“It means you’re pledging your life to that person. If anyone sees the princess pledging her life to someone like me… I don’t even want to think about what they’d do to you.”
“I didn’t mean to take your magic. I promise.”
I sighed, nurturing that part of me that now belonged to her. What could I say that could ease her anguish? “I know. It’s okay.”
Her large, ice-gray eyes held me captive long enough to distract me from her glowing hand racing to my cheek and causing it to tingle as recognition of what she was doing slammed into me.
I watched in horror as the porcelain skin of her cheek ripped open in a clean, deep swipe. Crimson blood spilled, and I felt my chest cave in. I could sense her distress like it was an extension of me. Even though she didn’t flinch, the pain swirled in her like a sea storm writhing against the shore.
“No,” I whispered out in a breath, desperate to undo what she had done. I swiped my fingers across the drips, then pressed my palm to it, but my magic wasn’t responding. Because it was gone. I removed my hand and she replaced it with her own. “Ripley—”
Twigs snapped in the distance. The patter of feet running across grass thrummed. I looked over my shoulder as three figures became visible, stalking up the hill. I recognized them as the three boys who had climbed the mountain.
They looked past me and straight at Ripley. “Are you okay?” they asked in unison.
I stood, squaring my shoulders to them as a rough heave of anxiety pierced Ripley.
I tugged her behind me. “She’s fine.”
Their gazes lingered on her injured cheek before their sights turned on me. “Did you hurt her?”
“What? No.”
“You hurt her,” the skinny one with snow-white hair confirmed. “She’s crying.” He stepped forward, asserting that he was the leader of the three. “Come on, Princess Ripley, we will take you away from this scum.”
“Fletcher,” Ripley whispered while she hid behind me.I don’t want to go with them.
I cleared my throat and flared out my arms to protect her. “I will take her back myself.”
The boy with the thick, dark tresses and even darker skin announced, “Like hell you are.”
Down their arms came their magic in mauve waves. Their fingers splayed out toward my chest. As I watched the starry recoil of magic crawl up the leader’s arm, a force struck me across the temple. I grunted as I fell to the side, a sharpness splitting through my head.
Two of the boys laughed and inched closer. The smallest and youngest of the three stayed in place, hands balled near his chest and watching intently under short, bronze locks. The white-haired boy sent magic into my chest that nailed me to the ground as his foot slammed into my ribs. He leaned down, fist connecting with my eye, then again with my jaw.
Ripley’s cry rang out with vengeance, stealing the two boys’ attention, as if they could sense her in the same way I could now. The possibility that I was not the only one with this new bond sunk my heart into a deeper state of anger.
I took advantage of their distraction and grabbed hold of the white-haired boy’s hand. Within a heartbeat, I sent his fingers backward with all mymight. A cracking pop let me know I’d limited his use of magic. And as he screamed, I twisted myself to his left side and did the same with his other hand. The boy fell into a fetal position, crying and cuddling his hands to his chest.
The short, dark-haired boy who had the biggest build of the three stepped forward. And faster than I could grab him, his magic blazed through his arms as he let out a forceful grunt. My feet went out from under me, and I was sent flying backward into the trunk of the large tree my hammock was tied to. The back of my head slammed against the bough as I sunk down.
He stomped closer to me, foot coming down on my throat. “Where’s your magic now, scum?”
My hands came down on his boot as I struggled to push him off me. I lifted my foot and kicked him between the legs, causing him to drop his hands and lose his balance. He went tumbling onto his back as I sat up, wheezing and coughing.
I climbed to my feet and bent both sets of his fingers back. I looked to the smallest boy, licking my bloody lip over my bared teeth. “You want to see what it’s like to take her away from me too?”
He timidly shook his head, turned, and raced down the hill. The shortest boy followed as I kicked the skinny one lying in a ball on the ground until he was rolling down the hill behind them. “From now on, ignore your bond to her!” I roared.
As I took a deep breath, Ripley’s intense emotions overwhelmed me and pulled me under her ocean of panic.
I looked around only to see an empty hill, no sign of her long, golden hair in sight. “Ripley? Ripley!” I climbed up the tree into my hammock to get to higher ground. “Where are you?”
Get off me!
I called my magic forth, desperate to communicate back with her, and came up empty again.
She was moving. Struggling.
