AllFreeNovel
Share Us
If ever it is a choice between your life or another, strangle them with thorns. When I flung my arms open, jagged roots burst through the soil. The points were splintered and sharp, and half a dozen new growths impaled through his boots, thighs, through his middle.
He choked and doubled over. With his body bent forward, the fleshy side of his throat hovered over the soil. I stood and gripped the back of his neck. His dilated pupils seemed to widen even more when I held out my free hand, wincing as fury fatigued my muscles. From the soil, a shard of a root shot skyward, like a broken blade, and rammed through the center of his throat.
He gurgled on his own blood. The splatter of it dribbled down the dark wood, then in the next breath his body went limp, pierced and mutilated over the mutant roots.
I stumbled. Gentle fury could keep me energized for the better part of a day. This sort of violence, this amount of power, drained my energy like a sieve, but I had to move. My fists gathered my blood-stained skirt, and I darted back for the door to the palace.
The two other men shouted ferociously across the garden when they caught sight of their brutalized companion.
I didn’t look at them; I kept my gaze schooled on the door. A little more, a few more paces. A little—
I screamed when thick arms wrapped around my middle and dragged me down into the soil. A heavy body rolled over my back, a knee jabbed between my shoulders, pinning me face down. I writhed and thrashed. I cursed and screamed.
Snake Eyes kicked me in the ribs. The harsh tang of blood soaked my tongue. I coughed and groaned, the blow dragged the air from my lungs. Weakened enough, one guard rolled me onto my back and leveraged each knee on either side of my hips, straddling me.
Snake Eyes tossed back his dark hood, white teeth bared. Like most sea fae, he was hauntingly lovely, stalky, and built like a wall with a thick neck and palms. His hair reminded me of rowan berries at the peak of ripeness.
The second assassin came up from behind and stood over me. A thinner man, but the blade in his hand was slim and swift, as I imagined he would be when he sliced up my innards. Snake Eyes reached for my throat. Somewhere in the mud of my brain, I found the strength to kick one foot into the soft point on his knee.
He roared and slapped my cheek.
The second guard yanked my wrists over my head, pinning me in place. Snake Eyes straddled me again. He wrapped one hand around my throat, then slowly lifted my skirt up my thighs.
Snake Eyes laughed. “No wonder the bastard claimed you. You’re almost pretty.” He spun a small knife in his hand. “At least for now.”
The guard holding my wrists kneeled over my arms when I started to roll, giving Snake Eyes freedom to slash his blade across my leg. From inside his cloak, he retrieved a glass vial, and pressed it against the trickle of blood.
“You’re not going to heal this place for Bloodsinger,” Snake Eyes said in a snarl. “You’ll have a new master soon enough, pet.”
All at once a new kind of rage took hold. Unlike my own, this was dark, vicious. I wanted to skin each guard alive. I knew just how to do it to cause the most pain. A brutal task I shouldn’t know but did. They’d beg for death, and when I gave it to them, I’d serve their hearts to the hounds at the gates.
I didn’t know hounds were at the gates, yet I saw them plainly in my head.
Air was fleeting. Black spots dotted the corners of my eyes, and I was out of time. I flung my body about as best I could, but the two men were too much.
I didn’t see a way out, and I could accept it. Part of me was prepared for death. I would die fighting. I would die before they broke me. I would die with honor and enter the hall of the gods where I’d raise endless drinking horns with those gone before me.
All I could do was watch as two blades aimed to carve me to shreds. I wouldn’t look away. They’d bleeding see me as they brutalized me. I stiffened, bracing, but Snake Eyes coughed. He choked.
A hand to his throat, he spluttered as water spilled over his lips. More and more, water flowed from his mouth, down his tunic, and he could not take a breath in without gargling more water.
“K-Kill her,” Snake Eyes choked out. “Said to k-k-kill her if we got the b-blood.”
The greasy assassin didn’t hesitate. He lifted his blade, ready to slice at my body, but a sudden pressure leveled over my chest.
I tilted my head, afraid and curious to look in the same breath, but a muffled scream, scratchy and sore from my bruised throat, spilled out. Sprawled over my body, covering me like a shield, was Erik. He was heavy, and slumped against me. When he shifted, his face contorted in a sharp wince.
I sat up, hands on his shoulders, and choked on my own breath at the sight of the blade pierced just above his hip.
“Erik!” My voice was rough, broken. It was little more than a rasp. I dug my fingernails into his shoulders. “Gods, you’re . . .dammit.”
“Not the words. One wants. To hear, Songbird,” he said through rough breaths. With a groan, he rolled off me onto his uninjured side.
The assassin choking on the water gasped and staggered to his hands and knees. The second hesitated, as if stunned his blade had found the king. Snake Eyes had turned pallid and had gone silent.
They were going to run.
With the last glimmer of fury in my veins, I slammed my palms over the soil, and the same as the other assassin, barbed roots pierced through their boots, pinning them in place. Alive, but screaming in agony as the bloody, jagged roots tore through their toes and feet.
