a mean knot on the back of your head tomorrow, but no bleeding. There are a lot of scrapes and bruises and cuts. How does the rest of you feel?” His hands were large and probing, touching different areas, from my shoulders and ribs to my thighs and calves. My shoulders and back were the worst of it. Nothing seemed to be broken, but they would be sore for a while as the bruising healed. He came back up, his fingers grazing my cheek and jaw. I didn’t move as he stared me down.
“I was punched in the face,” I said, shrugging a little. “We don’t have time to do this right now, not all of it. With any luck, we’ll get out, and I can treat the worst of it at home.”
“I don’t know how you’re still on your feet,” he mumbled, his eyes once again moving up and down my body.
“I trained for this. I learned how to move, even when my body wants to collapse. I learned how to focus while taking a physical beating. There are some things no one can just walk away from, like explosions going on right next to them, but a fight? That’s easy to walk away from.” I compartmentalized pain. Pain didn’t help me escape. Pain didn’t tell me much of anything. Hisao had trained me hard, and it was a valuable type of endurance training I recommended to every Executioner or whoever found themselves throwing punches against other supernaturals.
“I fucking hate this place,” I mumbled as we went back to the door. “Are you ready?”
“Whenever you are,” he said sharply, looking over me at the door, those pitch-black eyes giving away nothing. He was handling the situation well enough, better than me, but maybe that was because he didn’t know all the horrors that had been locked away.
I opened the door and went out first this time since I knew who our possible enemies could be. This time, I noticed the quiet. Everyone was probably pulled to the cell blocks and the yard by the breach, leaving the living quarters eerie.
“Okay, we’ve been getting turned around. Head west, pick a big window—” I was turning to look back at him as we walked slowly, whispering, but just beyond him, I saw her walk around a corner, and our eyes met.
“There you are,” she crooned, smiling viciously. “Kaliya.”
Her eyes were a pretty grass green, innocent, and large, doe-like, her hair wheat blonde and curly. She was tall and lithe, a view of perfection as many of the royal fae were. There was not a single thing wrong with her except her mental state.
I was paralyzed in her gaze as the charms wrapped around me and held me still.
Inside, I was screaming.
Raphael turned quickly, realizing something was wrong. With a flick of her wrist, the fae used shadow bindings to send him into a wall and cleared her path to me.
“I’ve wanted to do this for so long,” she whispered into my ear. A hand skimmed over my stomach and up, eventually caressing my face. “I’m going to see what’s so special about you that you could woo one of my nephews. A dirty, scaly thing like you had no right to touch something so perfect. You aren’t the type of person I normally want to kill, too dirty to touch, but sometimes, an exception must be made.”
I tried to move my eyes to Raphael, who had hit the wall hard enough he went down to the floor and stopped moving. He was out of sight, and all I could hope for was he got moving.
Get up. Raphael, please get up. You need to get her to stop looking at me. Please.
A nail grew sharp on my face and started to cut in at my jawline, very slowly cutting a line. Horror grew in my chest as I realized she was going to start right now. I couldn’t even blink as my mind screamed for freedom. I tried to twitch even a finger, thinking of my iron knife in my hand. I couldn’t scream as the pain grew, and her nail dug deeper as it went toward the center of my throat.
I heard the rustle of clothing, then a black fist flew across my vision and hit the bitch square in the jaw. The moment her eyes were off mine, the charm snapped. I took my chance and brought the knife up into her ribs, hearing her scream as it slid between