The Bound (Ascension #2)(57)

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Dean asked as she coughed helplessly before him.

Avoca.

Dread filled Cyrene. She would never recklessly grasp for her powers like this. There had to be a reason.

“They’re in trouble,” she managed to get out.

“Who?” He reached out to steady her.

Cyrene shushed him but used him as leverage as she closed her eyes and reached for her own powers. She needed to let Avoca know that she was coming for her. Give her some hope that Cyrene would answer and help.

As soon as she touched the sparking center at her middle, a deadly heartbeat filled her eardrums. She squeezed her eyes against the onslaught, and her abilities flowed into her like a river emptying into the ocean.

Everything was magnified a thousandfold. She could feel the individual threads in Dean’s shirt clutched in her fist, the light breeze touching her skin, and his faint breaths beside her.

Above all, that was the heartbeat. Yet it was wrong. Not like the deer at all.

She could sense Dean’s heartbeat when she listened for it, but this was otherworldly. It called to her and repulsed her without her having any knowledge of what it was.

Then, she felt it reach out to touch her mind. It was just the faintest brush that, if she had not had her powers to guide her, she would never have felt it. But she had felt that touch before, and she would never again let that happen to her.

Without a second thought, she slammed a mental wall between that and the thing that was trying to reach her. Braj.

The heartbeat remained…and it was getting closer. Too close.

“No,” she cried, straightening.

“What’s wrong?”

“Give me your weapon.”

“My sword?” he asked. His brows furrowed.

“Now!” she cried. Then, she yanked it out of its ornamental sheath before he could object.

She whirled with the sword in hand. It was massive and made for the man behind her, who was much larger and stronger than her. But her powers surged up out of her and flooded the instrument in her hand, lightening and strengthening the steel.

The Braj came out of the shadows at that exact moment.

“Move. Get out of here!” she yelled at Dean.

“I’m not leaving you here!”

She rushed toward the Braj with more determination with the use of her powers than she had felt the last time she killed the Indres. She knew nothing of swordplay, but she let the instrument guide her, let her powers flow freely.

The beast came at her with ease, perilously swinging his poison-laden blade.

Cyrene twisted away from the curved sword. She had known its danger and had been lucky to have survived. She wouldn’t give the thing that advantage this time. She felt the irregular heartbeat of the Braj and then used the sword as an instrument to push the magic toward him.

She deflected his blow and drove the sword home. A pulse shuddered through its body, and then it tumbled to the ground. She was forced off her feet as the weight of the Braj took her down with the sword still in her hand.

Her heart fluttered as the power slowly drained out of her, like molasses dripping from a tree. She felt an arm on her shoulder as someone hoisted her onto her feet.

“Are you out of your mind? Next time a Braj attacks, why don’t you let me take it out? If his blade had touched you, what would I have done?” Dean asked very seriously.

Cyrene’s eyes glazed over and then refocused as she tried to hold on to consciousness. “You…you know about Braj?”

“Don’t insult my intelligence,” he said, wrestling the sword from the fallen Braj.

“No one knows at home. Everyone thinks…thinks they’re…”

“Monsters? Well, they are.”

Her legs gave out, and he adjusted so that he was holding her up against him.

“How did you even hold my sword? The bloody thing is too heavy for most of my men, and you handled it like a professional. Did you learn that from your father as well?”

She shook her head, but her body felt sluggish, almost like she was wading through a heavy current. Her powers hummed softly in her, and just as she went to release them at the loss of the threat…another heartbeat filled her ears.

“Dean, there’s another,” she said softly. Then, she collapsed.





“Tell them you can’t go to Eleysia, Sera,” Viktor said.

This time, Cyrene realized immediately where she was. The mind and body connection between her and the last Domina Serafina registered instantly. Perhaps it was because this was the third time that she had been in the woman’s thoughts in the past couple of months. She should be worried about her ability to do this, let alone the ease in which it occurred, but Cyrene only felt curiosity.

“You know I can’t do that.”

There was something in Serafina’s voice that hadn’t been there the last time Cyrene had been in her head. She seemed stronger, more resilient. Though she still looked upon this man with tender devotion.

“They claim that you have more power than any of the others, and you still let them make your decisions.”

For the moment, Serafina looked away from Viktor and down at the slimming red satin dress. Cyrene wished she knew what they were talking about.

“I have no choice. I have not completed my training, so I have very little political clout,” she told him.