The Wicked Born

Chapter 2

Dacre watched the witch with hate-filled eyes as she worked around him to set up camp for the night. He glanced once over the shackles binding his wrist, done so efficiently that he knew there was no hope for him to slip out of them and somehow run from the campsite in the middle of the night.

Tabitha's Mark was stark against her pale-white skin in the glow of the fire. He could have sworn he watched it dance before his eyes every time she crinkled her forehead in confusion. He blinked twice at this thought and when he looked again, the Mark seemed to have stilled completely.

She was quietly fussing to herself over something in the dirt a mere five feet away from him, dragging the hand that he knew was cut deep from his father's blade in the mud without even really seeming to notice. Muttering something—a spell perhaps? He'd heard stories of witches casting their spells, how they can fall into a trance-like state that is nearly impossible to return from until the spell is complete. Spells that are interrupted could leave the witch almost vulnerable while they scramble to finish whatever they began, not daring to leave any words left unuttered and any gods not called on for fear of angering them.

Dacre glanced down at his shackles one more time and the chain binding them together. Thick—thick enough that it wouldn't snap if he tried to strangle her.

He allowed himself no time to think of the consequences before he jumped into action. Her back was turned completely to him when he bound all of two steps before wrapping the chain around her throat. He yanked back once with all of his might, hoping to snap her neck quickly or crush her airway and end it before she was sure to gain the upperhand.

And gaining the upperhand she was. He thought he was sure to win when he heard a choked sound coming from the witch, but in hindsight he believes it may have been a laugh that escaped her lips instead. One moment he had the chain wrapped tightly around her throat, using all of the strength his body had gained from years doing physical labor to end the witch's life. The next moment, both of her hands are wrapping around his arms behind her head, hauling him over the top of her and slamming his large body onto the ground in front of her. This was the second time she'd knocked the air out of his lungs in as many hours of knowing her, and it hadn't' gotten any easier since the first time. He could feel her presence looming over him, could almost feel the lethally-calm rage that rolled off of her as she stepped over his writhing body.

Dacre finally managed to catch his breath and dared to open his eyes to see what damage he had done. The witch was leaning over him now, her face no more than a foot away from his and her hair dangling down about two inches from his nose. Even in the dim light the fire provided, he could see the angry, patterned red marks that wrapped itself around her throat. "That would have killed anybody else," he managed to rasp out, his voice not sounding entirely like his own as he willed the panic the stay out of his pheromones, not doubting that she was scenting him as they spoke. "You should be dead."

In her eyes, he saw nothing except a cold-blooded rage and thirst for vengeance. He knew then that there was nothing mortal in any inch of her body. She was a killing machine—honed for war and bloodshed and death. Bred for it. Nothing more, nothing less.

She leaned in closer to Dacre, her hair tickling his face when she closed the distance between their eyes to less than six inches. "Yes, well," she said coldly, so nonchalant, as if he hadn't just tried to murder her, "I'm not anybody." Dacre didn't have time to process her words as he watched her pull back her left fist and send a crushing blow right to his nose. He was aware enough to feel blood begin to rush down the side of his face, but quickly slipped into unconsciousness. The face of a cold-blooded monster and her descending fist the last thing he saw before he was knocked out cold.