Chapter 35

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

I dart away from the tree just as three metal-tipped lashes smash across the wooden trunk.

They hit the wood right where I was standing and flay it as effectively as my claws would have.

Wooden shards fly around me as I come to a stop farther inside the clearing, my ears ringing with the shrieking whip's movement as it recoils only inches from my face.

Fuck!

I force myself to stay where I am, crouched and ready to fight.

A lone woman levitates above the ground only five feet away from me.

She retracts her whip with an expertise that tells me it may as well be another limb to her. Completely under her control.

Some aspects of her appearance align with what I imagined a fury would look like. She has lush, golden hair and is dressed in a skin-tight, black, leather bodice and long pants.

Her black whip consists of a shorter central rope that splits into three long, metal-tipped lashes. I don't know the technical names of the parts of a whip, but I know I need to avoid all of them. Even the handle can be used as a bludgeon.

Surprisingly, it appears that only a single snake slithers around her body, and, while it hisses as it slides across her torso, it stays close to her skin instead of baring its fangs at me. It, too, is golden like her hair.

I was certain that furies had more than one snake. I also check for the other two furies since they always move in threes, and I'm concerned when I don't see or sense them.

The woman doesn't waste time with words.

She moves fast.

Her whip was already in motion, and now, with a flick of her wrist, it changes direction, once against whistling toward my head.

I dart left, ducking and rolling and judging a safe distance by a matter of inches. My right hand snaps out, claws extended, aimed perfectly to cut right through the whip's nearest lash before it reaches me.

To my shock, my claws rake across the side of the lash but don't slice through it.

What the…?

The force of my push causes the lash's tip to recoil right toward my face. At the same moment, a zap of energy rushes back through my arm, a nasty sting.

I throw myself backward, retracting my claws and backflipping through the air, landing clear.

Or so I thought.

Pain spreads through my cheekbone, and a quick touch tells me I'm bleeding, black blood dripping down to my chin.

My healing power kicks in quickly, and, judging by the look on the woman's face, she isn't happy that the wound is closing so quickly.

As I regain my balance, the lashes recoil and the woman raises her arm, spinning her whip around above her head.

The lashes whoosh as they pass through the air.

I watch them carefully, visually following their path around and around, judging my ability to either evade them or get in close to her before she lets them loose again.

She snarls at me, her eyes glittering and golden—even more golden than my own eyes. "I am a necessary evil where all other justice fails. My whip is retribution. It can't be evaded. Not by any power on this Earth."

Well, damn.

Just as she extends her arm and the whip shrieks toward me again, I leap forward, my feet leaving the ground as I jump the distance to reach her in the air.

My right claws strike toward her neck.

At the same time, my left hand wraps around the handle of her whip—just above where she holds it. In that heartbeat, I sense the leather beneath my palm, the anger in the material, and the anchor point of the three lashes. If I can just get my claws between the lashes to the anchor point and slash them apart, maybe I can snap the binding holding the whip together…

My eyes widen in the heartbeat that it takes her to tip her body sharply left to evade the oncoming claws of my right hand. In the same move, she wrenches her right hand at my face, wresting the handle out of my grip and knocking the butt of it into my left cheekbone.

Her strength is immense, and it's like being hit by a rock.

I sense the skin across my left cheek splitting, and then, worse, the bone beneath it breaks.

Pain explodes across my face as I crash to my right under the force of her punch, dropping wildly toward the ground.

But, by fuck, now I'm mad.

And I'm just as fast as she is.

I leap right back at her even as the whip's lashes rake painfully across my chest. My leg muscles bunch at the same time my left hand closes around one of the lashes. I may not be able to cut it, but I can use it against her.

I leap upward, once again aiming for her neck, but not to slice through it.

Whirling the dangerous lash back through the air, I crash into her, whipping my arm left and wrapping the lash around her throat.

The impact of my leap sends us spinning through the air, a wild rotation in the direction opposite that in which I wound the lash. The briefest smile touches my lips until I become aware that she's using those split seconds to return the favor.

The cold leather of a second lash wraps around my neck.

And then we hit the ground.

Fear floods me as I brace not only for impact, but for the possibility that my neck will snap and there's nothing I can do about it.