It could be true. That was more believable than Sammael risking the Convocation’s ire.

“You might be able to keep me prisoner,” Nic retorted boldly, “but I am not bonded to you.”

“You will be, in time. In the meanwhile, I intend to keep you healthy. We can’t have you losing what little mind you have and wasting away while we wait for your travesty of a wizard to cease being an inconvenience and die already, which means tapping your magic.”

“No.” She firmed her jaw. “I refuse.”

“You cannot refuse!”

“And yet, I am,” she returned calmly.

With a growl, Sergio clamped a hand over her throat, forcing her chin higher, his fingers digging in like spidery claws. He leaned against the wall with his other hand, using the leverage to choke her lightly. She held his gaze, glaring her lack of fear. He wouldn’t kill her. He wanted her too badly. “Yield, Familiar,” he ordered. “Give me your magic.”

“No.” Oddly enough, sharing her magic with Jadren helped in this moment, having given her insight into what made it more difficult for him. She’d also been practicing with Gabriel to govern the flow of her magic. Every little bit helped. Supposedly a wizard couldn’t take magic from an unwilling, bonded familiar—but she also didn’t want this to be how they discovered that her bond with Gabriel was gone.

Sergio’s magic clamped onto hers, echoing the hand pinning her to the wall. He was a powerful wizard, despite Jadren’s insults and his weak personality, and the pull was difficult to resist. Still, she was powerful, too, and being around Gabriel and his radical ideas had given her new confidence in her abilities.

Her magic was hers, to keep or give, and that certainty made all the difference. She would not give even a drop to Sammael.

Sergio’s face reddened with effort. “Yield, curse you!” he shouted in her face. “It’s your duty to submit to your betters.”

“I see no one better than me,” she choked out, and his hand spasmed on her throat, her vision darkening at the edges. Maybe he would kill her.

“I can give you pain,” he said, leaning his face even closer to hers. “You know I can. There’s a great deal of pain I can deliver without harming you. I can make you suffer so much that you’ll be begging me to strip you of your magic, and the pain will only generate more.” His magic blazed into her, setting her blood on fire with agony.

She gasped and writhed in his grip, fisting her hands and flailing at him. Sergio only laughed, savoring her suffering. “I can feel it even now, how your magic is growing like a bonfire. You love this, as all familiars do. Abandon your pride and admit it to me.”

Nic opened her mouth—and spat in his face.

With a screech, he leapt back, wiping away her spittle in disgust as she collapsed to the floor without his supporting throttle. Her body screamed in every pore, and she drew in great lungfuls of breath, trying to calm and restore her alarmed system. The pain isn’t real, she told herself. There’s no injury. It’s an illusion.