Page 70 of Lies That Bind
I frowned, pulling my backup blade out. Hurt his friends? My mind wrestled with how to kill him. If I exploded, he was impervious to fire. My mind control didn’t work on him. It was going to have to be hand-to-hand combat.
Why was he looking at me like that? Like he adored me?Sick freak.
“I’m going to enjoy killing you,” I snarled.
He stopped walking, looking crestfallen. “I love you, Aisling. I want you to remember that. I forgive you for what you are about to do to my people.”
He was brainwashing me. He had been all along. “Your words mean nothing to me.” I brandished my dagger.
“I just hope you can forgive me for what I have to do now,” he said, and I tensed, my gaze flicking left and right as if expecting an ambush from Anika and the rest of them. “I’ve seen you survive this. Otherwise, I wouldn’t do it.”
My heart raced. I scanned his outstretched hands again, looking for a weapon, for how he was going to kill me.
Then I felt it, at the back of my neck, a prick of pain. I gasped, spinning to see a rustle of leaves behind me before turning back to Kohen. I reached up and yanked the dart out of my neck, but it was already too late. I felt my legs go weak.
I fell to the ground. Kohen lunged forward to catch me, slowly lowering me, and I felt Liana’s energy rip through our bond.
‘Run, Aisling. It’s a trap—’Then she was no more. Her energy was just… gone.
No. No. No.
How had I been so naïve?
But as I looked up into Kohen’s beautiful face, I knew. Those piercing blue eyes. The bronzed skin. Full lips. Chiseled jaw. I’d been enamored by his beauty and accepted his poison from the second he first opened his mouth to me.
He smoothed my hair. “I would have just put you to sleep, but I need the three days it takes you to rebirth in order to warn my people and get them to safety before you attack.”
The bastard actually had tears welling in his eyes. “You have to search for the truth, Aisling. No one can give it to you, or you won’t believe it. You need to know what kind of man your father truly was. Then you will know what I protected you from. When you do, I’ll be waiting. I’llalwaysbe waiting for you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how many bombs you drop on my people, I will always be waiting for you to come back to me.” He leaned forward and kissed my forehead. I tried to scream, but only a mumble came out. I couldn’t move, and in the center of my chest, a sharp stabbing pain had begun.
Was this how he killed my father?
To kill me in the same way was a double slap in the face.
I’d never hated anyone more than I hated Kohen Badshah.
He’d just provoked war between our peoples, killing the fragile peace we had, and for what? Revenge for his father, the terrorist?
The pain in my chest grew, and a tear fell from his eye and onto my cheek. “Forgive me,” he whispered, and then everything went black.
I was floatingin the serene darkness again with not a care in the world. Nothing to fear and nothing to think about for a long time. I just lay there as if I were in a healing bath.
Slowly, my thoughts returned to me: Kohen’s dart in my neck, the poison, and the fact that he killed me.Bastard!
Then the golden glowing sun appeared on the horizon, and I felt movement beneath me.
Liana.
She carried me on her back the entire time. My mind grew sharper, and I stood, staring at the sun as it transformed into a beast of fire.
Flames licked across the sky like lightning, and I felt for Liana beneath me, digging into her feathers.
‘Be strong. You know what to do,’she said.
I did?
Then she was gone, replaced by clouds, and the fire beast charged at me. I knew then that I’d have to fight the beast like I did last time. This time, I knew it was Liana, and so part of me struggled with the thought of killing it. Did Onyx kill Liana as well? Were we both lying dead in the Wilds?
It didn’t matter. It was go-time. I was on my feet as the rushing ball of fire came at me.
