Saven Defiance (The Saven Series Book 4) by Siobhan Davis Page B

he wasn’t already so weak, I’m sure he would fight back, but he can’t summon the energy to even try.
    A ball of fury ignites the fire inside me, and I hop up, bursting with unspent power. My wrists seem to swell, and the deflective cuffs feel even tighter, as if my skin is straining against them. “Stop it! Stop hurting him! And I didn’t kill King Adjani. Dante did.”
    “Liar!” the guard shrieks, pointing his finger in my direction. “Dirty, filthy liar. King Dante said you’d try to manipulate us, but you can save your breath. It won’t work. Besides”—he flashes an evil grin—“we have something infinitely more exciting to focus on.”
    The tinny sound of my cell door opening sends a flurry of panic whipping through me. The other guard stalks toward me, followed by the asshat who has just vacated Logan’s cell. Backing away from them, I suppress my mounting fear.
    “Stay away from her,” Logan growls, hauling himself to the mesh wall. He shakes the steel bars. Ignoring his outburst, the guards prowl toward me. I continue to retreat until my spine slams against the hard wall at my back.
    There is nowhere to run.
    My eyes flit to the open doorway, and I quickly calculate my chances of fighting my way out of this.
    “Don’t even think about it,” asshat number one says, waving a long black hose-like object in front of me. “I’d hate to mess up that pretty face.” The look on his face conveys the opposite sentiment.
    The other asshat lunges at me, seizing my arm painfully.
    “Don’t touch her.” Logan barks out a menacing warning, but it lacks substance. Given our predicament, they know it’s an empty threat.
    Until we get out of here.
    Then all bets are off.
    “Shut your face or I’ll shut it for you.” The guard’s focus doesn’t stray as he continues to eyeball me warily.
    “How dare you speak to your crown prince in such a disrespectful manner,” I protest.
    The guard harrumphs. “He stopped being my crown prince the moment he hooked up with you.”
    There’s no reasoning with them, so I give up even trying.
    The guard swings me around in front of him, flexing his muscular arm tight across my upper arms so I’m restrained in a vice-like grip. The other guard flicks a button on the hose, and it surges to life. A thin red line shoots out of the opening at the top, and I instantly flinch. Bile rises in my throat. He edges closer, a wicked grin spread across his mouth. Logan is yelling obscenities and a variety of different threats, but they don’t even acknowledge him. My instinct is to fight my way out of this, but I’m terrified of the laser beam. I’ve seen what the Tor did to Thalassic City, and what the Saven and Amararetti did to my fellow humans on Earth, with something similar.
    One false move and I could be turned to dust.
    I have more self-preservation than that.
    So, I hold still as he lowers the beam to my wrists. “This might hurt a little.” The two guards share devilish grins, and the torrent of threats and cusses flowing from Logan’s mouth accelerate in flavor and volume. Who knew he had such colorful vocabulary? It’s a side of him I’ve rarely seen.
    I brace myself for the impact, but nothing could prepare me for the searing hot pain that whips up and down my arm as the beam touches the center of the silver band on my left wrist. Attempting to exercise some control—because I know how much it will upset Logan to see me in pain—I squeeze my eyelids shut as water starts leaking, involuntarily, out of my eyes. Humming to myself, I visualize a happy place, a happy time, and try to ignore the throbbing pain.
    The pain intensifies as the guard switches from one cuff band to the other in quick succession. Blistering heat boils the blood in my veins, and painful sparks zip up and down my arms. My incendio gift reacts powerfully to the threat, adding more fuel to the fire. I literally feel like I’m burning up from the inside out. Doused in agony, my tenuous