They say that poison is a coward’s weapon. I say that they have never known the intoxicating rush of power that comes from watching a man beg you for mercy while your poison slowly chokes him to death.
A glittering green cloud hung in the air around the guard. I cocked my head and watched as my poison magic forced its way into his lungs where he sat, kneeling before me. His hands clawed at the damp grass, and choking sounds gurgled from his throat.
“Please,” he gasped, but it only made him inhale more poison. Tremors racked his body as he coughed repeatedly before looking up at me with pleading brown eyes. “Please. Mercy.”
I flicked my long black hair behind my shoulder and watched him fight for breath for another few seconds before clicking my tongue. “I could be persuaded to spare your life… if you let me in through the back door to the kitchen.”
Putting a hand to his own throat, he nodded desperately while sucking in strangled gasps. I arched an unimpressed eyebrow at him. How a dark mage could have hired such a pathetic excuse for a guard was beyond me. Glancing up, I studied the sprawling mansion set into the lush grasslands ahead. This truly proved that a stronghold was only as secure as its weakest link. I would have to go over the security of my own mansion again when I got home. But first, I had an enemy to kill.
The guard at my feet let out a panicked gurgling noise. Blowing out an annoyed breath, I pulled back my poison magic and allowed him to breathe once more. He sucked in a deep breath and coughed a few more times before looking up at me again.
I jerked my chin. “Get to it, then.”
While blinking his eyes back into focus, he struggled to his feet and then staggered towards Callan Blackwell’s mansion. I followed behind, a threat looming at his back to make sure that he didn’t try to warn the other sentries. But no calls of alarm came from his throat. Only the occasional wheezing cough. I studied the mansion while we snuck closer.
The white marble structure sat like a pale jewel on the thick green grass. Gleaming windows were set into its sides to let in the light, and a few stone steps led up to the grand oak door. Trees dotted the landscape between the mansion and a stable visible farther behind. I narrowed my eyes at the classy style of the building. It had always annoyed me how similar Callan’s home was to my own. As if we would ever agree on anything.
“This is it,” the guard whispered as he edged open a small wooden door at the back of the great house. “This will take you into the kitchen.”
“Excellent.”
I touched my hands together to call up my magic again, and then sent another cloud of poison straight at him from behind. He only managed one surprised gasp before he crumpled to the ground. The poison was enough to knock him out, but not enough to kill him. He was a weak link in Callan Blackwell’s security, and if this didn’t work, I could probably use the guard again next time. If Callan let him live, that is.
While withdrawing my magic again, I stepped over the man’s unconscious form and slipped in through the door.
Pots clanked from the kitchen up ahead. I cast a quick glance at the overcast summer sky outside. Sunset was close, which meant that I had timed this perfectly.
Bright firelight illuminated the spacious kitchen as I strode across the threshold. For a moment, the kitchen staff only continued bustling about. Then the first person spotted me. It was a woman with curly brown hair pulled up in a bun, and an apron stained with flour. She sucked in a gasp and dropped the ladle she had been holding. Wooden clattering echoed through the room as it hit the counter before her. The others whipped their heads towards me.
I swept hard eyes over all of them, daring them to do anything to stop me. They shrank back. Only silence followed me as I strode into the corridor beyond and continued towards the dining room at its end. Apparently, Callan’s kitchen staff didn’t get paid enough to try to take out a dark mage.
A tall man with bulging muscles appeared as I turned a corner. Two swords swung from his hips. However, he was currently looking in the wrong direction. I touched my hands together and sent a cloud of poison magic straight at him before he could turn back.
Dull thuds sounded as he hit the floor. Dead. The cooks might not get paid enough to try to stop me, but this guy certainly would have.
The glittering green cloud dissipated as I stalked through it.
Candlelight flickered from up ahead, and there was a faint clinking sound. As if someone was eating.
A smirk slid across my lips. Perfect.
Drawing myself up against the wall, I glanced around the edge and into the dining room on the other side. Victory sparkled inside me. There he was. Callan Blackwell.
He was seated alone at the head of a grand table. The scent of grilled meat and fried potatoes hung in the air as he cut a strip from his steak and brought it to his mouth. Candlelight painted gilded streaks in his black hair and set his dark brown eyes glittering. Touching my palms together, I summoned my magic while I continued glaring at him. With his sharp cheekbones and lean muscled body, I had to admit that he was fucking hot. The problem was that he knew it. He knew that he was attractive and powerful, and he moved and spoke with the confidence of that. And that made me hate him even more.
I flicked my wrist, and poison magic shot through the air.
Wood clanked as Callan threw himself sideways, knocking his chair over in the process, and rolled across the floor to evade my magic. Moving into the dining room, I sent another poisonous attack straight at him. He touched his hands together while rolling to his feet.
I leaped aside. A second later, a wall of force magic hurtled past me. Slamming my palms together, I called up another cloud of poison and threw it at him while his gaze at last locked on me.
Surprise and rage flashed in his brown eyes.
While dodging my attack, he sent another force wall at me. I jumped back to avoid it while he took off across the floor, but the force wall he shot had only been a diversion. Realizing it a moment too late, I only managed to partly twist aside as another blast took me in the shoulder. The strength of the hit sent me flying into the wall behind me.
