Ilona Andrews - Magic Binds

“My orders are to secure the head,” she said.

There would be violence. The air was ripe with it.

“You’ll have to go through me,” I told her.

“So be it.”

“Walk away,” I told her. “My father isn’t worth your life.”

“If you kill me, I’ll be slain by Sharrim in battle. If I kill you, I’ll be slain by Sharrum in his grief. My entire life culminates here. My passage to the afterlife is assured. I’m at peace.”

“How about door number three? Turn around and go live a nice life somewhere else.”

“You do me a great honor, Sharrim. Defend yourself.”

She opened her mouth. A torrent of magic smashed into me. My ears recognized the fact that there must’ve been a sound, but I didn’t hear it, I felt it. It crashed into me, instantly freezing every muscle in my body. It was as if my very cells turned solid. The world slowed to a crawl. I couldn’t move.

She’d used a power word against me.

I saw her lunge at a glacial speed, her katana swinging in a glittering beautiful arc, slow, but impossible to stop. Classic attack, two hands, devastating power, born from strength, speed, and precise movement perfected over countless generations.

The sword was coming toward me and I was standing there like an idiot.

I reached deep inside myself and pulled on my magic. Straining was agony. Summoning the power was like grasping my own veins and pulling them out of my body.

The sword reached the highest point and began its inevitable descent.

I pulled . Move or die. There was no third choice.

The sword carved its path through the air.

I forced my lips to open a mere crack. The power word was a whisper, a faint breath that escaped my mouth almost on its own.

“Dair.” Release.

The magic’s hold shattered. I shied back. The point of the katana slashed across my face, right to left, drawing a hair-thin line of pain. She struck again, overhead, left to right, too fast to see. I batted her blade aside. Steel rang. She cut at me a third time and I caught her sword on Sarrat. Our blades locked. She threw her entire weight at me, pushing.

My arms shook from the strain. The blades vibrated. Strong.

She grunted, squeezing more pressure. Very strong.

Not strong enough.

I jerked my arms up, throwing her blade and her arms upward. She brought it down, aiming for another devastating cut, but I sliced across her torso, left to right. Sarrat bit deep, cutting across her stomach and coming free, blood flying from its blade.

She fell to her knees and sank down, curling on the ground. So much skill. So much training wasted. Years of practice and study for three seconds of battle and for what? Because my father told her to fetch the head at any cost. She hadn’t questioned it. She obeyed.

“Was it worth it?”

She was gulping air in shallow breaths.

I crouched by her.

“Was your life worth this? Can you see the afterlife? Is it everything my father told you it would be? Or is it darkness and nothing?”

She was staring at me, her eyes wide with fear.

I should kill her and send her head to my father on a fucking pike. Her presence in my land was an insult.

Drops of blood slid from my wounded face, falling into the gash on her stomach. They landed in the pool of her blood, drops of pure fire falling into cooling water, and then something within her blood answered. Her body clutched onto my blood, receptive and eager. Her magic recognized mine. My father had done something to her. The imprint of his power burned within her. He owned her and he had sealed his ownership with magic. I’d felt something similar before on people who were cursed. She was a slave.

No. She’s in my domain. You don’t get to keep this one. This one is now mine.

I dragged my hand over my wound and let my blood fall into her. Commanding her to be released wouldn’t do it. I had to supplant his ownership.

“Hesaad.” Mine.

Her body shook. My father’s seal held. I gritted my teeth, pouring magic into her. It pulled her from the brink of death, but she was still his.

“I swore an oath, Sharrim . . .” she whispered. “He’s Sharrum . . .”

“He isn’t here. This is my domain. Here I’m Sharratum. Here I rule. My word is the only word that matters.”

The pressure of my power had ground the seal to almost nothing, but couldn’t pierce it. It needed to be broken from within. I needed movement or words, some sort of indication, some specific action I could make her do. If she acknowledged and obeyed, it would shatter the seal like the strike of a dagger.

“Rise.”

She screamed.

“Rise.”

Convulsions gripped her. She needed help. She’d lost too much blood.

I put my hand above her chest, the surface of my palm a prism through which I focused on the blood inside her. It felt . . . right. I sensed her heart beating and my blood spreading through her like fire. It pumped and each pulse set the intricate net of her capillaries aglow.

Magic bubbled up from somewhere deep within me and flowed out into her. Her body straightened, pulled by my power.

“Rise.”

The seal shattered in an explosion of power. She rolled to her feet and stood.

Her voice came out strained, in tortured gasps. “My life . . . for you, Sharratum.”

She swayed, but stayed upright. Blood soaked the entire front of her coat. I could seal her and she would be completely mine. The groundwork was already there.

No. Curran wouldn’t like that.

“Your life is your own. I don’t want it. You’re no longer a slave.”

I let go. She collapsed on the bridge.

I turned around. Derek stood completely motionless four feet away from me. I’d been concentrating on her so hard, I hadn’t heard him walk over. Behind him Ascanio stared at me, his face shocked even in half-form. Holland gripped his sword, watching me like I was rabid.

Damn it. I did it again. I let the magic drag me under. How the hell did it even happen . . . ?

“Sharrim,” the woman on the ground whispered. “Let me serve you, Sharrim. My life is yours. My will is yours. Kill me.”

Oh crap. Crap.

“Everything I am is yours. All I ask is a good death.”

“Why do you keep doing this?” Derek snarled.

“I haven’t done anything.”

His eyes glowed bright yellow. He bared his teeth, his muzzle wrinkling in an ugly snarl. The fur on his back rose. “Do you think it’s fucking easy for Julie? She never forgets that you can override her will with one word. She feels you. Always! Every fucking second of every day.”

Julie knew. She knew .

“She already loves you as much as she can. I would die fighting for you.” He stabbed his clawed hand at Ascanio. “He would die for you. Isn’t it fucking enough, Kate? How much love and devotion do you need that you keep making slaves?”

It felt like he had stabbed me.

“I didn’t make her into a slave.”

“She’s bleeding out and all she wants is for you to love her and kill her. What the hell do you call that?”

“I didn’t enslave her! My father did. I broke their bond. She’s free now.”

“I’m so sorry, Sharrim,” the woman on the ground whispered. “I didn’t mean to make things difficult.”

“Will you obey any order she gives?” Derek snarled.

“Yes.”

Derek pointed to her. “Don’t lie to me, Kate. I’ll do almost anything for you, but don’t lie to me!”

He didn’t believe me. He was right there when it happened and he didn’t believe me. Curran wouldn’t believe me either. Julie knew she couldn’t refuse my orders. Everything I built was collapsing around me.