Page 192 of Blood Curse

The cloth caught under my nail.

I held on.

The Crown pulled my arm towards the silver rest. My smallest finger stayed hooked around the wrapping, and the dagger moved with me.

Mara’s hand closed over empty stone.

She lunged again. The command dragged her towards the blade, but it had already reached my chair. Red light flashed across her chest, searched for a result it could still enforce and went out.

Mara dropped onto one hand beside my boot.

“I’m free.”

Elias released Stellan at the same moment. His order ended when the dagger struck the chair. He staggered back, caught himself and stayed upright.

The first command still held everyone else.

Stellan remained on his knees.

His red chains tightened as the Crown realised the dagger was caught on the one finger I could move. His pale eyes held mine.

He didn’t reach for it.

Good.

The blade belonged at the spring in his hand, not buried in his chest by mine. I only needed it to hurt somebody the Crown couldn’t afford to lose.

Me.

I dragged my finger towards my palm.

The wrapped metal scraped over my boot. The Crown tried to open my hand, but it couldn’t straighten my smallest finger without losing the pressure on my body and the remaining court.

Mara saw what I was doing.

“Sharp edge is on the right,” she said.

Stellan’s gaze flicked to her.

“She asked me to make it inconvenient.”

The Crown locked my jaw before I could laugh or swear. Heat punched through my scalp.

My second finger moved.

I hooked it into the cloth beside the first.

The dagger was heavier than it should be. Every inch felt like dragging a body across the floor. The Crown had my shoulder, my wrist and most of my hand. I had two fingers and the fact that it was trying to control too many people at once.

That would have to be enough.

Waiting for my whole hand would give the Crown time to learn how to take the two fingers back. I had spent too much of this curse hoping the next movement would be easier than the one in front of me.

It never was.

My heart beat too fast under the pressure. The rhythm caught every time the metal tightened and lurched forwards when another vampire resisted. Elias warned us the Crown protected its grip before it protected my life. I could feel the truth of it in the cold spreading through my feet while heat burned across my scalp.

The dagger had already been used to trap Stellan for a hundred and twelve years. The Crown wanted to use it again because old weapons were easier than new ideas.