Margetta narrowed her gaze and waved her hand once more. “You may speak.”
Willow gasped at the sudden freeing of her vocal chords, then said, “I despise you.”
Margetta smiled. “Despise me all you want. Just tell me you understand that I’m giving you the choice of life or death? And answer me, Willow, or I will kill one of your ineffective guards.”
Willow glanced at the Guardsmen out the window of her home. All were unaware of the events inside the house. “I understand.”
Margetta stepped back. “Axton, this party is all yours and I have other critical business to attend to. Once she bonds, the stasis will end or you can also end it by giving her a solid blow anywhere on her body. Enjoy.”
The golden light dissipated and Willow felt the evil presence fade then disappear.
Axton slid his hand up around Willow’s neck and held her gaze. “The moment I caught your blood rose scent the other night, I made a vow to myself that I’d make you mine.” He leaned close and sniffed her throat.
The part of Willow that was a blood rose failed to differentiate even a little bit between Axton and Malik. Her heart thrummed heavily now, while her body created an excess of rich blood intended to ease the suffering of any mastyr, whether good or evil.
His fangs descended.
~ ~ ~
Sweat poured off Malik’s brow. He’d never worked so hard in his life as he strove to find a way out of the trap that had been laid for him. His heart beat hard and every muscle in his body ached with the effort to try to move. But all he’d succeeded in doing was flexing to the point of causing more than one muscle to cramp painfully.
As a man used to fighting, of doing battle with either the energy from his palms or his fists, being held in stasis was nothing less than torture.
He forced himself to take a few deep breaths and calm down. There had to be a way out.
Willow. Sweet Goddess, what was happening to her right now? He tried to reach for her telepathically, but couldn’t.
He then searched through each of his frequencies, including both his mating frequency and his battle vibration but nothing had the smallest effect on the stasis. And he still couldn’t reach anyone beyond the spell that had bound him.
When a new wave of dizziness hit him, he would have fallen had the spell not held him upright.
A golden light suddenly filled the entryway, and a very beautiful woman appeared. Yet he knew without having to be told that he was looking at the Ancient Fae, the woman responsible for centuries of anguish in every realm of his world.
Margetta, a wraith-fae of enormous power who worked in tandem with her husband, Gustave, had discovered how to forge a bond between wraiths and any other realm-folk. These bonds created violent fighting teams that Margetta was presently using in an attempt to take over the Nine Realms.
Malik thought back to Davido’s warning that the entire fate of their world depended on what happened right now in his realm.
“How are you, Mastyr Malik?” For someone so evil, she had a voice that sounded of soft wind chimes, but he wasn’t about to be drawn in.
She waved a hand. “You may speak.”
“Fuck you, Margetta.”
She clucked her tongue, tsking at him. The bitch. “Is that anyway to talk to the woman who holds your life in her hands? But I do have something I need to tell you and though it gives me great joy, you probably won’t like it. I just wanted you to know that I’ve brought my army into your realm, and I’ll shortly begin my invasion of the wraith colony.”
In his effort to separate from Willow, he knew he’d just brought disaster down on his realm.
“And again, fuck you.”
She narrowed her eyes slightly. “Well, for that little piece of insolence, I am going to have kill you. But don’t worry, I’ll do it slow, that way you’ll have the illusion you can escape. And while you’re breathing your last, Axton will take Willow for his own and the power they will create together will change the future of the Nine Realms forever, make no mistake.”
She laughed this time, and the tips of her wraith-fangs showed. She waved her arm and a wave hit him, this time of terrible pain. But when it passed, he was left with what felt like an invisible band around his chest.
She watched him carefully, smiling all the while.
He took a deep breath, ready to shout her down, but the band tightened into a vise, and with each breath that followed, it tightened a little more.
Margetta had cast a spell that would slowly suffocate him.