I sucked in a gasp as my breath was knocked from my lungs when my back hit the marble wall. The bodice of my dress was made of metal armor, so it helped lessen the impact a bit, but not nearly enough. Throwing out a hand to brace myself against the cool stone, I managed to keep myself from crumpling to the floor. While still trying to refill my lungs, I scrambled to bring my palms together.
Strong fingers curled around my right wrist and slammed my arm up against the wall next to my head while another hand wrapped around my throat. Dark brown eyes stared down at me.
“Audrey Sable,” Callan drawled while his iron grip kept me pinned to his dining room wall. “I should have known.”
“Yes, you should,” I replied with a smirk as I raised my eyebrows at him. “Given how easy it was for me to get in here.”
He matched my cocky smile. “Did you ever think that maybe I wanted to draw you in here? Alone. In the middle of my stronghold.”
As if on cue, men with swords appeared from the doorways at the front and back of the dining room. Callan’s grip on me tightened.
“You can’t touch your palms together now.” He pulled my hand forward a little and then slammed it back against the wall next to my head as if to prove the point. “Which means that you can’t do magic. So, what are you going to do now?”
I let my one free hand drop down at my side as Callan increased the pressure on my throat. My fingers brushed against my black and green skirt.
“Oh I have been wanting to kill you for so long,” Callan continued, that smug smirk still on his lips as he looked down at me. “Why did I spend all that time trying to break through your defenses when I could just have you walk right into your own execution?”
A strangled breath fought its way down into my lungs. Callan shifted his grip and placed his thumb under my chin, forcing my head back to expose my throat. Leaning down, he slanted his lips over mine.
“This is the part where you start begging me for mercy,” he breathed against my mouth.
My fingers finally curled around something hard.
Drawing the dagger I had strapped to my thigh under my skirt, I rammed it into his side.
Shock pulsed in his eyes as I yanked it out again.
His grip on me loosened as he staggered back a step and pressed a hand to his side. I ripped my wrist free of his grip while shifting the blade in my other hand so that I could slam my palms together. Glittering green poison bloomed in the air. I shoved it towards Callan while he smacked his hands together and brought his arm down.
I stopped.
As did he.
Tension crackled through the beautiful dining room as we locked hateful eyes on each other.
A twisting cloud of poison hung in the air right in front of Callan’s face while a force blade hovered above my own shoulder. Both attacks had stopped just shy of actually hitting.
Callan’s force magic had the gray color of half-translucent steel and looked like shifting air, but I knew that he could make his force blades vibrate to the point where they could cut through both flesh and bone.
“You move that poison cloud one inch closer to me, and I will cut you in half,” he warned as he stared me down from the other side of the glittering green mist.
I let out a mocking laugh and made a show of looking down at the wound in his side. Blood welled up from it and ran down to drip onto the floor. The palm he had pressed against it was also smeared red.
“Oh, I don’t need to use my magic to kill you anymore,” I replied as I met his gaze again. “That wound will do it for me. All I need to do is stand here until you bleed out.”
Callan narrowed his eyes at me. Raising his red right hand, he motioned towards the men with swords who now surrounded us. “Except if you do that, my people will kill you afterwards.”
“But you will still be dead.”
“So will you.”
While keeping the poison cloud in place, I flicked my gaze around the room, calculating whether I could kill all of these people before one of them managed to ram a sword through my body. The problem was that there were a lot of them and they were standing close to us, which increased the odds that at least one person might be quick enough to strike me before I could touch my hands together and call up another poison attack. I sucked my teeth.
“How about this?” Callan began. “I let you leave. Just this once.”
I slid my gaze back to him while nodding towards the wound in his side. “So that you won’t bleed out while we just stand here.”
He lifted one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “Unless you’d rather die with me?”
Glaring up at him, I flexed my fingers on the hilt of my dagger. While I most certainly wanted Callan Blackwell dead, I had no plans on dying myself to make that happen.
“Fine,” I said. “We’ll consider tonight a draw.”
He gave me a slow nod.
Keeping the force blade above my shoulder, he moved both of us a step towards the doorway on my left. I held the cloud of poison in front of him while he backed me across the room and into the corridor that would take us to the front door. The men with swords followed after their master.
Blood ran down Callan’s side. Muted drops hit the floor, leaving a red trail behind us as we walked. While still holding the force blade with his left hand, Callan pressed his other palm against the wound to stop the bleeding. I flashed him a wicked grin. The promise of vengeance flickered in his brown eyes.
My back hit the closed front door with a soft thud. Keeping my eyes locked on Callan, I slid my dagger under my flowing black and green skirt, returning it to my thigh holster, before I reached out and grabbed the handle.
Air smelling of damp soil and grass filled the room as I opened the front door. I backed out onto the porch and then down the white steps while Callan followed. He stopped on the final step. Red drops splattered the pale marble behind him.
Power rolled off his lethal body as he stared me down. “I will see you soon, Audrey.”
A smile dripping with threats slid across my lips as I disappeared into the grasslands. “Yes, you will.”
