Page 26 of Wicked Enemy

The wooden door creaked in protest as he shoved it open and then threw me inside. Since I still hadn’t managed to get my feet firmly underneath me, I just flew into the room and smacked into the closest piece of furniture, which happened to be a sturdy wooden table. Pain flared from my hip and down my thigh. Blocking it out, I used the tabletop to at last push myself upright.

Dread washed over me.

Three muscular men with the exact same ruthless glint in their eyes turned to face me from where they had been standing in the middle of the living room. Then their gazes shifted to White, and they all bowed as one.

“Master,” they said.

He just slammed the door shut behind his back and strode towards me. “Before we leave, you’re going to heal him.” He pointed towards the guy on the left, who had a nasty cut down his arm, which had bled through the bandages. “So we know that you really are as good as they say.”

“I can’t,” I said, whirling around to face him.

He stopped advancing, and his voice turned lethally soft as he said, “I will give you one chance to provide me with another answer.”

Fear flickered through my soul as I backed away. This was not going to be a pleasant conversation. “No, I mean I literally can’t. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I’m not a healer.”

“Do not test my patience. You have no idea the lengths I’ve gone to in order to find someone like you.”

“But I’m not a healer!”

He lunged towards me. I leaped sideways, snatching up a chair and holding it in my shackled hands like a weapon. A cruel smile stretched his lips as he moved towards me. Backing away, I kept the table between me and him.

“I’m telling you,” I began again while we circled the table. “You have the wrong person.”

One moment, White was grinning at me from the other side of the table. The next, he was gone. Just gone. I jerked back in shock. But barely a second later, a hand locked around my throat from behind while another ripped the chair from my grip.

My heart stopped as a flash of pure panic crackled down my spine.

This was why people ran at the mere mention of a worldwalker. It was impossible to fight one and win.

I dragged in a strangled breath before he cut off my air completely. With the firm grip on my throat, he pinned me against his massive chest as he leaned down to growl in my ear, “I know that you’ve been taught to say that. I know that healers are told from a young age to pretend that they’re just magicless nobodies so that no one will target them. But I know what you are.”

Spinning me around, he threw me straight at the man with the cut on his arm. I sucked in a desperate breath before slamming into his chest. He immediately grabbed my shoulders, digging his fingers in hard.

“Heal him,” White commanded again.

“I can’t! I’m—”

Air exploded from my lungs as the injured man rammed his fist into my stomach. My knees buckled and I crashed down on the dusty floorboards hard enough to rattle my teeth. Pain yet again ricocheted through my body as I doubled over and braced my palms on the floor while trying to drag air back into my lungs.

“Heal him.”

“I—”

A boot connected with the side of my ribs. It was hard enough to flip my whole body over. I gasped as I hit the floor back first. Dark spots flickered before my eyes, and it felt as though my whole chest was vibrating with pain.

“Hold her,” White snapped.

In my mind, I knew that I should be fighting back. Should be doing something. Anything. But the agony pulsing through my every bone made my thoughts dangerously slow.

The injured man grabbed the thick metal rod that ran between my manacles and prevented me from touching my palms together. With a firm grip on it, he yanked my hands up and pinned them to the ground above my head.

At last, my survival instincts cut through the haze of pain, and I thrashed wildly on the ground. But I was too late.

White lowered his massive frame until he was straddling my chest. I struggled to force a breath into my lungs underneath his weight, but he didn’t even seem to notice as he pulled out a knife and leaned forward.

Burning agony seared through my skin as he drew a long cut down the side of my forearm.

A scream shattered from my throat.