Page 10 of Queen of Ashes and Scars
“I am.” She inches closer, her green eyes wide.“She looks so young…”she thinks, her previously impassive stare betraying a hint of empathy and surprise.
I concentrate hard on the flavor of her inner voice and try to answer telepathically, but the words get…stuck, not projected as they should be. I should really have asked Alec to teach me telepathy before this.
Her gaze falls to the smoldering chain around my neck. “Keenan said your fiancé put a slave-binding spell in a piece of jewelry?”
With a nod, I wrangle the neckline of my dress away from the metal links of the cursed necklace.
A snarl curls her lips. “No one should ever be put through that.” She raises her hands in front of her and meets my gaze. “Can I touch it?”
Pressing my lips together, I brace myself for the pain. Alana inspects the links one by one, handling them as delicately as she can, but I still wince as she works the links away from my burnt flesh, her fingers soon tainted with blood—and a hint of melted skin.
“Can you dust it?” Thomas asks expectantly.
Alana shakes her head. “No. It’s a very well-crafted spell.”
Thomas gets a leather-bound book out of her bag and leafs through it. “I’ve heard of these bindings, where the spell is bound to an object instead of a person. It’s incredibly rare, and it usually requires the subject of the spell to make an unbreakable vow.”
Keenan scratches the back of his neck, his brows pulled in a guilty frown. “I think the wedding vows were meant to act as the promise of fidelity.”
Alana’s gaze snaps up to the angel. “What set it off, then, if the wedding didn’t happen?”
Heat pools in my chest as I remember what Alec and I were doing when the damn magical snare burned up.
My bodyguard clenches his fists, looking almost ashen. “We were… We tried to have sex.”
Keenan curses loudly, his accent thick with annoyance. “Mbrise an diabhal do chnámha. Couldn’t wait to get your dick wet, Beaumont?”
“We didn’t know it’d set it off,” Alec grits through his teeth.
“It’s probably enchanted to keep you obedientandfaithful, but only the second part is already active.” Alana’s nose wrinkles as she grazes the deep burns on my chest once more. “You’ve got better healing capabilities than the others of your kind I’ve met, but these are getting worse.” Her piercing green eyes meet mine with determination and pity. “I can break the spell, but I’m not going to lie, you might not survive it. Normally, I’d delay the procedure to do some research, but you’re clearly out of time.”
Alec raises a hand between us. “Wait a min—”
I press my finger over his mouth and meet his gaze head-on, commanding his attention. “I trust her.”
His pupils dilate, the gold ring around his irises so thin his eyes are almost all red. “Are you sure?”
He heard me! The joy of success is quickly chased away by the reality of my situation. I won’t become a mindless slave to a man I despise, and I convey that with a grave nod as I catch Alana’s gaze again.“Do what you have to do.”
She eyes Alec and Keenan in turn. “This might get bloody. Do I have to worry about one of you trying to eat me while I do this? If so, you should probably get out of the planenow.”
Both demons swallow hard but shake their heads in the negative, and Alec moves to wrap a protective arm around my waist before he jerks backward at the last second. “Hell… I’m not leaving her.”
Alana’s companion hands her the black bag. She unzips the flap and starts unpacking a wide array of spell materials, vials, and minerals on the nearby table before she passes a long rope to Alec. “Tie your queen up in the seat here.” She motions for the seat behind me, in the middle row of the plane.
Alec’s fist tightens over the rope. “How tight should the knots be?”
The green-eyed witch squints at my lover as though she’s sizing up his determination. “As tight as she can bear. We’ve only got one shot at this.”
Chapter6
Human
LEO
The bitter scent of incense, charcoal, and burnt flesh coaxes me from a dreamless slumber, and I sit up, startled. The princess is tied to a plane seat, her arms bound behind her back and her feet tied down. Alec glowers behind her, his expression unreadable as a woman with red hair murmurs a litany under her breath.
“What the—”
