The Silver Edge
1196 Words
Low, metallic, scraping groans bounced off the high-arched ceilings of the training courtyard. Sierra stared at the dagger that Kaelen had just dropped on the wooden rack. A hunting blade long and curved.
It was the kind you would typically find in a hunter’s pack. The grip was bound with the soft skin of some creature, dark, rich… but the metal itself was the thing that made her hybrid heart freeze.
The gleaming, brutalised blade was an alloy of perfectly hardened steel mixed with pure, volatile silver. She felt the ambient tingle of it now from several yards away; her hands were itching as though she had touched an electrical fence. “Pick it up,” he said.
“Get up!”
He was at the other side of the ring, the hilt of a nearly identical silver-edged knife gripped in his enormous hand.
He wore nothing but a fitted, sleeveless black compression shirt, that revealed the rippling, sheer muscle of his shoulders, the harsh lines of the jagged, silver burn scars etched into his skin. His amber eyes were gleaming with lethal, unwavering intensity. “You know what this does to me!”
Sierra spat, violet-red eyes snapping at his. Her fangs ached beneath her gum as a reflex to the poisonous metal. “Silver makes my vampire sides slow down.
It cripples me!
If you want to kill me, Kaelen, there are less dramatic means of going about it.” “The high Council won’t be arming their soldiers with wooden swords when they decide to chop your head off, Sierra,” Kaelen’s deep rumble vibrated in his chest. “Lord Vance plans to send an entire legion armed with nothing but weapons forged from the same alloy as this one; silver capable of turning our insides into jelly within seconds of contact. If you can’t stand to be this close to this metal, you are as good as dead!”
He did not let her protest again.
Kaelen lunged, his colossal frame moving with blinding alpha speed. The silver blade whistled through the air with the sharpness of a drawn gun, and the speed of the stroke sent shivers down Sierra’s spine, as an instinctual jump sent her sprawling to the right just as the dagger would have pierced her flesh. As she scrambled back to her feet, the silvered blade skimmed against her leather bracers with the burning sensation of fire as the lethal metal etched a raw, angry red line of poison across her forearm.
“Ooph!”
Sierra gasped, fumbling with the burn as the silver venom began to creep into her bloodstream, her limbs feeling leaden.
“Up!”
Kaelen commanded in his Alpha tone, a physical force that pressed down on her mind and sent the psychic pressure waves of control crashing down.
“On your feet, Sierra! If you don’t pick up that weapon and learn to push through this poison, I will let you burn until you are screaming.” Wild, toxic fury shot through her veins. She hated him!
She hated the way his beast looked at her like nothing more than some insignificant parasite, even as the primal call of their bond surged between them like a raging river.
She scrambled across the dirt, fumbling for the dagger on the weapons rack. The instant her fingers wrapped around the smooth, cool leather, a white-hot spike of pain lanced up her arm. Her vampire screamed within her to flee, but deep in her chest, the nascent howl of her inner wolf, a protective roar of absolute rage, drowned out the vampire’s panic.
The wolf cared nothing for the silver; it only cared about ripping the master of the manor apart.
“RRAAAAARRRR!”
Sierra screamed, spiraling on her hybrid speed, rushing him as the silver dagger aimed directly at his throat.
Clang!
The impact rang out like a gunshot. Kaelen brought his blade up in time, stopping her attack just shy of his Adam’s apple. The vibrating energy shot up her arm once again with its familiar burning intensity, but she kept her feet steady and her blade moving, using the momentum of her vampire speed to push him backwards. Kaelen’s eyes were dilated, completely black, his large chest heaving as her venom-filled fury battered against him.
A dark, satisfied grin stretched his lips into a feral curve.
He loved the tension, the feel of her struggling against him, her fierce, intoxicating spirit responding to him each time he tested the bounds. “Yes…” he rumbled, his voice growing low and rough, lips brushing against her unruly locks, as he shifted his stance, his massive torso leaning to one side to unhook her dagger. Before she could respond, his hand shot out, wrapping it cruelly around her waist and yanking her hard against the solid, low-slung line of his hips.
The sheer, primitive power of their proximity was enough to knock her off her feet; Kaelen’s hips grinding against her as his erection throbbed against her hip bones. Sierra writhed in his grasp, digging her heels into the dirt and struggling against the tight restriction of his hold as her breath came in short, sharp gasps. The mark on her neck began to throb again, sendingwaves of possessive Alpha warmth coursing through her veins.
“Let me go,” she panted, her head rolling back against his shoulder.
“You did well,” he breathed against the soft skin of her ear, the low vibration sending an unexpected thrill right down her spine. He didn’t loosen his grip; rather, he slid his hand down over her hip, holding her in place against him as his thumb and forefinger tightened against her jeans, digging in just enough to keep her trapped against his rock solid erection. “I had to move at sixty percent of my speed to block you. I’ve never had an omega that could boast about doing that.”
He reached down, his fingers carefully, deliberately closing around the silver dagger and pulling it from her weakened grip, tossing it into the dirt where it vanished with a soft puff of disturbed soil.
The moment it left her fingers, her body began to fight back; the silver leaving her system as his scent calmed the fire. “The Council believes you are my weakness, Sierra,” Kaelen’s voice was a low, dark whisper against her skin, his fangs grazing the soft skin right above the marking bite, sending a shiver of unadulterated arousal straight through her. “They think threatening your life will break me.
They have no idea that I’m not planning to control you. I am turning you into the most dangerous weapon this kingdom has ever seen.” He finally released her, stepping back to allow her to find her feet again.
Sierra collapsed onto the dirt, breathing hard, her violet-red eyes meeting the monster that claimed her and held her.
She was changing. Her body was adjusting to his cadence with every passing day, and the knowledge both terrified her, and filled her with a dangerous thrill that Vance could never kill with all of his silver blades.
- Writer
