Page 75 of Tethered Souls
HER
With my ear pressed to the door, my heart stutters.His own uncle…A man who, only a few hours ago, welcomed me into the family and joked about what my life here would be like. I liked him, thought he was funny. Nothing about him made me uneasy. He seemed so genuine in his love for the Shadow brothers. For Varius.
“He’s an abomination.”
My heart twists as Jason’s words come back to me. Does Myers think the same simply because Varius doesn’t have any magic? Before I can think of anything more, the hairs on my nape rise.Danger!
Instinctively, not thinking at all, I drop to the ground and roll to the left, away from the bedroom windows and the threat that’s just entered from them. My pulse is steady as I come back to my feet, but my body is already swaying, the spell the fucker threw at me having grazed the top of my head. I’m dizzy. My vision blurring. My tongue feels heavy. I lift my hands and throw up a shield around me, pushing the fucker’s spell out of my bloodstream, but it’s stronger than mine. I’ve slowed it down but haven’t stopped it. My vision starts to narrow. All I can see is blurred shapes with no definition, and I’m starting to feel tired.
Knowing I’m outmatched in my current condition, I yell for Khalid, hoping like hel it isn’t him who’s attacking me. People always underestimate the effect of yelling in a fight, but this person hasn’t. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.Fuck.
The figure, nothing but a blur of red, darts towards the bathroom. I’m out of their way, and the fact that they don’t try to kill me when they so easily could makes me realize I’m not the target. I’m the fucking patsy, and all that red I’m seeing in front of me is a dress similar to mine.
Myers.
I drop to one knee as his knock-out spell starts to take me down. The bathroom door starts to open from the other side, making my heart spike for the first time in a fight.
Frantically, I pull on the magic of one of my tattoos, a custom spell I use often, and grab hold of the door. I slam it shut, then throw my fire at the lock and hinges to meld them to the frame. Varius might be the Boss of the Shadow Domain, but he can’t help in a fight of magic. He’ll only get in my way. He’ll be safer inside the ensuite.
The spell on me releases instantly as Myers turns in my direction. My vision comes back full force, and I blink to try to adjust to the overload of sensory information. But his fist hits me before I can, and I fall to the ground.
I twist as I go, landing on my hands and lifting my lower half up to slam my feet into him. He staggers back, the dress he’s wearing tripping him up.
It’s fucking uncanny fighting yourself, his face looking exactly like mine, but I don’t hesitate as I jump to my feet and lift my arms up. I start to weave a ball of fire, but he barrels into me. The fucker has changed tactic, and I need to figure out what his gameplay is. Khalid’s absolutely in the dark, the room having been warded in silence. And no one suspects Myers of having disappeared inside to kill Varius. They probably think he’s just gone to the bathroom, and will be back in a couple minutes. So there’s a timer, at least, a length of time I need to hold out before someone starts to wonder where he is.
Hopefully.
He charges forward, instigating with a jumping kick to my face. I duck, neatly avoiding it but stepping right into the line of his other leg. His foot slams into my solar plexus, knocking the wind out of me. I’m down on my knees, then rolling, trying to breathe as I find my feet again. He doesn’t attack me while I’m down though, and that flags something inside my head, something important. But I’m moving too fast to think of it, throwing my hands up to block another kick to my chest.
My forearm aches like hel from the force of his blow, and there’s a moment I wonder how he’s moving so well in this fucking dress. Then I realize he ripped the seams down the sides while I was down. I want to do the same, but I know he won’t give me the chance.
My legs restricted, I do my best to dance out of the way of his attacks. Something rams into the bathroom door from the other side.
If Varius is shouting at me, I can’t hear him, the ward of silence around the room still engaged. It’s not a hard spell to maintain, so I don’t bother trying to think of a way to break it. His magic is obviously stronger than mine. He has nearly a hundred years on me, and he’s an ex-reaper on top of that.
Which begs the question of why am I not already dead?
He must still need me as a patsy.
He darts forward, but this time I throw up a blue shield of magic. Knowing he is strong enough to break it, I let it down just as he starts to counter the spell. My other arm shoots forward, and a fireball of purple flames erupts from my palm. It slams into his own shield, just barely erected in time, but the thing about my fire that no one knows is that it feeds on magic. The flames grow higher, consuming his shield as fuel.
He staggers back, surrounded by a wall of fire he can’t see but can absolutely fucking feel. The door to the ensuite slams off its hinges, and Varius barrels into the room. He looks at Myers, who still looks like me, but then his gaze shifts to me.
I try to tell him I have the threat contained, but I still can’t fucking speak. That niggling red flag starts to wave again. Why would Myers have bothered both warding the room and stopping me from speaking?
Before I can figure it out, the hairs on my nape start to rise as Varius slowly moves towards his uncle. Because his steps aren’t right. There’s no rage in them. There’s no sign that he’s moving towards someone who had all his trust and broke it. No...no that look is aimed at me.
Varius. What are you…My eyes widen as I get it now. What’s causing his paranoia.
Myers is a hel of a lot stronger than me. A lot faster. A lot smarter. So how the hel did I manage to get the upper hand?
The sly mother fucker played me, and now Varius thinks I’m the imposter.
Twenty-Six
HER
Fuck.
