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Blood poured down her chin, butshe started moving toward me.
I screamed, “Sholto!” hoping Segna would realize what she’d done and turn back to rescue him. But she kept swimming, weakly, toward me.
“He is only white flesh now,” she growled, in that too thick, too wet voice. “He is only sidhe, not sluagh.”
So much for her helping Sholto — obviously it was up to me. I took a good breath and dived. The water was clearer here, and I saw Sholto like a pale shadow sinking toward the bottom, blood trailing upward in a cloud.
I screamed his name, and the sound echoed through the water. His body jerked, and just then something grabbed my hair and yanked me upward.
Segna pulled me through the water. I could see that she was making for the bare island. My naked back hit the rocks, scraped along them, as she struggled from the lake. She pulled me with her, until both of us were free of the water. She lay panting on the rock, her hand still tangled in my hair. I tried to ease away from that hand, but it convulsed tighter, wrenching my hair as if she meant to take it out by the roots. She started dragging me closer to where she lay.
I fought to get up on all fours so she wouldn’t scrape more of my skin off on the bare rock. In order to do so, I had to take my gaze off her for an instant.
It was a mistake. She jerked me down with that strength that could have torn a horse apart. Jerked me down, onto my stomach. I wedged an arm under my body to keep me off the rocks.
Then I saw that she still held the dagger. She pressed it to my cheek. I gazed at her along the line of the blade. She was lying down, almost flat against the rocks.
“I’ll scar you,” she said. “Ruin that pretty face.”
“Sholto is drowning.”
“The sluagh cannot die by water. If he is sidhe enough to drown, then let him.”
“He loves you,” I said.
She made a harsh sound that spattered her chin with more blood. “Not as much as he loves the thought of sidhe flesh in his bed.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
The tip of her blade wavered above my cheek. “How much sidhe are you? How well do you heal?”
I thought it was a rhetorical question, so I didn’t answer it. Would she die of her wounds before she hurt me, or would she heal?
She coughed blood onto the stones, and it was as if she wondered the same thing. She used her grip on my hair to force me onto my back, dragging me closer as she did it. I couldn’t stop her — I could not fight against such strength.
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