Page 68 of Lies That Bleed
I jerked my head to the right, cracking skulls with the instructor on that side, and he let go of my arm, which allowed me to block the wolf’s attack. I punched the wolf in the side of the head before he could bite me, and he fell to the ground but got up quickly. I was just about to try to run when the other instructor wrapped his hands around my throat.
My dagger was in my boot, the stupidest place it could be if you were standing and currently being strangled. Trying to fight him off, while also keeping my eye on that wolf was proving too much. So I did what Elaine called panic mode. I went berserk and thrashed every which way, throwing knees andelbows, hoping to catch my opponent off guard. It worked, until it didn’t.
I was able to wrestle out of his grasp, but then his partner cracked me over the skull and I went down, ears ringing and darkness dancing at the edges of my vision.
These bastards were really starting to piss me off. Smoke filled the room and I wasn’t sure where it was coming from, until I realized it was me. Curls of gray puffed off of my skin as if I were a hot coal doused in water. I was smoking like a damn steak on a grill.
“Quick! Her powers are manifesting,” one guy said, and then his wolf lunged for me again.
In the midst of the chaos, it happened. A surge of energy pulsed through me like an unexpected force that seemed to saturate my entire being.
I focused my thoughts on the advancing wolf and threw my arm out.
“Stop!” I flung the word as if it was a physical force, and a thin, silver, glowing string flew from my mouth and wrapped around the wolf’s head. The wolf dropped to the ground before me, head bowed with a whimper in his throat.
What the hell?
“No,” the man beside me breathed, and that’s when I noticed a shadow overhead.
I peered up, just in time to see Liana dip from the sky and take one of the instructors into her mouth, biting his midsection like a snack.
He screamed and she shot into the air with him in her mouth, carrying him away.
The other instructor stood there in shock, watching me in fear.
“Y-you can control minds,” he stuttered. “That’s forbidden, even for you.”
What?No. I didn’t control anyone. Did I? But I replayed the scene in my head and fear washed over me.Maybe I did. I told the wolf to stop and he did. Was that what the silver cord was? A manifestation of my control?
The instructor slowly stepped closer to me. “You might as well just let my wolf end it here, because they will never let you live. No one will follow a leader that can’t even give them free will.” He spat and lunged for me with a dagger in his hands.
Another dark shadow dropped from above and I thought it was Liana, returning to finish off this second guy. But suddenly Kohen landed behind the instructor, wearing a feral expression. The ex-prince grabbed the instructor by the head and snapped his neck cleanly, causing his body to fall dead to the ground in front of me.
The wolf was still kneeling, as if stuck in a trance, and I realized that I still had my power over him, thick like a blanket I could almost feel. The silver cord I had somehow attached to his head was still there, connected to the center of my palm. I pulled it back and the cord snapped. The wolf tipped his headback and howled before dropping dead beside his bonded.
When we died outside The Wilds, our creatures died as well.
I heaved deep breaths as I processed that two instructors from the Imperial Fleet that my dad ruled over had just tried to kill me.
Kohen was watching me like you would watch a caged bird flit around wildly looking for an exit. Which was exactly what I was doing, but I couldn’t move. I was in shock. What the instructor said… what I did to the wolf…
My power.
Kohen heard, he must have. The guy said it right before he dropped down.
Kohen knelt before me and I realized I was hyperventilating.
“I don’t want this,” I told him. I didn’t want to control people. It was a dark power, forbidden. I couldn’t help but think that Kohen and I were the same. Both carrying a terrifying power neither of us wanted.
Kohen reached for my hand and took it into his, stroking my palm with his thumb in such a tender way it made my heart ache.
“Youwillbe empress, Aisling. And if you want to live, you will never tell another soul that you can do this one thing. I will take it to my grave, you have myword.” So he did hear, or maybe he had known this whole time.
The confident way in which he spoke of me being empress made me wonder if he was just being nice—the instructor had said no one would follow me—or if heknewsomething.
I didn’t want to know either way. I felt insane. The wolf had been about to attack me and I’d basically frozen him in a trance mid-attack. That wasn’t normal. That was…
Liana returned with a blood-soaked beak and two instructors, one being Ashendell.
