Page 80 of Owning His Mate

I try to shove through the crowd as the whip is raised again, and when it hits her this time, she arches away from it, letting out a cry of anguish.

Use your magic…

The crowd closes in around me, stopping my path to the platform. I try to elbow my way through, screaming for this to stop, but there is no route past the hulking bodies that surround me. I try to reach my magic, but this isn’t reality. It’s a dream.

She screams as the barbs tear through her skin again, and there is so much blood I can’t see any skin beneath the wet redness.

Her baby…

I cover my mouth, bile coating the back of my throat.

Do something!

And then I feel it. The surge of power. I’ve felt magic so many times and from tau with very different strength, but this is like nothing I have ever felt before.

All magic has a certain… feel to it—a smell, a presence—but what she wields is so different from anything I have ever come across that it feels foreign.

She seems to draw it out of the earth itself, and I can feel it running through my body, infusing every cell. My chest throbs as my magic recognizes hers and tries to respond.

The woman tosses her head back and screams into the sky as a rush of power explodes out of her.

It hits the crowd like a wave, knocking everyone down.

I alone remain on my feet, watching as the ropes around her wrists disintegrate, a ring of fire spreading around the hemp as it burns away from her skin.

She pushes to her feet the moment she’s free, straightening her body as if she has been stuck in an unnatural position for too long. Her hand splays over her stomach, her head lowered as the men on the platform get back up.

A huge armed man attacks her, but she flings her hand out, and he flies back, as if by an invisible wrecking ball.

All I can hear over the fearful screams are my labored breaths.

Her hand still on her stomach, she turns to face the red-haired man. Pain and disappointment shine in her eyes as she says something to him in that language again.

Her hand flashes out, and he’s driven to his knees. He tries to get up, but she doesn’t allow him to as she holds her hand out. A dagger from his belt flies into her outstretched palm, and the smell of magic in the air is thick, clogging my throat as I watch, paralyzed.

Her chin lifts as she peers down at him, her mouth pulling into a sneer. The blade presses against his throat, a trickle of red working down from beneath it.

I suck in a breath, and her eyes snap toward me.

For the first time in my life, I feel gut-deep, blood-curdling fear.

Her head tilts to the side, her dark eyes locked on me like missiles, and every instinct in my body is firing up. She pulls the blade from his neck, stepping toward me, the movement menacing.

You have to run.

This warning comes from my wolf. I step back, almost tripping over someone behind me, but I don’t tear my eyes away from her.

Wake up…

Apryle,wake the hell up!

I repeat this over and over, pinching at my arms to pull myself out of the dream, but I can’t escape.

The woman spits something angry at me, but I don’t know what she’s saying.

I backtrack further, pinching my skin harder, but I’m stuck in this dream.

“Fucking back off, bitch,” I grind out, trying again to reach for my magic and finding nothing there. “This isn’t real,” I mutter under my breath. “It’s just a dream.”

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