Page 26 of Death’s Kiss (The Order of the Tide Raiders #1)

There isn’t any breath left in my lungs to respond to his insults. Not letting my affinity escape is my main focus. The use of our powers is strictly prohibited during Oplon’s class, not to mention the embarrassment of not having it under control as a level-eight.

Quick as a sail catches wind, he maneuvers my hand into an unbreaking hold before driving his knee into my ribcage.

My breathy cursing is guttural, and I feel the room temperature both rising and falling around me while a flush blooms inside my chest. A mixture of wrath and humiliation begins simmering in my blood as Agni forces the weapon from my grip.

He takes my borrowed blade and lightly grazes the lethal edge of the gleaming dagger down my cheek in mockery of my recent taunt regarding his scar. His quicksilver grin above me is smug.

Then he angles the dagger beneath my neck, and I go still.

“And you wonder why I know I’m better than you?” Agni murmurs, almost to himself .

The pure arrogance in his eyes is kindling to my ire. I rear up and spit in his freshly scared face, nicking myself in the process. His smugness turns to unchecked outrage in a blink, exactly as I had hoped.

Agni’s arm instinctively moves to wipe his face, and I take that as my cue to push upwards with all my strength. The southern captain makes a dark sound of annoyance as I roll out from beneath him and jump back up to my feet.

I laugh without amusement. “Come again? Last I checked, our scores were tied, asshole.”

He shakes his head at me like my very existence is a troubling question to him. Before he can make another move, I go for his feet with brazen speed and swipe them out from under him. The staggering male goes down satisfyingly hard.

I’m on him in an instant.

Without a blade, I’m left to my own devices, and my arm squeezes around his neck in a vise. Unfortunately for me, instead of grabbing for release from my hold as I’d expect, he gets his hands on the back of my thighs and twists. I lose my leverage as Agni rolls us until he’s on top.

My gods.

His forearm presses down against my throat while his muscular body lays firmly between my thighs. There’s no chance of repeating my last escape. All I can see are the fiery embers of self-assured satisfaction in his eyes. All I can feel is the pressing weight of him against me.

I’m acting out of instinct now, and a free hand goes for a punch to his vulnerable throat.

He catches my fist with blinding speed just before I make contact in a grip of solid iron and pins it down against the mat above my head. Removing his forearm from my throat, he grabs my other tightly balled fist and pins that one up above as well with an aggravating smirk.

“I am better than you, there’s no doubt about that fact,” he mutters before lowering himself closer to my person. “As for the scores, you got lucky the TideLords took pity on a squid. ”

My vision reddens around the edges.

Piece. Of. Shit.

Agni’s face moves slowly down to mine as if I’m some sort of strange creature he’d like to inspect. He comes so near that his lips almost brush against my own. I discover his new scar is even more menacing up close, and a craven breath catches in my throat.

I hate him.

I hate him so much it's suffocating.

Agni moves back a touch while his eyes flicker down my person with dark brows furrowed in disdain. “How are you this little?” he mutters in question, sounding somehow both irked and surprised by the obvious difference in our statures.

My blood damn near freezes beneath his study. Locking my legs behind his back, I give all my effort to buck him off and pray to the drowned gods that he’s unbalanced enough for it to work. Unfortunately, the gods do not care about my wishes.

My bucking only serves to spark up something wicked in his eyes. They glitter maliciously before he pins me down harder. Every plane of his body is now driving me into the mat, and I think I catch something like starvation flitting briefly through his gaze before his teeth clench.

My breathing hitches from the impact of his added weight.

A muscle in his jaw flickers.

“ Quare non vos futuere illa iam? ” someone asks, disrupting our brawl with a barking laugh.

Glancing up, I find it’s his second in command, Raider Ophios. I hate not knowing what they're saying, especially when it’s so obviously about me. From the mean glint in Vagar’s navy eyes, I can tell Captain Agni’s second is far from over our little table debacle.

His gaze never leaves mine even while snapping back at Vagar, “ Noli vi ego posuit a rostrum in te. ”

Raider Ophios lets out a dark chuckle in return to whatever terrible comment his captain has no doubt just made about me. Then, with sudden abruptness, Agni lets go of his hold on my wrists before getting off of my person entirely. I begin inhaling greedy gulps of air while he stands.

The south captain tosses my blade back onto the mat beside me before turning to collect the one I disarmed from him along with the rest of his discarded pile at the end of our makeshift area.

