Page 83 of The Eighth Isle

I tried to call for him with every ounce of energy in me, but it didn’t work. I tried to warn him—move! Get out of the way! Fly!

Not a sound left me, and Grey wouldn’t stop coming. He jumped in the air and his wings exploded on his back once more, and he charged for Syra with his fangs extended and his jaws open—and then she blew him a kiss.

A fucking deadly kiss that wrapped around Grey andturned him off. That’s the only way I could describe it—he was turned off within the second, wings folded on his back, fangs withdrawn, eyes closed, his body perfectly motionless when he fell to the ground again.

Asleep, just like that. No longer even able to hear what was happening here.

“There,” Syra said and turned to me. “I shouldn’t have to deal with this nonsense at this point, should I? I’m starting to thinkhe’s not well in the head—whydo they insist on resisting me still?!”

This, she asked Valentine. And he opened his mouth to speak, but she wasn’t interested in an answer, so she didn’t let him.

“Now, turn around and connect with your Ruit. Let’s get started. I’ve waited enough—and what did my patience get me?!” Again, she wasn’t waiting for an answer, she just began to whisper senseless words under her breath the way one mutters curses.

Then Valentine was in front of me, and we were face-to-face the way we’d been many times before. God, I wanted to get out of my skin completely just to be away from him—him and Shadow, sitting on his shoulder like always, his thin, long tail wrapped around his neck three times.

Valentine lookedterrifiedwhen our eyes locked. He looked so afraid, like he knew that something really, really bad was about to happen.

Like he knew for a fact that I was going to die.

And I couldn’t even move my lips to tell him to stop. Just stop and remember the things he said to me. All those words, all the promises he made me. Where were they now? How could he be so fucking cruel?!

But it made no difference whether I spoke or not. It made no difference even if he decided to change his mind right now. Syra was standing right behind him, and Grey was still on the ground, motionless, and Storm was still pacing on the other side of him, roaring constantly, but I didn’t even hear him anymore.

Then Valentine put his hands on my cheeks.

“Keep him in check. Remember what I taught you,” Syra said, and I barely saw her one eye as she looked at Shadow sitting on Valentine’s shoulder.

Valentine said nothing, only leaned closer to me and I still couldn’t move a single inch. And when Syra began to chant under her breath, and magic rose in the air, making it thick, all I did was watch.

Look at me.

My eyes snapped on Valentine and I read the words on his lips even though he didn’t make a single sound.

You will be fine, Sunshine,he told me, again, only moving his lips slowly, never speaking, or even whispering.Just keep your eyes on me.

I didn’t really get to decide whether he was messing with me or whether I wanted to keep looking at him at all. The pain began the next second.

Not in me, no—inhimat first.

His teeth gritted and he dug his fingers in my cheeks and then Shadow was roaring that screeching sound, too, as if something was hurting him. Something was hurting both of them from the inside.

Grey!I shouted in my mind, just as I began to feel it, too.

Crippling pain slipped inside me in waves from where Valentine’s skin connected with mine. It was like invisible fire burned me and spread incredibly fast through the rest of my body, and even though my mouth was wide open, I couldn’t scream. Even though my soul was thrashing, I couldn’t move a single inch.

Valentine’s face turned to a blur, and the last thing I saw was how Shadow wasshakingon his shoulder, how he was trying to unwrap his tail from around Valentine’s neck but couldn’t.Ruit,Syra called him, and whatever she was doing to him right now it was painful. Painful for the little dragon, just as much as it was painful for me.

I passed out.

Darkness surrounded me on all sides, and I would have been thankful for it. I didn’t want to see what more Syra had planned, how much more excruciating pain Valentine could cause me with those hands. I didn’t want to know what happened next—to Grey and to Storm and to Syra—I didn’t want to fucking know anything. I just wanted it to be over.

Except I still felt that pain. I stillheardthe words that Syra chanted in my mind as if she was whispering them right into my ear. I still felt Grey’s pain and Storm’s roars, and I still understood the warmth that was gathering inside me, right in my gut.

It was different from my magic. The intensity could have been the same, but the feel of it was different. Foreign magic. One that did not belong to my body at all.

For a moment, the image of those four siren sisters kneeling around Syra on the beach, hands on her stomach as they produced that blue light, took over my mind.

They’d killed her child in her womb—ashe,Syra said. They’d killed her baby girl right there on that beach, while the other sisters ate Hansil.

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