In Her Shadow (ACOTAR)

Chapter Twenty-Three: Pride

"Isolde..."

His voice was on the wind, or was it in her head?

"Isolde... little bird."

Her eyes snapped open. She sat up, drawing in shallow breaths and looked around. She was still in her room in the townhouse, still safe and she knew Azriel still slept in the room across from hers.

"Isolde you can't ignore me forever," the king's voice was light and playful. She didn't fully know how this bond worked, or if this had more to do with her Daemati abilities.

I don't plan to.

"Then come home to me. I am going mad without you,"

Why would I? You tortured me. Mutilated me. Ruined me I-

"If you're so ruined, you wouldn't have been able to bear that other male touching you,"

Isolde's heart stopped, how... how do you know about that?

"I'm not an idiot Isolde. You dream of him and it calls out to me. The High Lords shadowsinger. I know he comes to your bed at night,"

Isolde let out a breath, thankful that the king was not able to sense she had been with Baer. She raised her chin, so what if he is?

"No matter sweetheart, it won't be long until you're back with me. I might even bring him with us. You can watch me flay the skin from his bones,"

You won't touch him.

"Come home and I won't have to,"

She felt him dig deeper into her mind, taking hold of her, rummaging through her memories, infiltrating her senses. She couldn't control it as an image of Baer, as their night together floated to the surface and she felt the king pause and his rage wash over her.

"But who is this?" the kings voice was soft, lethal. "Who else have you let taint you?"

Get out of my head.

"I can't dearest. The cauldron fated you to me. Your thoughts, your wishes, your body, your life, it was mine from the moment you were born. I'll never leave you,"

He had her mind in a vice grip, it was almost as if he was here, pressed against her, pushing her hand down until it grazed the top of her underwear. Her other hand came up to her own throat and squeezed.

"Your breath is mine, your pleasure is mine," her hand pressed on her windpipe and she could no longer draw in a breath. She gripped the sheets with her other hand, stopping it from giving into the desire that he was flooding into her body. He laughed. "You don't need to resist me. You need this. How do you think any male could ever want you, could ever love you more than me? Who else understands your body the way I do?"

Her hands fell slack as two hazel eyes flashed in her mind. Eyes that pleaded with her to fight him, to push him out of her head.

I do not belong to you, with all of her might she pushed him out of her head and slammed her mental walls shut.

It took every ounce of her magic, every ounce of her energy but she lay there and wove a web around her mind. A web designed to repulse him, woven with the blue of Azriel's siphons and the hazel of his eyes.

When she was done she wrenched herself from bed and stumbled to the bathroom, leaning over the basin and emptying out the contents of her stomach. She heaved until there was nothing left and then, unable to call up the energy to get up, fell asleep on the bathroom floor, clutching her hands to her heart as if to apologize for allowing someone else to take control of them.