He nears his second, and I hear Vagar whisper to his captain’s passing figure, as if I can even understand them. “ Scis quid acciderit cum ignis et glacies miscentur... res admodum humidae fiunt. ”

Agni glances back at me, and I notice his obsidian hair is indecently messy from our brawl.

I’ve moved up to a kneeling position, currently focusing on the free expanse of my ribs as I can finally breathe again.

His full lips pull upward in the corners, and cruel amusement is plain in his gaze while amber eyes access me once more.

“ Illa facit vultus bonum on sua genua, annon? ” he asks Vagar with a wink.

His second almost chokes on his resounding howl of a laugh.

Fucking mongrels.

I’m left rising from the mat, shaking in a freezing rage. I don’t bother waiting for my crew to finish their rounds before storming out of the training chambers in the wake of my growing abandon. I’m crammed full of emotions that I’m decidedly not equipped to handle.

Uncomfortable heat and embarrassment and loathing and something else I can’t quite place consumes me. Whatever it is, it writhes inside of my veins like a living being and stirs my affinity into a foreign frenzy of unrest. My power is straining at the leash, begging to be untethered.

Regardless of the conversation I had with Kleio and regardless of my resolve to give myself a bit more leeway, the same cannot be said for my affinity. To let it loose is far more dangerous than allowing myself some backtalk .

I tear down the rocky tunnel passage, my thunderous thoughts surrounding Agni and his cretinous southern tongue. Laughter from ahead drifts out to bait my straining temper, laughter I recognize from its musical quality. I know it’s Captain Leporem before rounding the corner.

Corvina and two of her crew members chat in an alcove of the hallway before me in barely hushed voices.

One of the two is her second, Raider Bellum, the other is a tall, slender-built boy.

His brown hair is cut short, and his nose is strikingly sharp.

I don’t know the male’s name, but the vicious glimmer in his eyes tells me what they’ve been laughing about.

Or rather, who .

Corvina’s smile is feline while taking in the state of me.

I can only imagine what sort of dishevelment I’m in, but I don’t care.

There is ice, bitter and cruel, thrashing inside of me, demanding to be heard.

It’s taking the better part of my focus not to allow for that.

She steps into my path, as do her two crew members, and I bite back a growl of annoyance.

“Move,” I bark out.

It’s both a warning and a demand.

Her emerald eyes glitter like venom against the sheen of her silky raven braid. “Why would I do that? You didn’t even ask politely.” Corvina fakes a pout with the cross of her arms.

“Fucking move, ” I demand, my voice low and vitriolic. The power is building into a pounding headache, and my temples are beginning to throb. I need to get out of here as quickly as possible.

Her smile widens to a grin while looking me up and down. “Maybe I should show you how asking politely is done,” she purrs darkly. Raider Bellum and the unnamed male on her right snicker, clearly in on the joke.

Corvina’s voice takes on an ethereal tone, like snow falling on calm midnight waters, as she orders, “Get on your knees and beg me, squid.”

“Oh Olsson is going to fucking love you for this,” the male raider jeers, his eyes alight and greedy to watch me grovel .

My body moves without permission. I find my knees slamming into the stone floor of the tunnel. Rock bites into my skin and I think I hear something splinter. The voice that slides past my lips is not my own when I plead, “Please move.”

They all roar with laughter.

"Ugh, you’re every bit as pathetic as Olsson said. I’m not even sure you really have an affinity. You certainly are weak for an elemental.” Corvina’s smile turns saccharine. “Beg me again.”

“P—please move, Captain Leporem," I beg, my body and voice no longer under my command. I’m struggling to keep a hold of my affinity in its increasingly feral unruliness.

There is both keen amusement and and an edge of hunger in Corvina’s gaze.

She doesn’t even have a clue as to what kind of danger she’s in.

Perhaps that’s my own fault. I probably should have retaliated sooner, should have given them a taste of who I really am.

So they would understand that there is in fact a monster lurking just beneath my skin.

Clearly, what she’s asked of me is not enough.

Corvina tilts her head and speaks again with that bewitching voice, "Oh, you can do better than that surely after all the trouble you’ve caused.

You’re nothing but an offensive little mistake, you know that?

Your entire crew should have their sanity checked.

” Her own crew members' laughter encourages the silver-tongued captain further.