Page 185 of Bane of the Wild Hunt

I blinked, regaining my senses, and I tightened my grip on her hand to yank her up against me. More shadows overflowed and began billowing around both of us as my fear and rage erupted.

Impossible. It wasimpossible. I’d never encountered another living creature that could withstand my power. She wasn’t even a fey or deity. I would know. She was just a witch, albeit a powerful one, but she wasmortal.

My power should be consuming her, sipping down her essence like a sweet wine.

“What. Are. You?” I ground out through my teeth.

“Like I said; I am yours,” she insisted in exasperation, matching every ounce of my temper with defiance. It was as if she did not even see the life-sucking shadows going into a frenzy around us.

She should be dead right now.

“What does thatmean?” I demanded.

“Itmeansthat I need not fear you. Your power cannot harm what is yours,” she explained. Then she grabbed my fingers to pry my rough grip off of her hand so she could stand flat on her feet again.

The only creature for whom that was true was Éadrom who was standing behind her and snorting at the swarm of shadow steaming off me. I’d hurt people much closer to me than this witch that I had only known for several days. Even Aodhan had been bitten a few times by my magic.

“You are keeping something from me. Explain.Now,” I commanded her.

She rolled her eyes at me.Rolled her eyes.

“I swear that I have said all that I know, Rian.”

She spoke my name like she really didknowme, and it was almost as unsettling as her immunity to my shadows.

“Your family was able to hold you captive with magic, so is it only my power to which you are immune?”

“I believe so,” she confirmed.

We would be verifying it. As soon as I could come up with a safe way to test her with other kinds of magic.

“I need to go to Aes Mirr. We will talk about this more when I return,” I assured her and walked around Éadrom again to continue saddling him.

“I want to come with you,” she declared, turning to the vargr and looking up at him as if it were his permission she sought and not mine. Permission he seemed to grant when he pushed his forehead against her stomach.

“No,” I growled at them both, keeping my attention on the buckles under my fingers.

I thought,I hoped, that would be the end of it when it was quiet for a few moments. But just as I finished with Éadrom’s saddle, Nuala stepped around him and leaned against him next to where I was working.

“I know you like to be in control, but I am not—”

“Youdo notknow me. Stop speaking about me as if you know me!”

She got a defiant look in her eyes, as if she were being tempted to prove me wrong.

“Do you really think you can take me out of one prison only to put me into one of your making?” she asked me.

I gave an unamused laugh and leaned over her with one hand braced high on the vargr’s back.

“I am not putting you in a prison, Nuala. You wanted to be under my command and protection.”

“You will need to begin introducing me to your people. If I am not to distract from what you are doing, then the fey need to see me as an ally. The aes sídhe are easily the most accommodating,” she reasoned calmly.

She spoke to me as if this were a discussion, and the audacity was confusing. It occurred to me that I had not met a person thatI could not intimidate. And regardless of whether or not I ever actually resorted to using my power, it remained that everyone was always aware of it. I was aware of it. Which meant that people were welcome to disagree with me to a point, but at the end of the day, the only person who usually ever came close to defying me outright was Darragh. And even the demidragon knew to tread lightly when my magic was unstable.

Nuala was different. She was unaffected by my magic, and she did not back down, which meant this was more of a debate and not me issuing her orders.

And I was not sure that I liked it.

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