This isn’t a normal dagger.
Heat—like molten fire—flares out of the wound, searing through my chest. And then I hear it.
Her.
The Nightmother is laughing inside my head.
Millicent pulses with magic atop me; her skin is cloaked in black waves as red light glows from the dagger.
The bitch almost got my heart.
My arousal hasn’t even left yet, but now it’s drowned beneath a rush of white-hot rage and the jolt of adrenaline as I register the pain…and the spell on her lips.
She’s chanting.
Swollen lips I had just tasted—had gasping for me—are now spilling out an incantation I know all too well.
She’s binding me.
The tug on my chest confirms it. And it’s not just a knife in my chest.
It’s a fucking bond. If she finishes it…she’ll have access to my power. She’ll be able to command me to her will. She’ll be inside my mind, and she’ll make it so that I can’t even touch her—let alone use my power.
And thatis what shatters the last thread of restraint. I grab the back of her head, hard, twisting into her thick raven curls. My rage crackles through every muscle.
“There she is,” I snarl. “Those fucking pretty white jaws!”
My grip on her hair tightens. I don’t care if I’m hurting her; my side is on fire. And she dares to sit there, chanting with the dagger still buried in me.
My magic rises in tandem with my rage, tattoos writhing and crackling with the magic building up in my body.
The trees around us respond; shadows stretch forward, crawling toward us like they’ve been starved of purpose.
She clings to me, still chanting in that cursed tongue. I reach back—gripping the dagger—my strength straining against hers.
The earth answers. The soil explodes around us, and grass is torn away as thick, shadowy chains snake from the ground and coil around my limbs, working to trap and bind me.
And I laugh wildly…madly. Irelishit.
My power roars in response; tendrils burst from the shadows, slamming into her frame with the force of fury incarnate. She’s thrown back, but I keep a hold of her hair and drag her with me as I rise.
I yank the dagger free from my back, hissing through clenched teeth. Pain burns, but my rage burns hotter. The kindness is gone, burned out of me.
“Trying to bind me?” I snarl. “You little bitch.”
I slam her to her knees, dragging her down with my own shadow-forged chains. They coil around her legs and then her wrists, binding them tight behind her back.
Another snakes around her throat, tightly. Too tight. She chokes, gasping for air as I watch the world fade behind the depths of her eyes. I watch her panic, just long enough to feel like I’ve won something. I remind myself not to kill her. Then I loosen the coil at her throat, just enough for her to force down a breath of air.
I can feel her magic surge again, ready to make a lethal strike. Not this time.
I move fast, straddling her from behind. With one hand, I yank her head back, forcing it against my shoulder; the other presses the blood-slick dagger to her neck.
A drop of blood beads where I press, brilliantly red beneath the moonlight.
“Try it,” I growl; my voice is low and laced with venom. “Go ahead—”
“—Idareyou.”
