Page 18 of The Mirror in the Mountain

Rage contorted his features. Then he pressed into the band blocking my magic, choking me as he pushed me down, his hand squeezing like a vise. He barely seemed to notice I was writhing underneath his grip.

I steeled myself to pull my hands from the shackles and retrieve my stowed blade. But something sharp and slithering slid along my mind, my…magic. Trying to getin?—

A scream tore from my throat, then another. There was a tearing inside me, an inexorable tug that felt like Aviel was slowly wrenching out my spine. Like my very consciousness was being flayed, and I was about to break right open. My body shook in agony as a black essence trailed from my eyes, my mouth, my nose, merging together to flow into Aviel’s hand on my throat.

Aviel stared into my too wide eyes as I screamed, those pale irises turning black as he sucked my darkness into himself. Licking his lips as the last of it disappeared, he gently stroked my collar before releasing it. Even so, I could barely manage one shuddering breath in—my exhale a choked, strangled sob.

“Gods, how I’ve missed your screaming.”

I was shaking so violently I was worried my wrist shackles would fall open. Had he done this the whole time I was captured and drugged back at Morehaven? I didn’t know if I would have noticed while unconscious, not with the collar blocking my magic. Though he had never used my darkness against me.

Aviel leaned forward, and I flinched as he ran his lips along my cheek—barely able to manage even that movement, my entire body still stiff and unmoving. His fingers found my neck, and, with a click, I realized with shock that he had unlocked my collar.

For a half-heartbeat, I thought my magic was about to come back. I strained to reach my darkness, seeking it in the chasm inside myself?—

There was only a nauseating nothingness where it should have been, that well of power entirely drained. I thought I might be sick.

My stomach lurched as Aviel pulled back a bloodstained finger, and I realized my collar must have been somehow bound with his blood. Even magicless, this was it: the moment I needed to get away.

If only I could move.

“The only reason I left youranimaalive at all,” Aviel said with silken menace, “was so he can feelexactlywhat I do to you through your bond.” He leaned in, slowly drawing out every word. “As I make youmine.”

As if summoned by his words, I felt that bond flare back to life without the collar constricting it. And I knew Bash could sense it too.

Aviel had only freed me from my collar so that my soul bonded would feel my terror, my helplessness as he raped me, my magic no help before it could replenish.

But I had never been helpless, even before I found out what I was.

I reached for the bond like a lifeline, feeling Bash’s turbulent mix of confusion and hope like a bubbling wave…then his frozen horror trickling down my veins as he sensed the fear and pain I was trying to control. His dread wrapped around my chest like a vise, his panic for me compounding my own.

Aviel leaned forward, his lips brushing my breast before sucking against my neck. I let out an unintended cry of pain when he bit down on the fresh wound he had left there before forcefully kissing me. The taste of my own blood lingered on his lips as he drove his tongue into my mouth, rough and claiming. Groaning into my mouth as one hand roved down my body, his touch proprietary as his fingers pinched my nipple so hard I gasped.

I couldn’t do this again. Couldn’t endure it, especially with myanima’s helpless desperation breaking me inside.

But I knew he could feel my resolve, too, even as I shoved everything away, slamming a hasty wall down between us as I forced myself to focus.

“Your blood tastes delicious,” Aviel said in a throaty whisper.

The entitlement in his words spurred me to action. Shaking off my stupor, I pulled my hands from my bonds in one sharp tug and punched him squarely in the face. Blood spurted from his nose, and his pained shriek echoed throughout the chamber.

Reaching behind me, I grabbed my plundered blade, leaving its scabbard stuck between the headboard and the mattress as I stabbed downward in one smooth movement.

Aviel was too fast, despite the shock and the injury, rearing back with superhuman reflexes. Instead of hitting the artery I had been aiming for in his neck, I merely sliced a line down his chest, cutting his shirt wide open. I got my knees under me, my ankle shackles yanking painfully as I lunged toward him. But Aviel gripped my wrist with unnatural strength and twisted—the blade clattering uselessly across the floor.

There was a flurry of movement outside the door, but no one entered. I fervently hoped the guards were chalking up the sounds of my attack to a different kind of struggle.

I tried to twist away, but Aviel backhanded me so hard my vision went black for a split second. On reflex, I used the momentum of the blow to roll off the bed, my ankle chains forcing me to land awkwardly on all fours. Faster than I could track, Aviel was on his feet before me.

“Don’t you understand what we could be together?” Aviel’s head tilted to the side like he was truly perplexed at my reticence. “With my power and your birthright, we will rule both realms. I will give you the world, darling. You only need to give in to me.”

“Never,” I spat. “I’m not yours, and Ineverwill be.”

My head swam as he stalked toward me. Blood ran from my nose and my split lip, the taste of iron coating my tongue. I rose unsteadily to my feet and took an involuntary step back, stumbling as my chains stopped me from retreating any further. Prince Aviel might have been about my age, but the False King had been around for far longer. And he was a trained fae warrior, who had survived and succeeded this long for a reason.

And I was trapped, bleeding, and magicless. Something like despair shot through me, and I felt Bash’s answering echo of it. I wished I could hide this from him. But I forced myself to push it all down, blocking Bash out as best I could. Becoming the weapon I had been trained to be.

I wouldn’t give in. Not ever.

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