Page 60 of Shadebound
Magic I could eviscerate with less effort than it took for all these weaker creatures tobreathe.
Teeth bared, I lifted Tyler off the ground by his throat. Shadows tightened around his pasty flesh, digging in with barbed teeth filled with nightmares and ruin.
I laughed as he screamed. Laughed again when he started bleeding all over the concrete floor.
Head clear for the first time since my arrival, I just stood there and watched Tyler as he kicked out. As he scratched against my shadowy noose. Saphira yelled at me. She called me a psychotic bitch, and tried to pull her boyfriend back to the floor. Other dragon friends of theirs did similar. But it was all useless.
They were children trying to go against real magic.Realpower.
The more Tyler tried to breathe, the higher I forced him to go.
The more I forced every ounce of horror I could imagine into his mind, letting my darling creatures feast on every facet of pain and suffering the bastard dragon had ever gone through.
At least, I did until another pressure pressed against mine. It wasn’t aggressive, but it had weight enough for me to feel it.
I shifted my focus and found Alessandro watching me. He stood completely still, posture straight, expression unreadable. The fire climbing his arm pulsed once, brighter blue than before.He wasn’t reacting to the others. He was reacting tomeas he sent his tendrils of icy flame closer to where I stood.
He didn’t speak; he just let the weight of his magic rest against mine like he wanted to see what I would do about it.
Jaw hardening, I didn’t release the shadows. I didn’t drop the idiot still gasping. I kept everything where it was. Digging and digging until Tyler started to slow down with his fight.
The fire crept higher on Alessandro’s arm. He took a single step forward—not enough to close the distance, but enough to make it clear he wasn’t going to back down.
Then he pushed again. His magic pressed against mine. Those tendrils of blue flame wrapped around my skin, simmering their way up my arms and chest.
I anchored my stance. Shadows gathered at my shoulders. I didn’t escalate, but I didn’t ease back either.
He continued to watch me. Waiting.Leering.
I raised my hand and signed across the space between us:Control your horde.
His response came immediately:Control your magic.
We stood there, frozen, as the pressure between our magic settled into a low tension. I had no clue what he was on about. Iwasin control. Every ounce of darkness and despair was by choice. By design.
It was all me. All my thoughts, wants,desires. I was the shadow made flesh, and I was powerful enough to—
The zap from the cuff hit without warning. It surged up my arm, stinging hard enough to make my shadows retreat and vanish inside of me, instantly asleep once more. I couldn’t even mourn their loss again before the white-hot lightning made me gasp, my knees buckling under the strain of it.
Rayla’s voice cut through the air as I blinked a few times. “Enough childishness. Return to your seats and behave, or I’ll use something stronger than a warning pulse.”
Somewhere between the zap and Zayden pulling me down into my seat with a concerned look, Tyler had dropped to the ground. He’d dragged himself off the floor, neck bleeding profusely. Orange eyes flickering with flames as... as blood dripped from them.
My shadows had blinded him. They’d carved into his eyes and...
He was still wheezing. Coughing. Yelling at me and clearly unhappier than I was about him surviving. He was whining and yelping about the agony he was in. Saphira hovered uselessly by his side, shooting me filthy glares as her hands fluttered over her boyfriend’s body, trying to find where she could help him and failing.
“Hurry up and take him to a healer before he bleeds out.” Rayla ordered, and the panther girl did just that, her wicked glare still locked on me as she helped a staggering Tyler limp out of the room.
Not that I was too bothered about looking at him much. No, I kept my eyes on Alessandro for the rest of the lesson.
The most annoying part of all was that Alessandro kept his eyes on me.
LikeIwas a problem. Not him.
Field Journal — Entry #839 - Classified
Shadebound are drawn to darkness—not to devour it, but to hold it close. To press it against our chest and whisper that we understand. It’s not goodness that calls to us, not light or warmth or anything soft. It’s the fractures in people, the pieces sharp enough to cut. The quiet cruelties. The grief pressed down too long. The ruin no one else sees and we can’t seem to look away from.
