Serenna swallowed and quietly admitted, “It was given to me.”
“And who so freely bestowed an Aelfyn artifact to a half-elf grunt?” The male’s eyes pinned on her. “Theking?”
Serenna lifted her chin. “Prince Vesr—”
With no warning, the male ripped off his gauntlet. He shoved a grotesquely clawed hand to her chest, sundering her words. Talons shredded her leathers, gouging into flesh, splitting into skin.
A scream ravaged Serenna’s throat when pain like nothing she’d ever known detonated within her Well as he started flaying her power. Agony radiated from the depths of her body as he plucked, slashed, and unraveled the fibers of her magic. White-hot anguish thieved Serenna’s sight as her mind caved in on itself, Essence threatening to rip her apart.
Something inside of her shattered and snapped.
Knees buckling, reality disintegrated into splinters as Serenna crashed to the ground. Like a wounded animal whose limb had been cleaved by a trap, she lay panting, unable to process the injury. Unable to comprehend the loss.
The male had taken something. Something that washers. Mind racing, Serenna frantically dove inward, assessing her power.
There was a hole. A gaping hole in her Well.
Portaling.
Her ability was gone. Serenna’s heart careened in fear at the incomprehensible emptiness. Disbelieving, she looked up in horror. The male’s concentration focused on a globe of white light hovering above his claw.
Devastated by a thousand warring thoughts, each one more terrifying than the last, Serenna’s mind howled, processing that he’d somehow stolen her talent.
“NO!” she screamed as he shoved her ability into his chest. Through the bond, she sensed his exhilaration at the surge of power. “NO!” She stumbled to her feet.
Serenna shook loose hair out of her eyes. Black hair. Trembling, she held up her hands and nearly vomited. The impossible truth pulverized her, crashing into her like a boulder. She didn’t have claws, but her fingers had elongated. Gruesomely so.
Her panicked voice rang around the chambers. “What did you do to me?”
With a snarl, he lunged and snatched her leathers. A cloud of rending reared behind him, spreading like dark wings. “Now you will know what it means to be wraith.”
Serenna’s vision went white when he started plundering the rest of her Well. Thoughts fragmenting, all she knew was pain. Her body convulsed through the endless wave of agony, sanity unraveling. Every nerve on fire, she screamed, calling out for help. For the prince. For Jassyn. For anyone to stop the butchering of her magic.
She distantly heard other voices in the chamber.
“Lykor!” a male yelled. Boots pounded into the room.
Sight blurring, Serenna blinked to see a golden-haired half-wraith dragging the claw away from her chest. He shoved back the male who was raiding her magic.
Blinking again, Serenna discovered she was curled on the ground, having collapsed at some point. She gasped for air as the waves of agony subsided.
“I’ve got your she-elf,” a male voice said behind her.
Serenna flinched when a warm hand touched her shoulder. Gently lifting her under the arms, he hauled her to her feet.
Disoriented, Serenna staggered as a wave of dizziness rocked the ground beneath her boots. Regaining her balance, she went rigid upon seeing the hulking warrior—the only full wraith in the room—restraining her arm with a wicked claw. Torchlight glinting off of the shining rings pierced into his face only intensified his utterly barbaric look.
Eyes swiveling back across the chamber, Serenna watched the half-wraith clench the arms of the one who’d stripped portaling from her. He restrained the one he’d called Lykor, their boots scraping against the floor in a scuffle.
Sensing his frenzy to kill her for reasons she couldn’t comprehend, Lykor’s gaze was fastened on her. When Serenna instinctively angled her perception toward him, she met a void where she expected his presence to be. He’d gone wild casting out an explosion of Essence, shadows snaking up the walls.
Fear erupted, stealing Serenna’s breath as some of that darkness streaked towardher. Forced to include the wraith gripping her arm, Serenna wrenched another shield into place. She channeled her entire strength into the ward, knowing that the rending battering her barrier would obliterate her to blood and bone.
The male wrestling with Lykor gritted his teeth, fangs elongating. “Aesar, now would be the time to take over.”
A lance of shock nearly jolted Serenna’s power out of her grasp.What did he say?Her gaze volleyed between everyone in the room as her confusion compounded.
Serenna’s eyes locked for a fraction of a second with the wraith holding her arm. He appeared to be nervously spinningone of the rings in his brow, attention bouncing between her and the surrounding shield.
