“Too much is in motion,” he murmured, eyes still closed.
The diagram dimmed a bit more. My eyes flicked from the sigils and back to him. “It’s okay,” I said, keeping my voice low and calm. “Everything’s okay. Just let me go…and we’ll start over.”
“Start over.” He opened his eyes, and to my dismay the ritual brightened again. “Yes, that is what this is. Starting over.” He tightened the pull on the lasso and lifted his right hand.
My cop vibe went code red. “No, Rhyzkahl. Wait!” I didn’t know what was coming. I only knew it was bad.
The palm of his hand shimmered blue, and the haunted look faded from his eyes. “I have no choice.” He drew a deep breath, face sliding into an icy mask. As he opened his hand, a blade began to coalesce within it, bristling with thorny protrusions along its hilt, blue gem in the pommel dark and shadowed. A vile whisper slid through my mind. You are mine.
Deep, primal terror flooded me. I struggled to flee, run, anything, but a flick of Rhyzkahl’s left hand bound my arms behind me. Another flick pulled them up so that my wrists were at my lower back.
Eyes on the blade, I breathed in gasping pants. “No, Rhyzkahl, please…. It’s not too late.”
The blade glimmered oily blue, fully formed in his hand.
“It is too late…now,” he said, voice laden with deadly promise.
And I knew without doubt it was true. A heartbreaking ache of disappointment flashed through me. I’d wanted so badly to trust him, but it didn’t matter. He was going to do something terrible to me.
But right on the heels of that disappointment came an equally profound disappointment and anger at myself. I’d always known he was up to something, and hadn’t fully trusted him. The hints and clues had been there all along, but, damn it, I hadn’t wanted to look at any of it objectively. My own need and angst kept me nicely wrapped up in ego-stroking denial. He’d attempted to coerce me in our very first encounter, placed his mark on me in a moment of true duress, dribbled information to me on his own terms, used my computer while I slept—and who knew what else. And there’d been numerous moments where he showed flickers of indecision that echoed those he displayed just now, right after our lovemaking. Yeah, great cop sense, Kara. He wasn’t simply a charismatic “bad boy.” No, Rhyzkahl was far, far worse.
I felt the shift in his aura, heavy and vile. I thrashed in the bindings, sure that if I could break free I could find a way to escape. I had to get away, had to. But no. No freedom. The blade whispered. Rhyzkahl lifted it and deep red fire ignited along its length, illuminated sporadically by scintillating arcs.
“Rhyzkahl, don’t do this.” I felt my lips move, felt the clench in my throat, but heard no sound.
Rhyzkahl heard. “It is already done,” he said, voice terrifying in a different way than Mzatal’s scary-as-fuck voice—colder and carrying a promise of horror. “Can you not feel it? There is more. Much more.” Lifting my wrists a smidge higher, he moved me to the very center of the diagram.
I let out a squeal of discomfort and fear as he pulled my wrists even higher up behind me. Strappado. That’s what this torturous position was called. I only knew that because I had a case last year of consensual BDSM that went too far. And now I understood Mzatal’s warnings, far too late. Had he known what lay in store for me? And, if so, why hadn’t he fucking told me? My heart slammed within my chest. I knew I was deeply and seriously fucked. I tried to pull grove power, but it felt as if I ran up against a smooth wall.
“It cannot touch you here,” he said. “You yourself sealed the chamber against the grove.”
Sick horror filled me. “You swore not to do me any harm!”
He didn’t even pause before responding. “‘During that time in your world,’” he said, clearly quoting the words of our agreement back to me, “‘I will do nothing with the intent of causing you harm.’”
My world. Stupid. Stupid! “Stop! Don’t do this!” I didn’t even know what “this” was, I only knew it was going to be bad.
Rhyzkahl made certain I was in the very center of the diagram, then lifted my wrists until they were slightly higher than my shoulders, forcing me to lean forward to relieve some of the burn of the uncomfortable position.
“Mzatal,” he said, snarling the name. “He thought to keep you from me, use you himself.” He gave a cold smile. “He will pay for his audacity.” His breath hissed, and I saw that the thorny protrusions on the blade hilt had molded around his fingers. Deep red fire wreathed his hand and crept up his forearm. I had the very bad feeling he couldn’t release the blade even if he wanted to, at least not until this ritual was finished.
My gut clenched as I stared at him. “Why are you doing this?” I swallowed hard. “Is this what happened to Elinor? Did you kill her too?”
Pain exploded in my face as he backhanded me hard, knocking me off balance, and I gave a strangled cry as my shoulders wrenched in the bindings. Dizzy from the vicious blow, I struggled to get my feet beneath me again. As soon as I did so, Rhyzkahl gripped my chin hard and turned my face fully toward him. “I did not kill her!” he said, fury replacing the ice in his voice. “Never speak that again.” His gaze slid over the puffiness of my eye, but it didn’t seem to touch him. “Look. At. Me.”
Whimpering softly, I met his eyes. My terror increased at the darkness I saw there.
“Twelve,” he said. “We will begin with the number twelve.” The grip on my chin tightened. “Look well, Kara Helene Gillian.” His eyes penetrated me with dark intensity. “By the time we reach one, you will no longer have the resolve to look into my eyes. And when we are complete, that name will be a forgotten whisper, and you will have a new one.”
The truth of it was etched in his perfect features. He wasn’t going to kill me. Whatever my fate, it would be much worse. I spit into his face, knowing it would surely be my last act of defiance.
Rhyzkahl didn’t show a flicker of reaction. Still gripping my chin, he wiped the spittle away with the back of the hand that held the blade, then shifted to lay his other palm against the side of my face. “Only by breaking you, dear one, can I rebuild you into a greater existence, a new life,” he said with a sickening gentleness of tone. “Enthralled, you will be safe, cherished.” He smiled at me, caressing my cheek with his thumb. “You will thank me when you fully understand what I have done for you, when you understand that I have saved you.”
He lifted me in the arcane bindings until I was on my toes. My breath hissed through my teeth in bursts with the strain in my shoulders. “Bullshit…you…insane…fucker.”
All hint of the deranged gentleness evaporated as he leaned close, breath hot on my face. “Through you we gain Szerain’s blade. Through you, we open a gateway to a new world. Then you will be with me forever.” The bindings grew into a sheath that enveloped me, preventing my body from moving even a millimeter. Only my head was free. I thrashed futilely with a blossoming panic.
He brought the blade close to my face. I let out a breathless scream, sick with horror as I reflexively tried to jerk away.
“You have met Xhan before, under tame circumstances,” he said, moving the blade before my eyes, voice cold and penetrating again. “This time, it reveals itself fully to you.”
You are mine.
I recoiled from the horrific presence of Rhyzkahl and the blade, unable to jerk anything but my head away, and that only a few inches.