Page 17 of Sunder

And he was just inside, wasn’t he? Waiting for her. And this man was keeping her from him, just as her mother had done, her father, thosehealersthat couldn’t begin to understand what ailed her.

She struggled fiercely, but his grip was stronger, and she would have taken a dozen tonics if it meant she could remove his hold from her.

“Settle down,” Lucian urged. “You think he’s inside?”

She tried to whimper, but it caught in her throat and became a choked, wretched sound instead. “Orma,” he hissed when her foot caught at his ankle. She’d hurt him, and that should matter to her. Did matter.

Or... would. Later. When she was herself again. If this awfulness that took her senses and control of her body ever let her go.

She sagged against him, which was more effective than her struggles, as her sudden shift in weight had him grappling to hold her upright. “Orma,” he repeated, still a whisper, but with far more alarm than had been there a moment before. “I do not know what to do.”

And there it was. He was frightened, too. Because of her. Because he understood even less than she did.

She did not screech, but she wanted to.

But she flailed, her head lurching backward, narrowly missing his chin as he ducked away from her just in time.

But her foot caught the door, her boot thudding against it just the once while Lucian cursed and pulled her even further back from the house.

That might be her house in a moment. If only he’d loosen his hold long enough, she could slip inside and bolt the door so he couldn’t take her away again. “Letgo!”

The voice wasn’t hers. Or maybe it was—she just hadn’t used it in such a way. It was raspy and low, born of desperation and a fury that curdled in her blood and left her feeling wild.

He was going to argue with her. He was going totalksome more, and that truly was intolerable. She was sick to death of worry and wondering and the endless cycle of tests and theories that all were utter nonsense.

This was real. This was right.

If only that door would open.

And it did.

The light was too bright as it glittered off the shimmers, a lantern held high as a man took in Lucian’s hold on her squirming frame.

“What is your business here? Let go of her!”

She did not much care what he thought he saw, of the way Lucian growled low in her ear that she would pay dearly for this entire escapade when she had sense enough to listen to him.

“She is kin, I promise you,” Lucian answered as calmly as she could. She made to kick him again, but he squeezed her so tightly for a moment she had to focus on her breathing.

Which let Orma take greater control, if only for the moment between her last inhalation and the slight burn of too little air.

Enough to close her eyes, to be sorry when he loosened his grip so she could take a full breath.

When it meant she was lost, pushed aside, buried under this new horrid creature that cared nothing at all for anyone but herself.

Untrue.

There was one other.

And it was certainly not the man standing with his lantern.

The threads wavered, brushing past him. Pushing and reaching and urging her to do whatever she must to follow them.

“I said let go of her!”

“She isn’t well,” Lucian offered back, pulling upward. “And I made you a promise.”

Flying upward.

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