go. I held on like a drowning person clings to a lifeline.

It was my lifeline. My last hope.

As my breathing faltered, as Fafnir stole my magic, as the poison set into my blood, making me delirious, I threw that shadow bond, that tether, at Fafnir.

I felt the moment it connected. His surprise and confusion filtered back to me like waves. But he didn’t know this magic. He hadn’t prepared for it and didn’t understand what I was doing until it was too late.

All the pain I currently felt, all the suffering he caused me in my last life, all the memories I had of his cruelty, I channeled back to him like a tidal wave. I drowned him in all the misery I’d ever experienced. I even showed him memories of his own past.

“You’re getting exactly what you deserve, you monster.”

He crashed to the floor, knocking over the table, gasping and clutching at his throat. His magic faltered. I fell to the counter as his spell released me but didn’t break my concentration. The tsunami of pain made his eyes bulge, and his hand released the dagger.

I picked up the knife and whispered, “You thought you’d won, but you underestimated me. I might die from poison, but I’m going to make sure that you reap what you sow and die exactly the same way.”