Page 29 of King of Moon and Claws

Do something for me, will you? he asked.

Anything.

Bastian sauntered and stood before her. His eyes were just as astonishingly green as they were when he was a man—like a lighthouse scouring the sea. They often made her feel naked.

Try to use what Vasilis was pushing from you. On me.

His tone was stern and grave. Elora didn’t like it but went along to see where he was going with it.

Do you mean mind control?

Yes. Use it on me. I want to see what happens.

She did as he asked, focusing with all the directed strength the vampire lord had been trying so desperately to squeeze out of her.

Okay then. Bastian, sit. Sit no, like a good boy.

Bastian remained motionless before her, his face long and dour. The words she stated might have been somewhat flippant, but the effort she'd placed into the spell was not. She tried, with everything she had to influence his movements.

But then something awful happened.

Elora noticed a streak of copper fly by in her peripheral vision. She followed it and noticed that it was a squirrel passing by during their little experiment. What horrified her though wasn’t the presence of the squirrel, but how it had jerked to a halt and sat before her on the stone pathway.

Her eyes widened, bringing the attention of the squirrel to Bastian, who stood barely a foot away. The little creature was staring up at her, like a soldier at attention. His tiny legs and arms were frozen on the spot.

He looked enslaved.

“What the fuck?” Elora said out loud, her hand clapping over her mouth.

It appears your powers are stronger for non-shifters. Or perhaps, for shifters not as mentally conditioned as me.

Elora barely heard the words as they echoed in her mind. She was fixated on the squirrel, physically unable to move and trembling as his muscles began to seize.

The spell was holding it there. Elora began to panic, thinking that she had not only stopped his movements but his breath as well. He would have an agonizing death as its organs shut down before her very eyes.

“Bastian, I don’t know how to make it stop!” she exclaimed, dropping the book from her lap. “Vasilis never taught me how to do that! If I tell him to run, will he run forever?"

Within her frenzy of alarm, Elora went to her knees before the squirrel. His suffering was like a blunted tool into her heart. She held her hands up to the animal, ransacking her mind for spells to counteract what she had done.

It flushed out the memories of her torture, her body stuck in the pain of fight-or-flight. She began to lament as the anxiety shook her to her core, desperately trying to shove away the myriad ways Vasilis had tried to get what he wanted.

“Bastian!”

The king had shifted into his human form, realizing she was in distress. As he did, he pulled her into his arms, and she wept into his bare chest.

“Look, look, he’s okay. He’s running away now, see?"

Through a rainfall of tears and heavy heartache, Elora lifted herself from the shield of Bastian’s chest and caught the tail-end of the vanishing red squirrel. The spell had been shattered in her panic.

“God, Bastian, that was terrifying!” She sobbed, finding refuge in his arms again. "I don’t want to do that, not ever again!”

Bastian remained quiet as he sat on the bench, consoling Elora in her sadness. She realized that what she was releasing was the trauma she had endured and not exactly processed. She hadn't told anyone about what he had done to her, not even him.

“Did you learn anything interesting from this?"

Elora calmed and wiped her nose as Bastian showed her the book in his hands. That was when the despair took over, puzzle pieces coming together and reluctantly fitting.

“I learned that a lot of war witches are evil," she said poignantly, taking the book from Bastian’s hand. “I understand why someone like Vasilis would want one on his side. But I’m not like that. I don’t want this. I don’t want any of this."

---