Page 197 of A Courage of the Chosen

His sword gouges deep into my thigh, and I unleash a loud roar as blood oozes down my leg. Tearing the sword free, I toss it to the side. I’m done entertaining this fight.

“Playtime’s over now,” I hiss, sending shafts of darkness shooting for Callahan.

He dives around the first four, weaving his body around them like a dancer, but he moves right into the path of the next torrent that swallow and down him.

Pinned to the blood-drenched grass, a band across his upper arms, wrists secured to each other, legs tightly bound, Callahan uselessly squirms against my hold. His light flickers in and out, almost completely spent. Where he makes a tiny bit of progress in freeing himself, more of my darkness replaces it, until the silver of his armor begins to buckle beneath the strain.

I brace over him, a massive paw either side of his head. “I’m not going to kill you yet. You have something I need.” I tap a talon against his breastplate, right where his magic resides.

It might be weakened, but the light is still within him. I can see the flicker of it residing in his core. “And you’re going to watch as the life you’ve fought for over the last century pile high with corpses of your armies. You will be a footnote in my history, and by the time I’m through, you’ll beg for death.”

“Fuck. You,” he says through clenched teeth, and has the fucking audacity to spit in my face.

I wipe it away with the back of my paw. “Now that was rude.”

“Callahan!” Broderic booms behind me, and for the first time, there’s a flare of fear in Callahan’s determined gaze.

He isn’t scared for himself. He never has been. He’s scared for those that have followed him into battle. Especially the warrior now hurtling in our direction in a lame attempt to save my cousin.

It’s too good.

It happens in a flash. I round on Broderic at the same time he hoists his sword high. I catch it, barely feeling the sharpness carving into my palm, and wrap my other hand firmly around his neck.

Broderic wiggles his sword free, and aims low as I heft him a few feet off the ground. It’s deflected by my magic, and something stutters across the deep brown of his irises. An awareness of what comes next.

I hold his gaze steady and turn my free hand, now stitched back together, palm up.

My talons slide under the lip of his breastplate.

His large hands curl around the arm still gripping him by the throat, scratching and grappling to get free as I slowly push forward so that my claws dig into him.

They pierce him with ease, muscle and sinew and flesh caving. Broderic’s eyes blow wide.

I twist upwards, spearing his organs and severing him apart with each millimeter I move.

The frantic thumping of his heart vibrates down the length of my arm, and with the first fatal gash of the arteries surrounding it, blood trickles from the corners of his mouth.

Thick ropes of red leak down his torso, coursing down his legs and soaking my skin. Callahan screams defiantly at my back, the fighting around us lowering to a distant hum while I hone in on the color draining from Broderic’s face.

And little by little, I gut him.

To make sure he doesn’t walk away this time, I send just enough shadows into his bloodstream that no healer could ever hope to extract them.

Broderic accepts his defeat. A weak, solitary nod as his arms go slack, head lolling backward. When his eyes flutter closed, and his wet breath wheezes between bloodied lips, I discard him to the side.

When I turn back to the Seelie still held to the ground, spit flies from his mouth as his chest heaves, eyes locked on Broderic.

“Brodie, get the fuck up. Now!” Callahan commands desperately.

The warrior lies still and silent.

“Brodie!” Callahan works even harder to break free. More shadows and darkness keep him where I require.

I pace toward him leisurely, the royal army almost back where they started at the foot of the hill, and draw the only weapon I have on me.

A single knife, the emblem of Elfayne carved into the pommel.

A blade that once belonged to the first Seelie queen, and has spilled more of her blood than any other steel in this kingdom. I press it into the hollow of his throat, reveling as it opens where he swallows.