Page 12 of Prowess Trials
Coal’s memory returned when he tried to defend me against the nightmare-born qoru he thought was real. Tye overpowered the amulet’s magic only when struggling to get to me in the midst of Zake’s attack. Even the short-lived clarity Shade had in the forest came on the heels of my being stabbed, his magic—and memory—surfacing to protect me.
Excitement wakens my body, the magic prickling my blood as my thoughts fit the facts together. If the one thing stronger than the amulet’s magic is my mate’s drive to protect me, then said mate has to believe my life is in danger first.
Swallowing, I raise my chin, exposing my neck. “You’re right, River. You need to take my life. Now.”
The male’s dark brows pull together, his gray gaze surveying my body as if expecting to find balls of blazing magic hovering above my hands. “You wantme to kill you?”
“I need you to try. Sounds like splitting hairs, I know but…”I swallow a curse as River’s frown deepens suspiciously and he shifts away from me.Life in danger,I remind myself,and trust the bond.
“You were right,” I say, trying to make my voice hard, to make his attack easier. “I’m dangerous. I set the fire to the arena. I’ve been lying to you since the day I stepped onto the Academy grounds.”
No response.
“I am working for the Night Guard,” I say suddenly. “You were right. I’m working for the Night Guard. You can’t afford to take any chances with me. “
River shakes his head, confusion flitting across his gaze. “I’m fairly certain that now youarelying.”
I grind my teeth together.Fine.“I’ve used magic to manipulate your mind. How else do you explain how little you care that I’m coupling with you and Coal and Shade and Tye all at once? Putting me down is the only responsible thing to do. You know it is.”
“Put you down?” He takes a step forward, his eyes wide. “Are you insane?”
“You’re the one who said you needed to stop me,” I remind him.
He throws up his arms. “I was going to arrest you and put you in the dungeon, not butcher you. Who do you think I am?”
“I’d love to tell you, believe me,” I mutter, my thoughts racing at my miscalculation. River isn’t trying to take my life; he’s trying to take my freedom—and that won’t do at all.
“You know what, never mind. We’ll do this a different way.” Reaching through the slit of my tattered red dress to the blade I’ve strapped to my thigh, I pull out steel. Not the balanced throwing knife Han took from me when he fought Coal, but a decent enough blade pilfered with Tye’s aid from the armory. Sharp. Deadly.
River’s gaze sharpens, the male dropping at once into a fighting crouch, his hands up defensively. It would almost be comical, this powerful immortal warrior thinking me a threat, if the situation weren’t quite so dire.
“No need for that,” I assure him, forcing air into my suddenly tight lungs. Twisting the knife toward my chest, I beg the stars to help me avoid severing anything too important when I do what I must. River needs tobelieveI’m about to die, but I’d prefer to stay as far away from actual demise as I can.
“Leralynn?” River says, a note of panic making my name sound breathless.
Coal’s lessons sound in my head in a voice ever too calm for the deathly facts being imparted about vital organs. My stomach squeezes, pushing bile up my throat.
“Leralynn.” Now River’s voice takes on a note of command, as if he hadn’t been the one to pull a weapon on me just moments earlier. “What are you doing?”
“Trusting you.” Without waiting for the end of my own sentence, I plunge the knife down toward my ribs.
9
River
River leapt with a speed he did not think himself capable of, slamming Leralynn’s hand against the wall. The knife clattered harmlessly to the floor. His side burned, the wound a distant pulse against the gravity of what had almost happened.
Kicking away the knife, River gripped Lera’s waist and hoisted her up against the stone, bringing their faces level. Her sweet scent washed over him, tinted with the harsh metallic shimmer of fight and fear.
Lera’s chest heaved, beads of sweat glimmering at her temples as she struggled to get to the knife despite the futility of the effort. One deep look at the desperation in her chocolate eyes, and River knew that she’d not been toying with him. Shehadbeen trying to plunge the knife into her own flesh, though it scared her spitless.A desperate last-chance move toward an end River could not begin to guess. And it drove him insane.
Leralynn’s lilac scent wrapped around River as his lips pulled back into an infuriated snarl that felt more animal than human.His breath came in short, shallow bursts that grew more desperate the longer he looked at her. Really, really looked.
The ears, he saw those first. Delicate elongated points that made River hard from a single glance. Leralynn’s face was her own, yet somehow even more beautiful, the bones slightly elongated, sculpted into ethereal perfection, the skin satin smooth, almost pearlescent. The girl’s hair had strayed from her braid and cascaded over her bare shoulders in locks of thick auburn that River’s fingers longed to bury themselves in. Leralynn’s strapless dress had slid down in the tussle, showing the tops of lush breasts peeking above the red silk.
And then there was something else, a shimmer of power that River felt rather than saw. Just as he felt a power inside himself rouse to it in response. Waking his body to fuller sensations. To strength. To need.
River inhaled again, the girl’s lilac scent making the blood in his veins rise to a simmer. Especially when he could tell that the female was drinking him in as well, her gaze resting so intensely on his features that, despite what he’d just done, he knew she wasn’t giving up on him. “Why don’t you hate me?” he demanded.
