Page 64 of Wings of Snow
“What is the fucking meaning of this?” I seethed.
In a flash, Georgyanna was sitting up on the couch, her eyes wide. “What are you doing here? I thought you were gone.”
My lip curled as I prowled toward my wretched fiancée. “Are you torturing your lady’s servant?”
Darkness gathered around my shoulders, but instead of cowering in my presence when I let it rise—a typical reaction in most Solis—Georgyanna closed her book and raised a haughty chin.
“She disobeyed me. She deserves to be punished.”
“Disobeyed you how?” I snapped.
“I told her I wanted the rose elixir added to my bath, and she put the peteesium elixir in, instead.” She stared at me pointedly, as if that justified her behavior.
Rose elixir? Is she trying to smell like my mate?
My dragon roared within me, and I locked him down to keep smoke from coming out of my nose. “That’s hardly disobeying you, Georgyanna. That sounds like a genuine mistake and by no means warrants this kind of punishment.” I nodded toward Daiseeum, who didn’t seem to be able to hear me from whatever Georgyanna had done to her. The poor servant was still wailing and pacing. “This isnothow we treat servants.”
Georgyanna sniffed as Daiseeum continued to cry in agony. “Well, maybe you should. If you did, your staff would be better behaved.”
“Choosing the wrong elixir does not warrantthis!” I flung my arm out toward the poor servant, who was now banging her head against the wall.
Georgyanna snorted. “Pathetic, isn’t it? All I’m doing is making her believe a vise is around her head. She’s not actually being hurt. She just thinks she is.”
My nostrils flared, and before the witch could blink, I traveled to her on a gust of air and had my hand curled around her throat. “Release her.Now.”
Georgyanna’s eyes bulged when I exerted pressure, then she clawed at my hand when I didn’t let go.
I arched an eyebrow. “It’s not very enjoyable to be hurt by someone who’s more powerful than you, now is it?”
An oily sheen filled the air and coated my Shield. When that didn’t work, the tang of her constructo affinity came next, then the heat of her fire as she tried to stab and burn past my magic, in attempts to force me to stop.
Her affinities were laughable. I smirked. “And to think my father truly believes you’re stronger than Ilara. How wrong he is. Ilara can punch right through my Shield.” My mate had done so the night I’d tried to kill Vorl at the Betrothed Ball, allowing that bastard archon to live.
Gurgling, Georgyanna clawed at my hand more, then gasped, “Fine! I’ll stop hurting Daiseeum. I’ll stop!”
But it wasn’t until Daiseeum’s wails ceased and the servant gazed around in confused wonder that I finally released the Kroravee witch.
Georgyanna fell to the floor, coughing and sputtering.
“Thank you, my prince!” Daiseeum wailed right before she fled from the Exorbiant Chamber.
Georgyanna heaved in deep breaths. “You... you...” She glared up at me with spiteful eyes.
I propped my foot on the coffee table and rested an elbow on it as I gazed down at her. “You’re not to touch any of the servants again, not with your hands or your affinities. Understood?”
Georgyanna bared her teeth, then lunged upward, her hands turning into claws as she tried to attack me.
A solid wall of air blocked her. She collided with it full force and was knocked back on her arse again, which only got another enraged howl from her.
Darkness gathered around my shoulders, and I let my dragon rise just enough for my teeth to elongate into fangs and my eyes to morph into reptilian slits.
She gasped, her face turning white as I let the full power of my affinities grip hold of her and the air around her. She tried to fight back. Tried to use her affinities against me again, but it was as easy as swatting an annoying fly away.
“Do you understand?” My voice sounded more demon than fae in my partly-morphed dragon form. Georgyanna tried to scramble back along the floor, but another wall of air that I’d erected behind her back stopped her. “I’m not asking again. Do youunderstand?”
“Yeeee...” Her throat bobbed in a swallow, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Yeees, my prince. I understand.”
“Good. Because if I hear that you’ve hurt Daiseeum or any servant again, you’ll be answering directly to me, and I don’t take kindly to fae disobeying my orders.”