Page 7 of Fake Fae-Ancée

This couldn’t be! We couldn’t still be married! Impossible! A feeling like free fall wrenched at my guts.

Kalinin didn’t even flinch. His gaze rested on me, piercing through my boiling rage and right into my soul. He had always been the only one able to do that. No one else, not even my friends — not Claudio, not his mom, neither Gabe nor Lily — had ever seen all the broken and ruined stuff I hid from the world. Except him. And I hated him for it.

"You're completely insane," I uttered. I stalked backwards towards the door. He was still looking at me with those strange, dark eyes.

"Take a seat," he had the actual nerve to say. "We need to talk."

"Yeah, right." I gave a short, bitter laugh. "You and I have nothing to talk about and you know that very well. And whatever you pulled last night, or whatever might have happened, I'm definitely so not married to you. There’s been a huge mistake!"

"Kai."

I blinked at him. He rarely called me by my name, always went with McKenn or that moronic pet-name. He took a step toward me. I retreated, sliding backwards to the door. Where I knew my sword was.

"Sit down. Listen to me, please."

I hesitated for a split second. He never asked for anything. Never said please. His whole upbringing had made him assume that the world was at his feet as soon as he got up in the morning. But whatever might have caused him not to act like a spoiled little prince for one second, I didn't really care.

I had to get out of here.

"Apologies, Your Majesty," I said, dipping into a mock curtsy. His expression turned stern, a crease emerging between his eyebrows.

"I'm serious," he growled, not so cocky anymore.

"Likewise," I returned, sensing the proximity of the doorway at my back. In the corner of my eye I spotted the hilt of my sword leaning against the wall.

"Sit down, McKenn."

"Make me."

His gaze bore into mine and my stomach cramped with rage. He actually thought I was going to sit down and listen to his bullshit without a fight.

Yeah, right. I would give him a piece of my mind alright.

I dove sideways, whiplash quick, got hold of my sword, pulled the handle and drew my weapon out of its sheath.

Or tried to.

My sword didn't budge.

My eyes grew wide.

What the fuck?? I could not lift my sword!

My sword that I had carried on my back for years. My second service weapon, two-thirds as big as I was. A special design made of meteorite steel that weighed as much as a family freezer. No problem for me, of course, because the only useful heritage my parents had left me was my physical strength.

With this sword I had single-handedly taken down a category three Nightshade, a truck sized dragon with a pronounced anger management issue. It had been on the news. My team had received an award. The boss of P.A.S.H. herself, Margret Juniper, had praised us in a public speech. My trusty blade that was as familiar to me as the back of my hand, that I strapped to my back with no further thought like it was nothing more than a backpack.

Right now, my sword held the weight of planet fucking Jupiter.

My sword slid sideways fell to the floor with a clang, dragging me along with it. Stunned, I squatted on the floor, tugging at the hilt. I barely managed to lever it a lousy centimeter off the floor. I could just as easily have tried to lift up a house.

Frantically, my mind reached down into myself, dove to the place where my strength — my Anima, the power-source for Fae — usually purred reliably like a fusion reactor. Just to find nothing but a yawning void.

The sword slipped from my fingers, fell clattering back to the ground. I wheeled around. Kalinin loomed in front of me, scratching his neck, his damned obsidian eyes still on me, and said:

"I told you we need to talk."

Yuri

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