Page 61 of Blooms of Darkness

A ring of blue fire quickly formed a circle around Ian.

“Stop it!” I shouted.

“Use your magic to snuff out the flames, or Ian will burn, badly. Perhaps even die.” Andras chuckled. “It would be tragic, but he’s just a guard’s offspring. He’s replaceable.”

“Ian!” I screamed, tears streaming down my face as I crawled toward the growing flames. “I don’t have magic. I don’t have magic. I can’t make it stop.”

“It’s okay, Lan.”

Even staring death in the face, Ian didn’t seem afraid. He never looked away while I sobbed. I held my hands to the fire, screaming, pleading with nature desperately, turning vile as help remained elusive.

Ian didn’t even hiss when the fire started climbing higher and began moving inward and reached his legs.

“Weak. Pathetic.”

Ian sucked in a breath as the fire rose so high it formed a wall between us.

“If you will not do what you’re told, then I will force you to take magic from elsewhere.”

My head snapped to Andras. A dagger rested in his hand, a black substance coating the tip, dripping once onto the floor.

Andras lunged for me, grabbing my neck and straddling my legs as he choked me on the ground.

Ian yelled my name, but it seemed far away. Too far away. He was trapped and so was I.

Andras twisted the blade across my chest slowly. Pure, unadulterated hate radiated from his body, his eyes gleaming in anticipation. “I cannot wait to see the fun we’ll have pulling out your magic when you’re older. Just a few more years.”

I struggled against him harder, but I’d been down here for so long already, my body and mind faltered. Too exhausted to fight like I needed to.

“Ah, ah, ah. This will only hurt for a moment.”

His sneer turned into something so much deadlier. A smile, a wide grin, filled with malicious glee spread across his face. He sliced my lilac nightgown open, across my ribcage and dug deep with the blade against my skin.

The knife bumped over the ridges of three ribs as I screamed, feeling the skin break.

“Tsk.” He made a noise with his tongue. “Deeper.”

He thrust the dagger inside of me. A surge of something attacked me, flowing toward me, but I wouldn’t give in. I couldn’t.

Ian was here with me. I was not alone. Andras Braumlyn wouldn’t defeat me.

“I am Illiana Dresden, and I am stronger than the darkness within me.”

I screamed again as he put more weight against the blade.

Screaming, I shot up from the bed.

My body shook as hard as it had that night. Trembling, terror coursed through me.

Sweat drenched my bed linens, dripping down my arms, my forehead. I was alone.

My head snapped back and forth, scanning my room, grasping the sheets in my hands, to ensure it truly had been a nightmare.

I wasn’t there.

Ian was safe.

I wasn’t in that room with Andras.

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