Empire of Flame and Thorns (Flame and Thorns #1)

Chapter 21

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I jerk awake as a loud bang echoes through my room. Sitting bolt upright, I throw myself out of bed and twist the faelights to turn them on right as another crash sounds.

Light floods my room.

For one single second, I can’t understand what it is that I’m looking at.

There is a giant hole in the middle of my wooden door. As if someone has punched through it. Or kicked through it.

Then a boot crashes through the door, and reality slams back into me.

Wooden splinters fly through the air as the entire middle part of the door shatters.

Throwing myself across the room, I dive towards the knife on my dresser right as two men burst through the hole in the door.

Tommen flashes me a vicious smile as he and Jeb straighten inside my room. “Payback time, bitch.”

I don’t even have time to scream for help before they launch themselves at me.

Panic crackles through my veins.

Leaping back, I slash my knife in front of me. It forces them to stop their attack long enough for me to land. My back hits the dresser with a thud, making the wood rattle. I cast a panicked glance around the room, trying to figure out how to escape. But I barely manage to scan half of the room before Tommen lunges at me again.

His fist speeds towards my face. I duck it and slash at his chest. A cry of pain rips from his throat as my knife grazes part of his chest, drawing a thin line of blood.

Fury burns in his eyes.

I jump back as he aims another punch at my head. But my back slams into something else.

Arms reach around me from behind, trying to trap me. Jeb’s harsh breath hits the back of my neck. With panic blaring inside my skull, I stomp my heel down towards his foot. He’s wearing boots, and I’m barefoot, but it manages to cause enough pain for him to lose his grip on me. I dive away right before Tommen can slam his fist into my stomach.

Rolling across the floor, I twist around and swipe at their hamstrings.

Jeb curses as my knife nicks the side of his thigh.

I yank my blade back, aiming another strike.

Pain shoots up my arm as Tommen’s boot connects with my wrist.

The knife flies from my grip. It hits the wall to my left and bounces down on the floor in a clattering of metal. I gasp as I jerk back, narrowly avoiding a strike to my ribs.

Across the room, Jeb snatches up my knife while Tommen throws himself at me. I leap sideways, rolling over my bed. The rumpled sheets tangle around my ankles, and I have to kick them away when I hit the floor.

Metal glints.

On instinct, I yank up an arm to block it.

Pain explodes through my forearm as the knife cuts a deep slash right across it.

I cry out in shock and pain, but I don’t even have time to block out those emotions, because Tommen aims a kick at me from the other side. Throwing myself flat on the ground, I roll underneath the bed in an attempt to find temporary shelter. But hands wrap around my ankles.

A gasp rips from my lungs as I’m yanked out from underneath the bed.

I’m only wearing that delicate silk nightgown and the sheer white robe that goes with it, so more pain pulses through me as my bare skin scrapes against the floor.

The moment one of the hands disappear from my ankle, I blindly kick my leg upwards. A grunt of pain echoes into the pale room as I hit something soft.

But my victory is short-lived as a boot slams into the side of my ribs.

I hear the crack before I feel it.

Agony slashes through my whole chest as several of my ribs shatter from the magic-enhanced kick. Rolling over on my side, I try to crawl away. Another boot takes me in the side of the head.

Lights flash before my eyes as my head snaps to the side.

I think I cry out in pain, but it’s difficult to hear over the ringing in my ears.

Black spots dance before my vision, and the room sways around me. I kick out with my leg again.

Another burst of pain sears through me, so intense that it blinds me for a few seconds, as Jeb rams the knife into my thigh. I gasp into the ceiling, but I’m not sure if any sound makes it out. Blood pounds in my ears.

Jeb yanks the knife back out with a wet sliding sound.

For a moment, everything is still.

I try to move. To fight. To run. To do something. Anything.

But all I can do is to lie there on the ground. Blood wells up from the cut across my forearm and the wound in my thigh. Agony pulses through my chest as every labored breath disturbs my shattered ribs. My head throbs and the room spins. My vision is starting to go black at the edges.

Above me, Jeb and Tommen flash me a cruel smile.

Then Jeb raises the knife.

Desperation and hopelessness crash over me. So intense, so cold and all-consuming, that I want to bawl my eyes out.

This is how it ends. After a lifetime of sitting on the sidelines. A lifetime of accomplishing nothing. A lifetime of being treated like crap. This is how it all ends.

Jeb rams the dagger straight towards my eye.

A violent wind crashes through the room.

Broken wood from the already shattered door shoots through the air and smacks into the white stone walls with a loud crack . The knife is ripped from Jeb’s hand by the wind and clatters against the wall behind me as Tommen and Jeb are thrown backwards several steps.

Cries of alarm tear from their throats and echo between the stone walls.

They whirl towards the door, crouching into attack positions, right as a shadow of death stalks into the room.

No, not a shadow of death.

The Shadow of Death.

Draven Ryat stalks into my room, looking like vengeance and fury itself. He is only wearing a pair of black pants, leaving the rest of his lethal body on full display. His imposing black wings loom behind his broad shoulders, and black storm clouds billow around him.

Pure rage burns in his golden eyes as he comes to a halt on the floor.

Then his gaze flicks down to me, and that rage darkens into something not of this world. Something so terrifying that ice skitters across my skin at the mere sight of it.

Draven slides his gaze back to my two attackers.

All color drains from their features.

Jeb opens his mouth. But he doesn’t have time to so much as beg before Draven summons a literal storm. Black clouds whirl inside my room as another violent wind crashes through it and hits my attackers. From almost point-blank range this time.

I hear the loud cracks of thunder as lightning flashes through the churning clouds. It zaps into Tommen and Jeb. Thuds sound as they slam into the wall behind them, but I don’t see it, because the darkness at the edge of my vision has spread almost completely over my eyes now.

Agony pulses through my whole body. I just want to close my eyes and sleep.

The last thing I feel before oblivion drags me under is a pair of strong arms lifting me up.