Page 2 of The Blood Rites

His other hand slid up my arm, over damp fabric, following the line of my shoulder. I flinched before I could stop it. I always do.

They notice that.

“So jumpy,” he whispers, but the edge of it is sharp. “You’re always like this.”

My pulse thudded in my ears and the rain swallowed everything else—the city, the river, the world beyond the bridge.

Just him. Just his breath, hot and sour with ale, brushing my cheek.

“I need to go,” I said.

He shoved me back against the railing. Wet wood slammed into my spine, knocking the breath from my lungs.

“You’ll stay where you are,” he said, tongue darting out to lick his lips. “You know how this works.”

I did.

Don’t fight. Don’t make it worse.

“Please,” I said.

The word tasted like rust.

“Be quiet.” His grip shifted, rough and certain. “No one’s listening.”

His words made something sour coil in my chest. Not because they were wrong, but because they weren’t.

I went still.

Small. Stay small.

His hand moved lower. The bands hummed against my pulse and my skin felt too tight, like it didn't quite fit anymore.

Light protects. That’s what they teach us. Shields and barriers.

Not this. Never this.

The Guardian’s hand tightened as the river roared below us, swelling with the rain. His body pressed me harder into the rail and a broken sound slipped out of me. I could feel the weight of him through his breeches. He slowly ground himself against me and a pit formed in my stomach.

His breath was hot against my ear. “Shut your mouth,” he muttered, the words slurring together. “I prefer it when you don't make a sound.”

Something inside my chest gave. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just a thin, sharp break.

Heat flashed through me—bright, violent, wrong. My skin prickled, every nerve lighting at once. The air shifted, tightening around us. The hair on my arms stood on end, and the band on my wrist began to vibrate.

I stared down as a thin line split the seal.

A crack.

The sound that followed was sickening—like stone tearing itself apart. The Guardian jerked back, eyes wide, staring at my wrist.

“That’s not possible,” he said. “Inhibitium doesn’t—”

The rest dissolved in white as light tore out of me. I didn’t reach for it, didn’t shape it. It ripped free, wild and blinding, like something buried too long finally forcing its way free.

It hit him full in the chest and he screamed. For a heartbeat I saw him—outlined in pure brilliance, every line of him etched in searing gold. Then he came apart. Shards of light and flesh scattered across the bridge, over the railing, into the river below. The smell hit a second later—burnt cloth and something worse underneath.

I stumbled back, gasping, my vision fractured with afterimages.