Spiritwalker 3: Cold Steel by Kate Elliott Read Free Book Online Page A

I’d never turn away a
     pretty girl like you if you offered to warm my bed in exchange for better treatment
     after the standing inquiry condemns you as a murderer.”
    My face was burning, and my heart was pounding. “Fortunately, I only had sexual congress
     with you twice. That’s all I needed, to know I needn’t bother if I want to take any
     pleasure from the act.”
    People in the crowd sniggered.
    The prince was literally blinking in astonishment, mouth agape.
    Drake laughed derisively, but anyone could see he was furious. “You keep ruining the
     impression of your pretty face with that crass mouth of yours. Now that you’re an
     accused murderer, I’d be careful about antagonizing the only person in this city who
     might be persuaded to make your life more pleasant than it will be in the cane fields.”
    When I shifted forward with fist cocked, the general tugged on the rope to pull me
     up short.
    “I’d have to be dead before I’d let you touch me,” I said as the hemp scraped my neck.
    “Strange you should phrase it in quite that way.” Drake smiled as might a man who
     is waiting to see your reaction when you realize the trap has closed over your foot.
    “James, that is really enough,” Camjiata said without raising his voice.
    “I will tell you what is enough!
Enough
is that my noble kinfolk stole my birthright and inheritance, and I let them because
     I was too young and powerless to fight. But I’m not powerless now. I want her asmy catch-fire, so I’ll cursed well get her as my catch-fire. I’ll have the last word
     after all, won’t I?”
    “You sound like a man who can’t let go of the knowledge that he lost and his rival
     succeeded. As for you, Cat, this childish bickering insults His Noble Highness the
     prince and indeed all of us forced to listen to it.”
    Drake was livid. “I did not lose to him!”
    Drake had the power to immolate me, but in doing so, he would burn himself up as well.
     Unlike Prince Caonabo, he had no catch-fires to spill away the backlash of his magic.
     I couldn’t help myself. I had to keep poking.
    “Really? It’s never bothered you that you couldn’t spoil his love for me because he’s
     a better man than you’ll ever be? That the moment I found him I never thought of you
     again? That he’s killed your fire magic more than once and can do it again?”
    Light pulsed as the forecourt’s gas lamps flared. A mist-like glamour writhed around
     Drake’s body. “When next I meet Andevai Diarisso Haranwy, he will crawl at my feet
     and admit I am stronger than he is. Fire always defeats ice in the end.”
    Prince Caonabo spoke sharp words in Taino. Soldiers raised rifles. The murmuring crowd
     pushed back, for no one wanted to stand close when a fire mage went rogue.
    “I said
enough
!” snapped the general. “James, go back to the house.”
    “Enough is right! I’ve had enough of this bitch!” His bright blue eyes really did
     seem to blaze.
    Heat flared in my chest, like fire kindling. I lunged, but the general yanked me down
     so hard I hit my shoulder and banged a knee. In that eyeblink during which I was too
     stunned to move, I saw what would happen by the stiffening of Rory’s shoulders, the
     tremor in his eyes. Like me he thought with his body. He reacted to danger in an entirely
     predictable way.
    Rory
changed
as thoroughly as if the tide of a dragon’s dream washed over him to dissolve him
     into his true form. His body melted and flowed, clothes ripping at the seams as his
     shape shifted. A huge black saber-toothed cat leaped.
    Reports rang out, guns going off, and the big cat stumbled and went down.

5
    Heedless of claws and teeth, Luce threw her body across the thrashing cat. That was
     the only reason the Taino soldiers did not finish him off.
    I ripped the rope out of the general’s grasp and jumped from the carriage, brandishing
     my cane as I ran to Rory’s side. “Call them off!”
    The instant I pressed my cane against