Page 54 of Stormbinder King
“Your protective spell keeps me from claiming her,” Symeon spat.
“It tortures you, doesn’t it? That she hungers for this cock.”
Symeon winced, the words rasping across his skin like a claw ripping his flesh.
Jack’s eyes sharpened as he pressed his attack.
“What’s the matter?” the prince asked with a wicked smile. “Why should me saying those words make you wince?”
Symeon ignored him, and counterattacked, bringing his dagger up with a mighty blow.
But Jack was very quick, so quick.
How could I ever outthink him?
He parried the attack, dancing away lithely.
Symeon set his jaw to the fight, although I could tell by his expression that to hear about my binding was an agony to him.
Would he actually try toclaimme as his mate if it wasn’t for the protective spell?
What a frightening thought.
The rage boiled inside me, churning my gut with a volatile mix of anger and wild despair.
Solomon stood beside me, his gnarled face expressionless.
“You’ve been stuttering less,” he said to me as we watched the two brothers trade blows. “But you are worth listening to no matter how you speak.”
For a moment it seemed like a completely random statement.
Then it lit up something inside me, like a little spark growing bigger.
“Thank you.”
It seemed inadequate, but it was all I could say.
Tears almost prickled at the corners of my eyes, but I had cried so much in the last few months. I was wrung out of tears.
I felt something like a pull in my belly. There was a pressure there, low and wrong, building up and running through my veins like wicked blood.
It was a pulling towards something, although I hardly knew what, the anger so fierce that my skin felt like it buzzed, something bursting and clawing out of me like a monster.
We heard a low crackling and popping sound that grew louder.
Jack whirled around, his eyes growing wider as he realized what he was seeing.
“The ice!” he yelled. “Run!”
I saw the splintered network of cracks right before the ice seemed to erupt, shattering with a terrific booming crash.
Jack leaped safely for the bank, but Symeon wasn’t as fast, the ice collapsing underneath him, and only his uncle’s firm grip kept him from being buried under the chunks of swirling ice.
Had I done that?
I didn’t see how it was possible.
But I had felt a . . .pull toward something.
