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My arms ached as I raised them back in defence and threat. “Next time it will burn through bone.” I did not believe my warning, and from his intensifying smile, neither did Marius.
He released a hearty laugh at the cracking of my voice. “We both know that you would not maim me. You could have done that a long while ago.”
If it was not for the constant force of the barrier behind me I would have fallen to the ground with exhaustion. Dwindlings of fire returned to my palms, but not the strength that it had been before. Even the winds died down to a gentle whisper and the rain calmed to a soothing shower.
“Let this end, give up.” Marius walked towards me, sidestepping the curling of fire that I had thrown, missing his foot by inches. “You have fought hard but I sense you’re willing to give up. Listen to it. Denying it will not help you in the end. And the end will come.”
My stare faltered on his walk, catching the faint limp in his leg. It was so subtle I could have missed it. Then I noticed how his lip curled upward with each step.
He was hurt. Not healing completely as he should have. Marius, although seemingly unharmed, was exhausted.
And the clearing of the clouded sky revealed why.
Gone was the dark of night, but the deep blue of dawn’s warning.
A rush of hope thrilled through me at the sight, followed by the pop of a laugh that escaped me. “It would seem you are nearly out of time.”
The spark soon exploded into a wildfire of hope that filled every inch of my being.
Marius looked upward, eyes squinting towards the brightening sky. A wince pinched across his face. The piercing red that filled the sky was now pink, dulled by the blue of dawn.
“Enough of this!” Marius face creased with feral panic. Desperation turned his face into a mask of hard lines and pointed fangs. He lunged forward with speed that was unstoppable. Before I could will my magic to help, his hand was around my throat, the other gathering both my wrists and squeezing them together. The bones in my arms and hands felt as though they could shatter, his grip intensified by his urgency.
A nail dug into the side of my neck, piercing my skin with ease.
“Ahh,” Marius sighed, dark eyes skirting over everywhere but my own. I could do nothing in his grasp. Not as my head throbbed, longing for air. But his hold kept that from being possible. “Enough time has been wasted.”
I closed my eyes, the spark of hope extinguished as his mouth closed in towards my neck. His tongue met my skin first, lapping roughly across the cut that his nail had gifted me. I wanted to cringe away as I felt his entire body tremble with excitement.
This was it. I had tried to prolong this moment, hoping for my own selfish reasons that I would see morning and pass the fateful evening. As his fangs pressed into my skin, I felt a trickling of calmness rush over me.
For me it was the end, but for Marius… it was the beginning. I focused my stare on the lightening sky, hands hanging uselessly by my sides. There was no pain. No agony that I expected. It was the sensual pulling that I had experienced with him in his bedchamber. As he drew blood from me, he took my warmth with it. Starting at my toes, my feet numbed with each deep intake.
But still the pain did not arrive.
Only… relief.
“One feels strange watching on.” A voice sounded behind us. I thought it was an apparition until the pressure of Marius’s fangs relaxed and he growled, lifting his face from the crook of my neck. All of a sudden that seeping, draining feeling ceased and the warmth kept huddled in a ball deep in my chest. “I did not mean to stop you, goodness no. How terribly ill-mannered interrupting one’s… dinner party without an invite.”
I believed to have felt fear before this moment. But a new stabbing of horror buried into me at the realisation of whom it was that spoke. The feeling was like drinking water after wine —in that moment, my attention and understanding snapped back to reality.
“Mother.”
I could not turn around to see the truth behind me, stood beyond the barrier. Not as Marius’s grip on my wrists tightened. The rumbling growl deepened as he hissed towards those who stood beyond my sight. With a sharp tug he turned me around, forcing me to stand before him, one arm around my throat, keeping my head upward, and the other around my waist. I felt like a lost lamb, entrapped within the coils of a snake, looking on at a far greater predator.
It was not only Mother who stood beyond the rippling wall of shadow. Hooded figures of the coven stood with her, each holding lit torches and other, gleaming objects with sharp pointed ends.
And there, exposed to the cold chill of morning, stood Katharine. Hair shaved violently close to her scalp, exposing raw cuts and wounds across her head. She trembled, shoulders bent inward as she did her best to cover her thin, frail body with the scrap of dirtied material that wrapped around her.
This was Mother’s final attempt. I could see it in the widening of her eyes. An attempt at a distraction to give me time to end him.
“I fear I missed all the fun.” She spoke, her voice painfully calm. “Apologies for the extra guest I have—”
“Do it,” I snapped, pushing up against Marius as much as I could. “Finish it now.”
I spoke to him and only him. Mother’s appearance changed everything.
“A waste…” Mother began, folding her arms across the dark cloak that she wore. “Such a handsome man locked away in this castle for all these years. If I had known of your beauty, perhaps I could have visited as a Claim myself.” My stomach turned at Mother’s comment. Marius’s hold on me tightened. “Goddess knows I would have finished off the task at the end of it. Something my dear son seems to have failed at.”
