Ellen's voice, strangled and furious, cut through the panic. "Don't… stand there! Attack! That's an or—Urk!"
Adam had heard enough. He tightened his coils just enough to cut off her air and her commands, applying a crushing pressure that made her armor creak in protest. He was careful—terribly, precisely careful—not to kill her. A dead hostage was useless. A living, suffering one was a perfect deterrent.
Seeing their commander silenced, one of the mages in the back began chanting, hands weaving a spell of binding light. Adam's Hunter's Tri-Sense screamed of impending entanglement. If that hit him, it was over.
He couldn't afford to be hit. With a pained jerk, he shifted his massive bulk, using Ellen as a shield to block the mage's line of sight, disrupting the spell.
