Page 163 of Commanding Blood And Bonds

Infighting. Noted.

“So pleased my reputation precedes me,” I said sweetly—and struck, slicing a shallow cut across the kidnapper’s chest.

My second strike didn’t land. Shadows snapped tight around my wrist, yanking me back.

I bit down on a cry, snarling, “You’d think you’d be smart enough not to learn the hard way.”

“Teeth!” the prince barked.

The shadows disappeared. Mismatched Eyes dropped his hold and shoved me away, panting.

I cackled, though the sound was breathless, ragged.

This was bad. The warehouse was massive. A mock living room on one side, training ring on the other. Two doors, plus the roller. No windows. Two immediate opponents. More closing in.

I was standing in New Uptown. Had to be.

“We were just gonna bring you in for a little chat,” one said—voice brittle, fragmented.

“How’d that go for you?”

“Messier than anticipated,” the prince admitted, right as the man I’d stabbed stepped closer, hand still clamped over his shoulder wound.

I couldn’t get to him—not with these two in front of me. Not with shadows crawling at the edges of the room.

“Sounds like poor preparation,” I muttered—and moved. In a blink, I dropped into shadow, reappeared behind the kidnapper, hooked my shadows around his neck, and slammed him to the ground.

Fucker was faster with the element, his power hitting me like coiled silk—ribbons of force locking my wrists.

I gritted my teeth and shoved back with everything I had, but my power had already shifted back to its default.

Wind. Useless, panicked fucking wind.

“Perhaps,” the prince said, crouching low. The blood splattered across his face wrinkled with his expression. “But I’m not the one pinned in my enemy’s base.”

I gathered the stolen shadows again, slamming them into Mismatched Eyes and yanking him into a chokehold. My legs locked around his waist, and my arms wrapped around his throat.

He thrashed.

I gritted my teeth tighter. My eyes flicked to the others—weapons, positions, spacing.

My professional assessment?

Fucked. Fuckkity fucking fucked.

Regret clawed its way up my throat. I should’ve let Reyna plant the damn tracker.

With a roar, I shattered the shadows restraining me and flung the two closest Paladins aside, their boots skidding over concrete.

“Eh. I’ve faced worse odds.”

“No doubt.”

“You going to let me go,” I ground out as my captive struggled beneath me, “or have you tired of your men and brought me here to dispatch them?”

“Feisty little shit.”

This voice was female—cool, amused. Another shadow sauntered up beside the crouched leader. She had deep brown skin, long braids spilling from either side of her hood, and a dangerous kind of stillness. Two more women flanked her, all of them watching me like they had time to kill. Like the man clawing at my arms and writhing between my thighs wasn’t seconds from blacking out.