Page 109 of Tethered In Blood

I froze for a breath. His weight slammed into mine with calculated force, twisting our blades apart. I stumbled back a few paces, boots digging into the dirt as I hissed through my teeth. My grip on my sword tightened until my knuckles went white.

Garrick stood tall, his chest rising and falling fast, but his gaze had lost its usual teasing edge. Now it was sharper. Focused. He was trying to peer straight through me.

“See?” he murmured. “Youarescared. And I don’t meanofher.”

Forcing my stance steady again, I scowled. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” But the words tasted bitter. Hollow.

His grin widened. “Oh, but I do, Sinclaire.” He spun his sword in a lazy arc as if he weren’t standing at the edge of danger. “You’re scared of losing her.”

The words hit harder than any blade could have. My chest seized, lungs tightening around the fury that flared hot. I lunged, steel singing through the air with a scream.

Garrick knew what he was doing. That glint in his eyes was no longer smug. It was deliberate. Calculated. Pushing just hard enough to see if I had broken it again. And saints, I was close. Every inch of me vibrated with tension that curled like a beast beneath my skin.

My knuckles went white on the hilt. My breathing deepened, grew too measured. If I didn’t control it, if I didn’t cling to the edge of the discipline that I had lived my whole damn life by, I would break.

I wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up, to shove the words down his throat with the point of my blade. But the words caught behind my teeth. Because he knew, and that infuriated me the most. I rolled my shoulders, trying to shake the tension. “This isn’t about her.”

“Isn’t it?” Garrick countered, shifting his stance, a predator circling wounded prey. He studied me as if I had already lost. “From where I’m standing, it sure as hells looks like it is.” He twirled his sword again and locked his gaze on mine. “I’ve seen you kill for less, Sinclaire. I’ve seen you colder than the grave. And I’ve seen you control your temper better than that.”

My eyes narrowed as I stepped forward, driving my blade against his. Sparks flared between us as steel met steel. He held his ground, eyes never leaving mine.

“I never saw your eyes turn silver like that before,” he said, quieter now. Penetrating deeper. “Much less over a man touching a woman.”

My jaw rolled. He was right. Quinn had awakened my Fae blood, and I detested it. Despised that the moment that bastard laid a hand on her, something primal inside me rose like a tide. That I had moved without calculation, without the indifferent logic that had kept me alive for years. The assassin—the part of me trained to observe and wait—had been set aside.

The Fae in me had claimed her, and that terrified me.

Garrick saw the change in my expression. His smirk curled again, triumphant. “There it is.” I slammed his blade aside, hard enough to send him stumbling. He caught himself, boots dragging through the dirt.

My mask snapped back into place with a glare. “This conversation is over.”

He steadied himself, the grin widening into a smile of pride. “Oh, I bet it is.” The next clash was fast and violent. “The way you reacted at the docks was something,” he continued, tone slick with amusement. “Like you’ve done it a dozen times.”

Our blades collided with a shrillclangand a force that sang up my arms. Garrick circled. His eyes burned bright with intent. “Not to mention your veins glowed, you little Faerie,” he added with a mocking lilt. “And I know for a damned fact that doesn’t happen unless something calls it out.”

My jaw clenched so hard it ached.

Her blood.

On my hands.

The heat of it. The metallic tang. The way it spilled between my fingers, as if it belonged there. The soft gasp of pain when my arms caught her, the tremble in her body.

I lunged harder than I meant to. Garrick blocked. His boots slid back a step in the dirt. His grin widened. He knew he had hit a raw spot.

Bastard.

White-hot, primal fury rose. That same nauseating fear I had felt the moment her body went limp in my arms settled into my bones and whispered, “You weren’t enough to stop it.”

I huffed, forcing the thoughts loose before they took root too deeply. But they lurked in my subconscious. “Are you finished?” I gritted out, my voice low and scraped raw, my blade pressing harder against his.

Garrick leaned in enough for the following words to land harder. “That depends,” he said, the amusement still unshaken in his voice. “Are you ready to admit I’m right?”

Part of me was tempted to answer. The other side of me yearned to break his jaw. I shoved him off, the clash of our blades tearing apart with a burst of force that sent him stumbling back a few paces. I stepped away, chest heaving, jaw locked tight as I fought to regain the control I never should have lost. The fury in my veins hadn’t cooled—it pulsed beneath my skin, demanding release. Violence.

“There’s nothing to admit,” I muttered, turning away from him before I succumbed to the urge to strike again. My voice was rough, frayed at the edges. I slid my blade back into its sheath with a sharpsnap. My fingers curled into fists, hands still itching from everything I repressed: Guilt. Fear. That dark, possessive protectiveness that knotted in my stomach every time I thought of her bleeding.

“Sure, Sinclaire,” Garrick drawled behind me, his voice loose and casual, but there was weight in it. “Keep telling yourself that.” He adjusted his stance behind me, boots shifting in the dirt, the familiar scrape of his blade readying again. Preparing for another round.

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