Prisoner (The Scarred Mage of Roseward #2) - Sylvia Mercedes Page 0,84

his hand—a flick, a squeeze. She didn’t see what. But she gasped in sudden sharp pain as her spell dispersed in a single burst of red light. Kyriakos held up his fist, slowly uncurling his long, long fingers. A stream of dust fell from his palm to the stones at his feet.

He looked down at Nelle, and his smile this time was as serene as moonlight. “Well met, lovely maid.” To her surprise and horror, he swept a graceful bow, like a dancer. “I have been most eager to meet you. Rumors spread even into Ninthalor of your presence among the realms. When first I heard them, I knew you and I were destined to cross paths.”

Nelle stood still, her hands empty, her arms upraised and useless, her mouth slack. His words washed over her, but she scarcely heard them through the thrumming of her own pulse. What a fool she was! What a fool to believe she could stand up to a being like this! What a fool she was to even think about gainsaying his wishes! The thoughts poured through her head, rhythmic and terrible, and a small part of her brain recognized them as a sort of spell, a beguilement.

It didn’t matter. She was already lost.

“Kyriakos!” Soran barked, struggling to get to his feet. Two of the dogs lunged at him, grabbing hold of his arms with their massive jaws, restraining him without breaking his skin. “If you take her, you’ll breach the bonds of the Pledge. Do you think your king will forgive you this time? Do you think he’ll settle for mere exile? You’ll bring the wrath of all Eledria down on your head! You’ll—”

“Silence.” The fae lord reached out one long arm and placed his hand over Soran’s mouth, his fingers splayed across his face. Turning, Nelle watched in horror as the mage’s eyes rolled back and he slumped to the ground in an insensible heap.

“No!” she cried, her mind bursting through the coiling strands of beguilement. She tried to throw herself down beside the mage, but Kyriakos caught her arm and whirled her toward him. She landed with her hand against his bare, muscular chest, her head tipped back to stare into those void-like eyes.

“No more of that, pretty maid.” The fae trailed a gentle finger along her cheek, her jaw, down under her chin. “You don’t belong to him anymore. You’re mine.”

With that, he pressed two fingers between her brows. Nelle tried to struggle, tried to resist, but darkness overwhelmed her with inexorable finality.

Her knees gave out, and she sank against the tall fae’s chest—her last awareness, the eager beat of his heart against her cheek.

The coils of Kyriakos’s spell wound around Soran’s spirit, pulling him down, down, down. He resisted, holding on with everything he had, clinging to consciousness. His body lay in a numb stupor, but he did not fall asleep.

He gazed through dull, ensorcelled eyes and watched Nelle collapse against the fae lord as though all life and will had been suddenly sucked from her body. He watched Kyriakos scoop her up in his arms as easily as though she were made of straw. For a moment, the fae turned and contemplated Soran where he lay, his gaze considering.

A low growl rumbled in Soran’s ear. He was too numb even to shiver when the cold bone muzzle of a skullar snuffled along the back of his neck. The beast whined, hungry for blood.

Kyriakos raised an eyebrow, then uttered a short, sharp command. At once the surviving skullars backed away from their intended victim and loped up the drive toward the ruined gate.

The fae lord cast Soran one last look. “My regards to Lodírhal.”

The voice echoed strangely in Soran’s head, throbbing against his temples. Though he tried to resist, his eyelids pulled like lead weights, and he couldn’t support them a moment longer. When at last he managed to wrench his eyes open again, Kyriakos was gone. Kyriakos, the skullars . . . and Nelle.

No!

Soran tried to move, to writhe where he lay. But it wasn’t only the Noxaur spell paralyzing his limbs. It was the abuse he’d dealt himself, the extreme overexertion of magic far beyond his ability to sustain. Cramped and strained, his muscles throbbed, and his spirit cried out for rest, for relief.

But he couldn’t rest. He mustn’t! Once Kyriakos took her from the island, once he crossed to Ninthalor, once she was inside his walls . . .

The boundaries of Soran’s prison closed in around him