Page 25 of Fae Champion

Another preoccupied smile, another nod, then, “I’ll see you when you’re finished.”

Next he glowered at Selwin, whose fingers were gripping the handle of his sword so tightly they were bleached of color. “Be gentle with her or I promise you’ll regret it.”

“Understood,” Selwin clipped out, and my rapidly releasing muscles tensed. Whatever magic Rush had used on the man, it hadn’t incapacitated him as much as I’d hoped.

The guards tailed Rush from the arena into the dugout, where they stood around him, Ryder, West, Hiroshi, and Roan to ensure none of them ran out to my defense.

Selwin observed Rush’s withdrawal—while I watched him. Satisfied he was behind a wall of guards, Selwin stalked toward me, closing the distance.

I strained to regain full motion. I was seconds away, but even that sliver of time was too great.

He raised his sword. The spectators cried out in alarm, some even saying things such as, “Don’t kill her! She’s our champion.”

Rush growled like a bear woken from hibernation. And his call was echoed by the four warriors surrounding him.

I stared up at Selwin and his wicked grin thatreminded me of the queen. His eyes flared with a drive for brutality.

Rush and the others yelled, the guards shouted back, the fae in the stands hollered. Even the king muttered a “No” that was loud enough for me to hear, but not enough that Selwin couldn’t later deny he’d registered the command.

The sword arced downward. Selwin no longer aimed for my neck. But it was a killing blow. He’d end me however he could, and after deliver my head to the queen. Once I was dead, the king’s feeble protests would be even more useless.

Move, Elowyn. Fucking move, dammit!I shouted inside my head so fiercely that my body finished unlocking.

My movements sluggish, rough, and choppy, as if I’d only just finished thawing from a solid block of ice, I reached for the closest weapon, the one I could probably wield in my sleep.

I slipped a dagger from its sheath, lurched forward, and plunged it into Selwin’s thigh with all the strength I could muster from this angle. Before he’d fully comprehended what had happened, I rolled out of reach of his sword, then clamored awkwardly to my feet.

He roared, yanked the knife from his leg, and tossed it to the ground.

He charged me as Rush broke through the barricade of guards.

I tottered but drew three throwing knives.

Sword raised above his head as if to slam it down on me and cleave my head in half, Selwin ran at me.

My motion was creaky. But I’d practiced with blades until they felt like an extension of my body. These weren’t my familiar knives, but they were much like them.

I cocked my arm back and threw one at his throat. My aim—my muscles—was off, and the blade glanced off his jaw and nicked his ear.

Soon he’d be too close for the throwing knives to reach the speed they needed to inflict damage.

I stopped thinking and fretting about how my body wasn’t working the way it should when I most needed it to.

One-two. I sliced the air with whistles of glimmering metal.

Selwin’s cry gurgled in his throat as I met my targets with wet, quiet thuds.

He dropped his sword with a plunk to clutch at the blades sticking from his neck and eye. Blood meandered from the wounds, but before he could heed the warnings shouted at him, double fisted, he pulled out the blades with the distressed whine of a wounded animal.

Blood streamed down his face, neck, and chest, coating his armor in seconds. He crumbled to the ground and called for help.

After a flick of the queen’s hand, Ivar nodded, signaled to another, and eventually aides scurried out onto the field to staunch thebleeding.

I didn’t watch, however. Not when the healing staff carried him off the field. Not Rush as he crouched beside me. Not even when Azariah announced me the victor of the match.

The queen’s eyes burned with murderous promises.

As did mine.

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