Page 129 of On Wings of Blood

My breath was coming in ragged little gasps. My entire body trembled from the effort it was taking to hold him off.

I hated the look in his eyes. He knew he was going to win.

Another strike. My walls buckled completely.

CHAPTER 27 - BLAKE

On some level, I knew what I was doing was wrong.

Sure, I knew that.

I felt a little guilty. But it wasn’t enough to stop me.

Pendragon had attackedme. Not the other way around.

And even though I’d won our fight, she’d still managed to humiliate me just by daring to challenge me in the first place.

If she hadn’t made me lose face like that, would Coregon have fought me in the arena that day? Would my uncle have summoned me and beaten me to a fucking pulp?

Well, the last part, probably. It was a regular little Drakharrow tradition for the two of us.

There was something about me Viktor hated. Something that reminded him of my father. I knew he didn’t treat Marcus the same way, no matter how out of control my older brother got.

I’d lied to save Pendragon. I’d covered for her to Kim. And she didn’t even know it because Kim hadn’t bothered to summon her along with me.

She had no idea what I’d done for her. That blissful ignorance really pissed me off.

Maybe I was truly beginning to lose it.

Rage simmered beneath my skin. The memory of Viktor’s fist slamming into my face. The memory of holding Coregon down while he was crushed.

My whole body ached with the weight of rage. Everything was spiraling out of control.

Now here I was, taking it out on Pendragon.

So yeah, I was an asshole. But the truth was, I felt guilty when I slipped inside Pendragon's mind...but I also felt good. There was a thrill to it. A dark power.

I felther. The real her. She was sweet. Intense. It was almost as good as tasting her blood might have been.

But I hadn’t expected her to fight back so fiercely. It was clear Rodriguez had been doing a damned good job of teaching her. And yet, she still wasn’t ready. Not nearly ready enough to face someone like my uncle.

Viktor wouldn’t go easy on her. He’d tear through her mind like a tempest, leaving nothing but ruin in his wake.

Part of me wondered uneasily why he hadn’t done it already. If he thought she might be a spy, why not search her?

Then a worse thought came to me. Maybe he already had. Maybe he’d already seen everything I was about to see and was just keeping what he’d learned from all of us. From me.

Earlier that day, I’d rationalized to myself that I was going to do this for Pendragon. I would push her to her limits to make sure she was strong enough to survive.

She didn’t know that. She wouldn’t believe me even if I told her.

But now, as I stood in Rodriguez’s office, I knew I was also doing it for myself.

A high washed over me as I began to push past her defenses. She struggled against me and it was exhilarating.

Beneath that rush, the guilt and regret tugged at me again.

She wasn’t like the others. She didn’t deserve this. Not really.

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