“They said I should fix it myself,” Tommy murmurs. “That it would make me more valuable to fully reveal my beast.”
“Not forced like this,” I snap. “You’re still too young. Your body might handle it, but your mind will …”
Tommy offers me a twisted smile. It looks like it hurts. “Maybe … you can worry about that for me, hey? I’m … I don’t want to hurt anyone, but the cage is making me sick.”
“Stay here, darling,” I say to Kitty.
She hunkers down on her heels obligingly. Then she raises her phone and takes a picture of Tommy hunched and partially transformed in the cage.
“Hey!” he protests.
“Evidence,” she says with a shrug.
I skirt the cage, looking for the latch. When I find it, it appears completely manual. But it’s coated in the essence that burned Tommy so badly.
“Out of my realm,” Coda says. The tech has been very quiet, though I have no doubt they’ve also been continually working in the background.
Aware of the children watching me, I take the phone off speaker and press it to my ear. “There’s a powerful mage involved.”
“Multiple mages,” Coda says. “But don’t worry, your men are on their way to you now. There was … an incident, but it gave the earl a chance to flex, knocking everyone out with one of his light tricks. He just, ah, inadvertently blinded Bolan at the same time. So the healer had to step up.”
“Permanently blinded?” I ask, completely cool. But remembering Elias’s story about how his power first manifested.
I’m not numb. Just perfectly in control, focused.
“Ah, no. The wolf keeps shaking his head and grumbling about it. But like I said, they’re only a few minutes away now.” Coda suddenly hoots, completely distracted. Then they add, “I’m in!”
“Who the fuck are you!” a deep voice shouts.
I glance over my shoulder.
The shorter of the two backstage crew members is moving toward us. The second guy is behind him a moment later. Both definitely shifters, judging by their speed.
Kitty cries out.
Coda says something in my ear, but my hands are already falling to my sides, my phone tumbling to the pedestal.
I straighten. My already awoken power pours from me, lapping around my ankles and curling around my hands, eager but obedient. Because I’m not a fifteen-year-old girl who’s just been rejected by her soul-bound mate. I’m not in fear for my brother’s life.
I’m not scared of the responsibility that comes with this power anymore. Not concerned about what my father will demand of me, demand I do with it.
I’m a princess with a sworn duty.
I’m an awry with an inherent responsibility and the sheer power to protect other purple-eyed essence-wielders like me. Like Kitty.
I am Mirth.
I apply all that intent, all my focus, to the two charging shifters.
The shifter farther away from me has a phone to his ear. I rotate my wrists, unfurling the power curled around my forearms. With another casual flick of my fingers, and a long whip of pure essence for each, I wallop the two men directly in their chests.
Their eyes widen.
They stumble, their phones clattering to the ground.
Then they laugh.
The sound burbles up within them, pouring out of their mouths completely involuntarily.
