Page 26 of Halfblood Deceived

Charity sobbed harder. “Ella!”

“Enough!” Claudia cried.

“Please,” Bethany begged Eli, but didn’t dare move to comfort her screaming daughter.

Aella straightened, keeping her back to the children. That strange heat pulsing from her chest to her every limb made her feel stronger. She stood firm, not feeling the pain she knew would come later.

Esther skidded inside the room, also in a robe, face pale with horror. She ran for Ez, dodging Eli as if he weren’t there. She carried Ez with one arm, her other hand cupping Charity’s head. “Are you insane?!” she screamed at Eli.

“A rather pointless question, don’t you think?” Aella inquired, her voice steady with rage, her focus on Eli. “Get out of here and stop traumatizing the children.”

Eli growled like a beast out of a nightmare, the sound metallic and unnerving.

Bethany shrank into herself and backed down. Claudia and Esther winced, breathing hard, eyes round with panic.

“Who do you think you are to give me orders, whore?” Eli demanded of Aella.

Aella roared back at him. The sound that her throat produced was guttural and rumbling. Like that of a feline. “Get. Out.”

Eli grabbed Aella by the arm and dragged her out of the room.

She struggled to free herself, planting her naked feet on the marble and resisting with all her might. To her shock, it worked. Eli huffed like a bull, trying to pull her along with him toward the left hall that led to the mostly unused third floor.

Nothing good could come from being alone with him. So Aella scratched, kicked, growled some more, and tangled her leg with his when they were near the top of the staircase, taking him down and going with him.

They rolled down the hard marble steps in a tangle of limbs. Aella tried to protect her face, and mostly managed it, but by the time she was done spinning and tumbling, she was seeing double and her forehead throbbed. Still, she crawled away from Eli and stood on shaky, miraculously unbroken legs. She lurched for the crystal vase set on a table near the main entrance and threw it at Eli’s head just as he advanced on her again.

The vase broke on his face, sending water, flowers, and pieces of crystal flying in all directions.

Still, that wasn’t enough to stop him.

The double doors opened suddenly, letting in sunlight, Micah, Isaiah, Ben, and Father Israel.

“What do you think you’re doing, Aella?” Father Israel asked.

“Answer the question,” Micah demanded.

Isaiah approached Aella, placing a large hand gingerly under her chin, dark features twisting with horror. “Are you alright?”

“She attacked me,” Eli hastened to accuse. “She was making the children cry, and I tried to find out what she was doing to them, then she went insane and attacked me.”

Aella laughed.

There was no humor in the sound, only hysteria and something decidedly dark and brittle she had no name for.

Her sore body shook with breathless laughter that made her eyes tear up. Or perhaps she had already been crying. She realized that didn’t help her not look insane, but she couldn’t control it.

Isaiah’s brow furrowed with concern, his throat bobbing.

Aella took a deep breath to quell her laughter and met Eli’s gaze. “Coward. Not only are you a bully and a degenerate, but a rotting coward.” She swung her head to glare at Micah, Ben, and Father Israel. “You know this as well, but you will pretend that he’s right and I’m crazy, won’t you? Because you are no better than him.” A rueful smile curled her lips, that flash of heat in her veins pulsing, making her feel tight inside her flesh. Her fingers curled, and she wished she could summon claws. Bloodlust burned in her veins, making her feel dizzy with the desire to break something.

Silence.

They stared at her as if she were a stranger.

It made Aella want to laugh again for some reason.

Isaiah carefully placed Aella behind him, hands curling into fists. “I’m going to kill you,” he promised Eli.

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