Page 8 of Bound By the Beast Man
I slam into the shimmering magical ward with the force of a battering ram. The impact is agony, a searing pain as the raw magic burns my skin and sends a jolt through my entire body. The barrier holds, but I roar again, this time in defiance, and rake at it with my claws. They are not mere nails; they aremanticore claws, sharp enough to rend steel. They tear through the shimmering energy, the ward cracking and splintering like ice under a hammer blow. With one final, desperate heave, I shatter the barrier completely.
The Purna are on their feet now, their shock turning to outrage and fury. Their hands glow with gathering magic, their beautiful faces twisting into masks of hate. But they are too late. Their ritual is broken, their concentration shattered. They expected me to fight them, to engage them as a warrior would. They did not expect me to ignore them entirely.
My entire focus is on the glowing glass prison in the center of the clearing. I leap over the remains of their shattered ward in a single, powerful bound, my eyes fixed on the woman within. She is my only purpose. I land before the coffin and, without a moment’s hesitation, bring my fists down upon its surface with all the strength I possess.
The enchanted glass does not shatter like a normal pane. It explodes. Raw magical energy erupts outward in a blinding flash of blue light, throwing me back a step. Crystalline shards, each one glowing with a faint inner light, rain down around me. The Purna’s screams of fury are a dissonant shriek in the sudden silence that follows the blast.
I ignore them. My eyes are only for the woman who now lies on the cold, bare earth where the coffin once floated. I rush to her side and scoop her limp form into my arms. She is lighter than I expected, her body cold to the touch from her long stasis. But she is real. She is in my arms. As I hold her, I can feel the air around us begin to crackle and burn with the Purna’s retaliatory magic. I turn to face them, shielding her body with my own, my claws extended, ready for the fight of my life. I have her. They will not take her back.
12
DIANA
The promise echoes in the void of my mind, a solid, warm thing I can cling to.
I am coming now. Be ready.
A force, a thunderclap shatters my world. A shockwave I feel in the very core of my consciousness. The magic that has held me suspended for years explodes, and my mind, my soul, slams back into the body it has so long been separated from. It is not a gentle reunion. It is a violent, agonizing rebirth.
The first sensation is the cold. An attack of a thousand icy needles piercing skin that has felt nothing for an eternity.
I gasp, a ragged, painful sound, as my lungs, stiff from disuse, draw in their first real breath. The air itself feels like fire and ice, burning a path down into my chest. Then comes the light. After years of darkness, the silver glow of the moons is a blinding agony, a searing white that makes me cry out and squeeze my eyes shut.
Sounds crash over me in a tidal wave: the furious, shrieking screams of the Purna, the deep, primal roar of a beast, the sharp crackle of raw magic. My brain, accustomed to silence, cannotprocess the overwhelming flood of sensory information. I am drowning, not in water, but in the world itself.
Through the chaos, strong arms scoop me up from the ground. The arms are a solid, warm presence in a world that has dissolved into pain and confusion. I clutch at the being holding me, my weak fingers tangling in the rough fabric of his tunic, clinging to him as the only solid thing in existence.
He is real. This is real. The thought is both terrifying and wondrous.
He is running. The world is a chaotic, terrifying blur of motion, a smear of dark trees and pale moonlight. I press my face against his chest, unable to bear the disorienting rush of images. I can feel the immense power radiating from his body, a furnace of heat against my own deathly cold skin. He moves with an impossible, ground-eating speed, his footsteps thudding with a rhythm that is both powerful and graceful. He holds me tight against him, his body a living shield that protects me from the whipping branches and scraping rocks of the forest he charges through.
Behind us, I can feel the angry lash of the Purna’s magic. The air sizzles with their fury, and I can hear their enraged screams echoing through the trees, growing fainter with every powerful stride my rescuer takes. I cling to him tighter, a tremor of fear running through my already trembling body. He is my only hope, my only shield against the evil that has owned me for so long. I focus on the details I can perceive through my fear and disorientation: the clean, wild scent of pine and something uniquely him, like warm earth and thunderstorms. The steady, thundering beat of his heart against my ear, a rhythm of life and strength that is the most reassuring sound I have ever heard.
My mind is still reeling, struggling to catch up with the sudden, violent shift in my reality. One moment, I am a disembodied mind in a timeless void.
The next, I am a freezing, terrified woman being carried through a dark forest by a creature of impossible power. I am free. I am being rescued.
The reality of it is a fragile, unbelievable thing, a new feeling that struggles to take root in a soul long plowed with nothing but despair.
I allow myself to feel a flicker of hope that I might actually live to see another dawn. I have earned that.
The frantic, jarring motion stops as abruptly as it began. The sudden stillness is a relief, the relative quiet of our new surroundings broken only by his ragged breathing and my own shallow gasps. We have reached a sheltered place, a small hollow at the base of a rock outcropping, hidden from the open path by a thick stand of pines. He lays me down with a gentleness that seems at odds with the explosive violence of my rescue. The bed of pine needles he places me on is soft beneath my weak body.
He removes his heavy cloak and wraps it around me, and the warmth and weight of it are a profound comfort. His scent clings to the fabric, enveloping me in the feeling of safety I first felt in my mind. Despite the warmth, my body is wracked with violent, uncontrollable tremors, a deep-seated shock that I cannot seem to stop.
My teeth chatter, and I feel as fragile as a newborn kitten. But a fierce, stubborn part of me refuses to be helpless. I will not be a passive victim any longer.
I force my protesting muscles to obey, pushing myself into a sitting position. He is immediately kneeling beside me, offering a waterskin to my lips.
The water is achingly cold, but it is the most wonderful thing I have ever tasted. As I drink, his gaze falls to my arm, and a low growl rumbles in his chest.
I follow his eyes and see a long, shallow cut on my forearm, a bleeding line left by a shard of the shattered coffin. He reachesout, and his large, calloused warrior’s hands are surprisingly gentle as he takes my arm to inspect the wound.
He tears a strip of cloth from the inside of his tunic and carefully cleans the cut, his touch sending a strange, warm tingle through my skin. In the dim moonlight that filters through the trees.
I look up at him. He is a massive, powerful creature, part man and part lion, and his touch is as gentle as his roar was fierce.
13
