Page 110 of A Sin So Pure

I take a step back from the bag, my breaths coming heavy and sweat dripping down my back.

“Will you stop with that?” I growl.

“What?” Silas says, mouth full. He swallows. “You mean eating?”

“Yes. Can’t you do that somewhere else?”

“Does it bother you?”

“Clearly.”

“Then no. I absolutely cannot stop doing it.” His teeth snap through the apple’s skin, a pursed-lip smile forming as he chews with full cheeks.

I mutter curses and go back to pummeling the sandbag. My knuckles start to ache under their bindings, signaling that either my form is slacking, or I’m hitting it too hard—probably both.

“Who taught you how to fight?” Silas asks a few minutes later.

“Pride encouraged it from a young age,” I say between punches. “His Second took the job on when no one else would.”

None of the other younglings, nor their parents, wanted to engage in hand-to-hand combat with me, and rightfully so. While I had gained control of my magic by ten, that didn’t lessen people’s fear of my touch. There weren’t many options when it came to teachers, leaving me stuck with Pride himself for my magic and his Second at the time, Wes and Claude’s father, for fighting and shooting.

He wasn’t a good man, but he also wasn’t afraid of me.

He should have been.

He realized too late that Pride was training me to replace him—things went south from there. By then, Josie and I were already eighteen, Pride’s personal prized weapons lurking in theshadows. He learned that it’s hard to get away with plotting a coup when your superior has a mind-reader and a soul-stealer at his disposal.

“Ah, yes. I remember him. Had ruddy-brown hair. Gruff exterior,” Silas says. “Very sad, him dying in that automobile accident. Those older cars can bequitedangerous.”

I give the sandbag a final hit and begin stripping my hands of their wrappings. The gauze and tape unravel onto the floor, curling into a pile of white.

“Yeah,” I say, under Silas’s watchful gaze. “Very sad.”

He hums, before pulling out his silver pocket watch. The metal clinks against his rings as he flicks it open, reading the time.

“Oh, great,” Silas says, perking up from his seat. “We’re over time.”

My attention turns to the bound fae shackled in the far corner. This was the second to last test before we hit the two-week mark Silas says we need to escape blame for Patience’s inevitable death.

I make haste across the room, pushing past Silas.

I close my eyes and breathe deep, focusing on the two tethers of magic that linger within me. One leads to the fae before me and the other to one Wrath has in holding elsewhere in the complex.

Once I had studied up on tethering from the Seelie journals, our training went much smoother. It seems that with the right directions, I’m a natural.

Silas was both thrilled at how fast our situation has changed and jealous at how quickly I was able to grasp the new style of magic.

Training in on the correct tether, I call to my magic. It acts, swift and hungry, rushing through the man’s heart andcausing it to stall, before running back to me through the fading connection.

The fae shutters, then goes still.

Dead.

Satisfaction swells in my chest along with my magic. In two days, we can finish the last test.

“It is impressive,” Silas says. I pivot to face him. “You are a quicker study than I gave you credit for.”

“We’ve been at this for weeks. I don’t see how that’s a quick study.”

---