Wolfsbane: 3 (Rebel Angels) by Gillian Philip Read Free Book Online Page B

kidneys. Rory knelt on my chest, pinning my arms above my head. I was going to kill him.
Kill
him.
    ‘Don’t. Do that.’ He was out of breath. ‘’S my father’s job.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Killing me.’ He hissed a breath through his teeth. ‘Shit, you’re strong. Your back, it’s sore. I’m sorry. I’ll let you get up if you don’t kill
me.’
    Even as he said it, a fierce twinge went through my body from that sharp hard root. I flinched and twisted.
    ‘Stop wriggling, you’re hurting yourself.
Ow
.’
    The root stopped hurting just as he cried out.
    I froze. A tide of panic was rising in my throat and I thought I might vomit. I wasn’t myself any more. I mean I literally wasn’t. I could feel my fingers clamped round my wrists,
and my ribcage pinned beneath my knee, except that it wasn’t my knee, and it wasn’t my ribcage or my fingers or my wrists, and just then the root dug into my back again but it was
only half as sore
–
    I screamed.
    His weight was off me and he scrabbled backwards, his face a vision of guilt.
    ‘What is it? I’m sorry. What?’
    I could hardly breathe. ‘My head. You’re in my
head
.’
    He didn’t argue, didn’t deny it, didn’t even laugh. He just got unsteadily to his feet, ran his hands through his unruly hair and shrugged.
    ‘I’m really sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought you–’
    ‘What?’
    ‘I thought you wouldn’t mind.’
    The breath felt as if it would never entirely return to my lungs. At last I barked, ‘That’s NOT EXACTLY THE POINT.’
    He swore miserably. ‘Oh shit. Oh shit, you can’t do it, can you? I’m sorry.’
    ‘Stop saying you’re sorry. Sit down. Let me think. If I can do that in private?’ I glared at him. ‘Sit down and shut up.’
    He did, very sharply. He tugged at a handful of rough grass and ripped it loose.
    ‘So how did you…’ I felt like slapping him, but I was afraid to now. ‘How…’
    ‘I dunno.’ Rory dug a stone out of the peat and tossed it into the loch. ‘How do you breathe?’
    ‘I breathe because I’m supposed to. Because it’s
natural
.’
    He gave me an odd look. ‘But so’s – oh, never mind.’
    ‘Don’t do it again. Just
don’t
.’
    ‘You sound like my brother. You’ll like him.’
    ‘I doubt that. I don’t think I’ll be meeting him. Take me home. Take me home
right now.
’
    ‘Aw, don’t be like that. I’ll–’
    I never got to find out what he’d do. Something slammed into the ground between us and stuck there quivering, singing faintly with its own vibration, the late light shimmering off satiny
steel. Rory leaped to his feet with a yell, and I fell backwards into a peat pool.
    I didn’t want to open my eyes but I was too terrified not to. I creased them open a slit. Against the bright sky I saw the belly of a horse; there was a silver sword-tip at my own stomach,
all ready to open it up. Rory’s anxious eyes pleaded as he reached for me, and was prodded away by the blade.
    ‘Sionnach, you’ve hurt her. Let me–’
    ‘Nice try. As if I’d take my eyes off you again.’
    ‘Sionn–’
    ‘Pick her up. This time, you little arse, you’re going straight to your father.’

    As it happened, Sionnach hadn’t hurt me, though I thought for about twenty seconds I was going to die of fright. I was shaking when Rory was finally allowed to pull me to
my feet and out from under the horse, and I was sodden and mud-stained, and as the wind rose and bit through my thin wet clothes, I hated Rory more than I hated anyone in the world, even Sionnach.
Even Marty.
    And that lasted as long as it took him to say, ‘Sionnach, let her ride, at least.’
    The man with the scarred face glanced down at me with disdain, but he reached down a hand. I ignored it, so he grabbed my arm and yanked me off my feet. I felt the world turn over, and then I
was dumped, straddled, in front of him on his horse, so hard it brought brief tears to my eyes.
    ‘Feck,’ I exclaimed through gritted teeth.