“I have a friend who will be very pissed if you kill her.” A girl’s voice finds my ears just as the hand on my throat disappears.
I fall to the ground, coughing and strangling on painful bursts of air that are rushing into my lungs. I hold my chest, wondering how it could possibly hurt worse than my throat.
“Ah, Princess, I should have known you’d follow me.”
Ella. It’s Ella. My eyes adjust enough to tell it’s her.
“It wasn’t you I was following, although we have been looking for you. Do you always go around torturing humans? Because that’s not why we freed the slave rings.”
I look up in time to see his lips curl in a taunting grin. It’s then I notice the tattoos slithering down his arms in sleeves. He has another scar on his neck, both of them marring what would otherwise be a handsome asshole.
He deserves more scars.
I try to push up on my hands and knees before he tries to hurt Ella. She won’t stand a chance.
“Princess, I can assure you, I’m the least of your worries. Believe me when I say I’m doing you a favor by taking care of this. I just need her to show me her true colors. I don’t feel right killing someone who isn’t fighting.”
Ella glares at him, while I digest his words. He wants to kill me? I really am in a horror movie. I half expect a wolf to howl and bats to fly overhead at any moment.
I definitely expect someone to come crashing through with a chainsaw.
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“See, I was under the impression you were one of the good guys,” Ella says calmly, as though this guy isn’t psychotic.
He smirks, but that’s his only reaction. “No such thing in our world, baby. Besides, there are some people I’m itching to see. I owe them a few lashings, if you know what I mean.”
“Actually, I don’t know. How about you tell me and leave her alone?”
My head drums, and I start looking for a way to escape. I can’t just run and leave Ella behind.
“You don’t want to do this, Princess,” the guy says, though I don’t know why.
“You’re right. But you aren’t giving me much of an option.”
He grins as though he’s excited about something, and Ella takes a deep breath before her motherfucking eyes turn silver—glowing, freaky, unnatural silver.
“Game on, darling,” the guy whispers seconds before some bright surge of something comes rushing out of Ella’s hands and flying directly toward him.
All I can do is glue myself to the tree and watch in disbelief as fear and anger collide. I really don’t want to pass out, so I hope fear wins.
Fear is helped along just as I see a second body—the body of a slender girl—suddenly appearing in a dark cloud of smoke, and her hands are glowing red as she takes her place next to the scarred psychopath.
“Hold your fire. The princess is all mine,” the guy taunts, and I curl in on myself as tears slide free. My head is aching, my chest is caving in, and all my nightmares surface as panic edges in.
Chapter 14
ELLA
With barely any effort, he knocks away my power as though it’s some cheap parlor trick. He’s not supposed to be able to do that. It wasn’t a strong shot—since I’d rather scare him more than hurt him—but he just batted it down like it was a twig.
Glaring into eyes so dark that they’re almost black, I suck in a slow breath, trying not to let him smell the fear I actually feel. I assume his girlfriend is Kya, even though her face is covered by a mask.
His eyes shift, drawing my attention back as they turn a shade of green I’ve never seen, and then they shift again to red. Holy shit. He’s…
“You’re like me,” I whisper.
He smirks as though he’s amused, and he moves away from Kya, making me follow him with my eyes. Warily, my gaze darts back to Kya, then to him. I keep this up as he moves farther and farther away.