Frankie’s pain seemed like naught compared to the sudden terror she felt at his words. She drew on everything she had and said, “I’ll be giving ye fair warning, so think twice, demon, think twice,” Frankie hoped he would be taken aback by her bluff.
She needed to stall him and think, she had to think.
She could see Graely in her mind. She felt Graely’s gentle touch. This thing meant to harm her in a way she would never forget or get over. She couldn’t, wouldn’t let that happen.
“Oh but I have thought twice, and it will be so worth the bit of fight you put up,” he sneered at her.
Frankie yanked out her Fios. Suddenly she could see a little more clearly, suddenly she was able to set aside her pain and pulled on every resolve she owned.
He continued to tell her what he was going to do with her and she heard his filth and let him talk while she pulled herself together and fought through the agony the poison was causing to her insides.
Frankie managed a smile as she told him, “You know, this will not end well for you.”
“You Fae,” he snapped angrily. “You all think you are so superior. Look at you now. Who is superior now? Well, in a moment, you will be a used and discarded easy piece of fluff,” he said on a rough growl as he leaned over her.
“Touch me, and I promise ye, ye won’t live to see tomorrow,” Frankie threatened.
He laughed, “Big talk for a female strapped to a wall and sapped of her strength with a rare Fae poison.”
“Rare?” Frankie scoffed; she had to keep him at bay while she figured out how she could collect enough power to kill him. “Ye think Dragon’s Breath is rare? It can be found almost everywhere, and I have been working to get past its effects, so ye don’t know how much or how little strength and power I have—do ye?”
He stopped and a worried look made his face twitch, but then he released a short hard laugh, and accused, “Bluffing. If you had any power, you would have already used it.” He shrugged, “Besides, you aren’t just fighting off the Dragon’s Breath. It is laced with something else…” He bent and tore off Frankie’s jacket. She felt her wings adjust themselves and tuck in further at her back.
Oh, thought Frankie, he was so going to die. She watched him thrown her torn garment across the room.
The effort seemed to excite him.
The darkness forever restrained inside of her shot out with long reaching tentacles and filled her with renewed strength.
He was close, too close as he tore at her tank top. She brought up her knees, and kicked out with both her sneakered feet, so hard, so furiously that he went flying backward and bounced off the iron wall.
This effort, however, did not immediately help her.
Blue Demons are both magical and strong. He recouped, growled and came charging at her with a force she knew was going to hurt!
* * *
Graely’s thoughts were lost in a sea of darkness, and as ever, he was alone.
The truth was, he would never be alone again. Frankie had become so much a part of who he was that he didn’t know where he ended and she started. She was with him because she was a part of him.
The sound of her Irish lilt tickling his mind, making him think he had both a soul and a heart had a power that was greater than magic. The image of his Frankie, even now while he was in more pain than he thought possible to endure, made him smile.
He had no hope of being found and released to save his beloved, b
ut he had to find a way. He simply had to find a way. He knew the iron powder would kill him in the end, but he couldn’t die until she was free.
The powdered iron Pestale had administered to Graely was just short of a lethal dose, but he had absorbed it all too quickly into his system, and it had taken him down—hard.
Together with the effects the thick iron walls of his cell had on him, time, would do the rest.
He was thrown into a black void by the effects of the poison in his system.
He couldn’t die, he told himself. He couldn’t die because he had to get to Frankie. Pestale had done something to her and he had to find a way to save her. She was the World’s last hope, and she was everything that mattered to him.
Through the throbbing pain his mind found something of a solution.
He wasn’t sure his message could get through the thick iron surrounding him, but he knew Jazmine Decker well enough to know that by now she was on the alert and perhaps, the past they shared, the love they shared for Frankie could connect their present.