Page 157 of House Ignis

“Ava!” Asher’s fury tore through the bond, savage and protective.

Blood trickled from my split lip, but I blinked through the haze and smiled again, shaky and bloodstained.

"He's going to ruin you for that," I whispered.

Zorian blinked, a flicker of doubt crossing his face before he masked it with a sneer. "Your little earth prince won't save you, princess. Jeremy is probably balls-deep in some third-year by now, forgetting you even exist."

My heart flinched at the mention of his name, but I didn’t let a single shadow of it reach my eyes.

I just stared up at him—calm, cold, and utterly certain. "It's not Jeremy you have to worry about."

"It's me."

The voice didn't come from my mind. It came from the doorway.

Zorian spun around and froze.

Asher stood there, framed by the darkness of the corridor, shadows pouring off his frame like smoke.

Blood—dark and fresh—slicked his twin daggers, dripping slowly onto the stone floor.

His eyes were no longer silver; they glowed with a wild, unholy light that promised nothing but carnage.

Zya padded in beside him, her fur a rippling abyss, licking her lips clean of someone else's life.

“Why are you here—how—” Zorian’s voice caught in his throat, his bravado dissolving into a pathetic whimper.

I coughed, spitting more blood onto the floor as I looked at Zorian’s terrified face. “You touched the wrong female, you piece of shit.”

Asher’s voice cut through the air, low and primal, vibrating through the very stone. “You really decided to fuck around and kidnap my firecracker? The female I’m blood-bound to?” He sighed, shaking his head with terrifying calm. “Now you get to find out.”

Zorian backed up, his hands raised in a useless plea. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to—”

But Asher was already stepping into the room, his movements fluid and lethal.

“You’re not sorry yet.” He paused, his gaze dropping to the blood on my thigh. “But you will be.”

He walked into the cell slowly, the shadows at his boots licking the floor like hungry flames. He wiped his blood-slicked daggers on his sleeves, never once breaking eye contact with Zorian. Then he looked at me. His nostrils flared as he caught the scent of my blood and fear.

Gods, wasn’t that the hottest thing I’d ever fucking seen? There was definitely something wrong with my moral compass.

“Untie her.”

Zorian whimpered, nodding frantically. His hands shook so violently he nearly fumbled the knots as he rushed to free me. I gasped when my wrists finally came free, bruised, raw, and bloodied, but I didn’t dare move. This was Asher’s stage.

“Please, please, I didn’t know she was—” Zorian stammered.

He didn’t finish the sentence.

A tendril of solid shadow lashed out like a whip, slamming Zorian against the stone wall with a bone-deep thud. Another lash of shadow followed, striking his ribs like a blade. Crimson bloomed across his shirt.

Asher stalked toward him like death incarnate.

“No one touches what’s mine,” he snarled.

Meanwhile, my thigh throbbed, the blood soaking through my clothes at an alarming rate.

He better hurry the fuck up before I passed out from blood loss or the sheer intensity of him.