Captive Mate - Eliot Grayson Page 0,64

side of Parker’s thigh.

Parker grappled him again, and they both went down, rolling across the ground, snarling and clawing and trying to tear each other’s throats out. Redwood needles and dirt and bits of fallen branches flew in a cloud as they wrestled, and something wet hit my cheek: a stray drop of blood.

My own injuries were healing, and I could feel my legs again. I pushed up. I could hardly breathe, but that was fear as much as pain. I could hear distant howls, the Armitages and the Kimballs in whatever conflict Matthew had left to follow me.

Matthew had left his pack to follow me.

And that thought gave me more strength than hours of healing would’ve done.

I shoved myself up, getting shakily to my knees. Parker was on top now, and he slashed downward. He’d pinned one of Matthew’s arms with one knee. Matthew struck out with his other arm, digging his own claws into Parker’s ribs, and I heard the hideous, spine-tinging scrape of claws on bone.

Parker howled in pain, but he didn’t stop trying to pin Matthew’s other arm. If he got both knees on Matthew’s shoulders, Matthew was dead.

My heart raced and my gut heaved; panic took over, blurring my vision. I couldn’t use my magic. Parker was immune to it, somehow, and there was no time.

“Arik, fucking run!” Matthew shouted, as he bucked to try to throw Parker off. Parker wobbled but landed even harder. “Run! Back to Ian! He’ll protect — fuck —”

Like fuck I was running back to Ian, I couldn’t leave Matthew, I couldn’t do anything…oh gods, oh gods…Parker was immune to my magic.

I looked around wildly, praying for some miracle.

The forest. Parker was immune to my magic, but the trees weren’t. The trees, that had welcomed me to their forest and shown me the currents of their own subtle magic.

I slapped my hand flat against the trunk of the massive redwood Parker had thrown me into. The bark was damp with my blood. Thank fuck, that would conduct my magic even more effectively. Goody two-shoes mages like Nate treated necromancy and blood magic like anathema, but blood and bone held power like no other substances on Earth.

All my magic, all of my life force — I tore it out of myself and slammed it into the ancient tree, begging it to wake, to speed up, to burst out of its narrow track of lethargic, incremental growth and movement. To leap into action, in a way trees decidedly didn’t.

For a long minute, too long, I thought I was throwing my energy away, that it would be absorbed into the tree’s massive life and dissipated into the earth.

But then the tree woke. It stirred with a deep, rending groan, its branches popping and its trunk pulsing under my hand. The tree felt me, and I could feel its curiosity in turn. What was happening in its forest? No one had spoken to it in rings and rings.

Please, I whispered through our connection. The light-haired one. He wants to hurt me. To break and burn me. Please!

The tree shuddered with displeasure.

With a tremendous creak and a rushing like a gale-force wind, the tree moved, a branch trembling, then swinging, and then striking straight down. I turned in awe, just in time to see Parker pulling his arm back, claws aimed right for a killing stroke across Matthew’s neck — and the tree branch swung down instead, whacking him off of Matthew like a perfectly-placed golf ball, sending him flying through the air and straight into the trunk of another tree.

He hit with the wet crunch and squelch of pulverized bone and mashed flesh. The other tree seemed to shimmy, like someone might shake themselves to get rid of an insect crawling on their neck. Parker slid to the ground and lay still, his limbs crumpled at horrible angles.

I used a burst of magic to send my fervent thanks to the tree and pulled myself up, trying to crawl to Matthew.

But then he groaned, pushed himself off the ground, shook his head like he was clearing the ringing in his ears, and staggered after Parker.

Matthew stood over Parker for a moment, his shoulders heaving with the effort it had taken him to cross those few feet. I thought he might gloat, or say something clever; I would’ve, if I’d had the breath for it. Wasn’t that what you were supposed to do at moments like these? Like, yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker?

But Matthew proved once and for all