MATURE FANTASY** He is a predator who thought he captured an ordinary girl... but her mind is sharper than any of his claws.
Ariana lives in the shadow of her monstrous father in a world barely held together by a treaty. Until her lands are invad...
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Ariana's body trembled, pressed against mine, her hands locked above her head. My senses were ablaze, focused entirely on her. The archers she had hidden away were no concern; they wouldn't risk harming their leader with me so close. They lacked a clean shot, thanks to the wall she'd conjured and the shelter of the massive tree. This allowed my focus to remain solely on the Bavadrin girl who had surprised me to the point of breathlessness.
With her hands locked above her head, I doubted that she could conjure. Though she had shown herself to be shockingly powerful with her gift, able to build a wall against the one already there to offer her people protection from my flames. Then, to have kept it in place when focusing on my Lysian's was incredible. Never had I met another conjuror with such abilities. It was impressive. However, it also fell short.
She was true to her kind, the cunning Bavadrins, for she had me completely fooled from the start. I always saw her as irrationally confident and brave, but it was never really irrational, for she harbored such a strength within her. A power that she had done well keeping secret, pretending to be no more than a girl. It took little to fool me, for that was how I always saw her, never challenging that thought. She was small and slender, a woman who was no true physical threat to me or my Lysians. I could not have been more wrong. Her mind I knew better than to underestimate, and yet I found myself doing just that.
Ariana was powerful enough for her plan to have worked.
She could have survived her little stunt.
If only she had not made two mistakes.
First, she allowed me to get too close. My senses and speed surpassed hers, a fact she knew well. She should have kept her distance.
Second, she hadn't mastered conjuring. It was clear she was not fully trained, using her hands as a crutch. Her mist moved with each twitch of her fingers, a telltale sign.
Often conjuring began with the body feeding the energy to life. It was easier to control and focus that way. However, she should have trained to let go of that crutch, to conjure with just her eyes or even her mind. Maybe then she wouldn't have found herself trembling in my hands, her green eyes wide as they looked up at me.
The smell of fear surrounded Ariana. Its sweet scent filled my lungs with every breath, and just like that, we became predator and prey. She was the rabbit and I the wolf. It took her only a few moments of struggle before her body stilled the way a rabbit would. It was a survival instinct to freeze. No point in fighting when there was absolutely no escape. Don't fight the predator, and he might lose interest. Unfortunately for her, I was no wolf. I was much worse. My interest was not easily lost.
Shifting my hold on her hands, she winced in pain. Good.
My free hand went to her throat. It was only meant as a threat. I did not intend to suffocate her. Her breath hitched at the contact, my fingers running across the tender skin at her neck. Below my fingertips, I could feel the pulse at her throat, blood rushing as it pumped adrenalin through her entire body, needlessly fueling her muscles, for she had nowhere to go.
