Blood Moon Born

Chapter Fourteen

Oh, how good it was to have magic so ready at her fingertips. Why had she kept it at bay?

She smiled at him. "Are you scared?" Her grin cut wider as she took quiet steps closer and closer to him, closing the distance between them. "Don't be scared." She touched her chin with the tip of her dagger's blade. "Just...a drop...will do."

And then she went flying to the right, crashing into a bookshelf, then to the floor, the breath knocked out of her. She gasped and scrambled to snatch up her dagger, but Isran's hand was around her throat and his knee dug into her chest. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't breathe.

"Snap out of it," he demanded.

Loae ground her teeth together, eyes flashing hatefully at him.

Spots flashed in front of her eyes.

Come now, Lo-ae.

Show him a real fight.

A real fight. She hadn't had a real fight in ages. Would her bones remember what it was like to be crushed? Did her heart remember what it was like to be threatened with death? She would see. She'd looked into the eyes of death for so long, she'd forgotten the feel of it. She craved that feeling again.

She looked up into his eyes and let tears slide down her cheeks. She put two hands on his arm and sputtered, letting innocence and fear fill her eyes.

"Isran..."

His hand shook.

"Isran, it's not me," Loae murmured. "It isn't me. I'm not..." She struggled to breathe.

His fingers loosened on her throat.

Stupid bloodsucker.

She dug her nails so deep into his arm and cut upward, slicing a line of blood up his arm. He hissed. She hit her flat palm against his nose, then hiked up her legs, using her force to flip him so he was under her. Without pausing, she grabbed his shirt to steady his body and hit him repeatedly in the face—one punch after another. He was so strong, but with repeated hits, his perfect face began to crumble. She blackened his right eye. Bruising rose around his jaw. His nose broke. It would heal in seconds so she hit it again.

She remembered his own attack, hands at her throat. She licked her teeth. Rising to her feet, she lifted her hand. Isran cried out as he was suddenly yanked into the air by an invisible force, hovering several feet in the air before her. Loae closed her fingers into a fist. His hands went to his throat, scratching at the invisible hand strangling him.

"Doesn't feel too good, does it?" Loae asked.

Not like this.

A real fight should be bloody.

"Fine." Loae released her hand and Isran hit the ground. She knelt to scoop up her dagger and started in towards him, her smile white and hot.

Isran spat blood on his finely polished floors and shook out his shoulders. He hadn't been in a real fight in a while, it seemed.

Better for her.

He was strong. He hit her and she let her side absorb the blow, but it resounded with pain. She was fast, slicing up and down his body with her dagger. The blessed blade should've hurt him more than it seemed to. None of the cuts slowed him down. He smashed his elbow into her face, breaking her nose. Then he grabbed her shoulders and rammed his knee into her chest, cracking a rib or two.

Loae gasped in pain.

She'd have to cut him deep to hurt him. She drove her dagger into his shoulder, so deep that only the hilt stopped her from going further. Black blood sprayed back at her and Isran cried out. Loae twisted the dagger and yanked it out viciously.