“No.” A scythe cut down, just nipping at my fingers, hitting the top of the box.
With a cry, I fell back on my ass, fear cutting through the trance I was in, my gaze leaping up to a hooded figure standing over me. My mother’s black, emotionless eyes pinned me to the ground. My heart hammered, fear biting at the back of my neck, telling me something was off.
“You must resist.”
A cry caused me to scramble back through the mud, the understanding dawning that she had spoken, but her mouth never moved.
Holyshitholyshit.
A speck of humanity left in her made her flinch. “You hear me?”
Sucking through my nose, my head nodded. “H-How?”
Eabha watched me blankly for a long time before her voice skated around me.
“When you brought us back, something must have changed. Necromancers communicate through a link. You must bear the curse more than we thought.”
I knew I did. With Warwick and Scorpion, it was a huge part of our connection. I had begun to experience it with Andris before he died.
“But why?” I stopped myself, swallowing and closing my mouth. “Why now?”
“After you brought us back, we were witches again.” Each word was very stiff. “We no longer communicated through a link.”
Yet, now that they were becoming necromancers again, they did. And maybe because I brought them back, I was looped in this time.
“My link to the nectar allows me to feel it, to feel you. The nectar calls to you. Wants you. I can sense the power growing within you both. Power that should not exist. You must resist, daughter.” She positioned herself between me and the box. “Do not think any sentiment for you will win over my duty. If I must, I will stop you too.”
The instinct to fight her, to take what was mine, made me rise to my feet. She tightened her hold on her weapon. Figures stirred at the edge of the forest—the six other necromancers letting me know they would not hesitate.
You bow down to no one. The thought climbed from the pyre in my gut. My breath was short, my gaze locked with my mother’s. Tension sparked between us, my hands flexing at my sides. It would only take a shove, and I could reach the nectar before she could even get a swing in.
With every breath, the need only grew. My muscles twitched.
“Kovacs.” Warwick stood on the porch step in his boxer briefs. To the outside world, they would only hear him say my name, but I felt all the colors, tasted all his worries and alarms.
Like the weapon my mom was holding, he sliced through the hostility between Eabha and me, pushing me back with a staggered exhale. The sensation to go for the nectar was still there, but reason painted everything in a different shade. I had been about to fight my mother. About to challenge seven necromancers.
“Kovacs?” Warwick called to me again, traveling closer as I stepped back to him, instantly easing the tension from my body.
He glanced at Eabha, giving her a nod, his hand going to my lower back, ushering me back into the house.
Shutting the door behind us, I expected him to barrage me with questions, but he didn’t. Warwick walked me silently back to the bedroom, peeling off the dirty robe and tossing it to the ground. He spun me to face him, yanking the shirt I borrowed over my head, his fingers digging into my hips as he walked me backward to the bed. Tossing me back onto the mattress, he growled, stripping off his boxers as he climbed over me, settling between my legs. Grabbing my wrists, he yanked them above my head almost to the point of pain, arching my back, desire erupting through me. A small moan left me as his grip tightened on my arms, pinning them to the headboard.
There was no buildup, no teasing. His eyes burned with anger as he thrust deep and ruthlessly into me. I choked out a groan at the severe onslaught of him, filling me so much I couldn’t breathe. He pulled out and slammed back into me. The jolt was similar to being electrocuted. My back bowed, my breasts heaving as he set a punishing pace. I couldn’t feel his shade. It was only him, and he was making sure I felt every brutal thrust into me. The bed creaked and banged loudly, wood splintered, but he only went harder. Sounds hurled out of me, drowning under his retribution. He branded his fury into me, stamped his fear, tearing and burning me down to ashes. It was a battle he would not stop until he obliterated me, even if I waved the white flag.
“Oh gods...” I cried out, clenching around him.
“You ever...” He pounded, the sound of him entering me, the wetness slapping the walls, the hit of his hips against mine, played like a crescendo. “Do that again...” He clenched his teeth, hitting so hard and deep, my eyes rolled back. “If you feel that pull again, you take it out on me. You got it, Kovacs?”
Another splinter of wood.
“Answer me,” he snarled.
“Yes, yes!” I would have agreed to anything. “Warwick!”
He let go of my arms, grabbed my thighs, and yanked me up and into him. The shift curled my toes, locking up my body as he released inside me. The cries couldn’t be held back as I continued to spasm and convulse, my pussy milking him to the point it almost hurt.
“Fuck!” His head went back, pushing to the hilt as he emptied himself before he collapsed over me.
We lay there, his weight heavy on me, but he made me feel solid. Anchored to this world.
After a few minutes, he sighed heavily, rolling off of me. I couldn’t move, completely annihilated, knowing sleep would find me quickly now.
Hauling my body half over his, his lips brushed my head. “I can feel it call to you.” I knew his anger had been out of fear. I was scared too. Not of the nectar so much, but it was one of the most powerful objects in the world. If it fell into the wrong hands...
Drifting off to sleep, I thought I heard the fae book’s voice brush by my consciousness.
“You defy nature, girl. How do you know your hands are not the wrong ones?”
Then the voice was lost in the abyss as I slipped into darkness.
“Noooo!”
A cry lurched me upright out of a dead sleep, my startled vision landing on Scorpion’s shade at the end of the bed, his face twisted in horror. Then in a blink, I was in the prison, standing next to him. Cries and commotion took my attention to the middle of the mess hall. Guards surrounded Killian and Sloane on the floor, their movements similar to prowling animals, clubbing them both, their screeches not sounding human at all.
Several guards held Rosie back as she screamed and thrashed against them.
“Killian!” I heard myself scream out, though no one could hear me except Scorpion.
Something was really wrong with the sentinels. They howled like hyenas and chimpanzees, hitting and wailing their arms, dropping the spiked clubs on the two men over and over, with no restraint or skill.
“No! Stop!” Aggravation and fear boomed through me, knowing there was nothing I could do.
A soldier struck Killian on the back with the spiked club, curving Killian’s spine. A cry he couldn’t stop barked from his lips. Blood colored his yellow uniform brown.
The guard lifted the baton over his head. A gasp spiked in my throat as I recognized Samu. His features were contorted, almost inhuman.
“No! Stop!” Sloane roared, leaping for Killian.
“Sloane, no!” Killian bellowed as Sloane landed over him right as the club came down.
The crunch echoed through the mess hall. The sound of crushing bone and torn flesh.
I heard my scream shredding through my body as I watched blood and gore spray from Sloane’s head, his skull caving in.
Denial of what I was seeing kicked me in the stomach, burning acid up my esophagus. Staring numbly in disbelief, my eyes locked on Sloane’s unmoving body. The stoic soldier who had taken me to Halálház, whose faithfulness and respect for Killian turned him into my ally. I couldn’t call us friends, but I could no longer say we were enemies. Not by a long shot.
Whimpers and cries of horror sprinkled the room.
All I could do was stare, my mind not wanting to register what I just saw.
“Enough!” Boyd’s voice cut through the mess hall. “What is our rule about the next fighters who are battling in the upcoming Games?” Boyd spoke to them as though they were imbeciles. “Your master won’t be pleased!”
“Kovacs.” Both Scorpion and I twisted to see Warwick behind us in the prison, his attention jumping from the spectacle in the middle to me. I knew I could pull them both in together at once, especially when my emotions were high.
“Go.” Scorpion whispered to me, nodding his head to him.
Tears clotted my throat, my head shaking. “No.”
Scorpion stood at the end of the bed, looking between Warwick and me. “Get us the fuck out of here.”
Then the connection was cut.