hand which made me almost certain I'd broken something.
Nixon punched me again as I tried to recover and then flung me away with the force of his air magic before I collided with the shield trapping me once more and fell to the ground with a gasp of pain.
I couldn’t fight him without magic. I was as useless as a fly beating its wings against a glass jar. But I wouldn’t give up. I wouldn’t give in. I was Rosalie Oscura and I hadn’t begged for death at my father’s hands so I certainly wouldn’t do it for this scumbag.
“A morte e ritorno,” I growled, a promise in my words even more forceful than I’d ever spoken them before.
"Just say it," he urged, the look in his eyes saying he was sure I would in the end. "'Please, Nixy.'"
I spat blood from my mouth, my chest heaving as I panted and I parted my lips on another scream as I refused to give in to him. I'd die first. But I was starting to think that he was okay with that option too.
P ain seared through my flesh and I wondered what fresh hell I was being subjected to now as the Belorian ran with me in its arms. Maybe its body was designed to inflict pain, channelling it into me. Maybe I was dying. Because my head was spinning and I felt like I was being punched and kicked and-
“It’s me,” the Belorian grunted and I screamed, thrashing harder, sure I’d lost my mind. One of its poisonous spines must have cut me and now I was in the grip of death, never to see my beautiful mate again. It was going to carry me off to some dark corner of the prison and suck me dry like a fly in the clasp of a spider.
The beast rounded into a corridor and dropped me on my back, leaning down in my face with a hundred sharp teeth glinting at me.
"Argh!” I roared, throwing a furious punch at the fleshy place above its open jaws and I swear it made a noise like ow.
The monster shifted above me and I was suddenly lying beneath the widened legs of a very naked, very smug looking Sin.
"Hey buddy!" he cried happily and I winced as he reached down and pulled me to my feet, my mind taking a moment to catch up with the fact I was no longer about to be eaten, though the agony in my limbs lingered on.
"Sin?" I breathed unsteadily, unsure what the fuck I'd just witnessed.
"I shifted into the Belorian's sexy fantasy so he didn’t eat me." He beamed. "Time to go." He caught my arm, dragging me through two frosted glass doors and I realised we were back at the library. "Come on, we can't be late."
"Why the fuck did you let that thing out?" I snarled furiously as he half dragged me down the aisle between the shelves which led towards the tunnel.
"Me and Rosalie had a secret plan," he said with a smirk.
"No," I snapped. "There was no plan. She told you not to release it."
He just laughed like I was the crazy one and I tried to focus on the positives as we made it to the tunnel. I had Sin. He was fine. Fucking nutty as a pecan, but still fine. And I could beat him up for this bullshit later. For now, we had to run for our lives.
We crawled into the tunnel side by side, standing up as it opened out and the passage forked before us. One way led up to the surface and the other down to the maintenance level. Despite all the adrenaline still washing through my veins for nearly thinking I was a dead man, a smile pulled at my mouth. This was it. We were getting out.
But as I took one step into the tunnel that led toward our freedom, a blood-curdling scream rang out from the passage that ran down to maintenance. Pain flared through my body again and I crumpled forward with a sickening realisation. Sin hadn’t hurt me in his Belorian form, I’d been feeling her pain all along. How could I have been so fucking stupid?
“Rosalie needs us,” I gasped through the pain.
Before I could think, I was stripping out of my clothes and running in her direction with Sin Wilder beside me and a common cause uniting us. I'm coming Rosalie!
I wheezed through the pain of what I was certain