The power that had been blossoming inside me burst out through my skin like a shock wave.
Silence rang in my ears as I stared up at Alastor.
His eyes turned black as he shed his human glamour and towered over me as his true demonic self.
Something curled around my ankle and slid up my leg and I glanced down to see a long black tail with a tipped with a razor sharp point.
The fire that had moments before eaten at my flesh was extinguished and thick black smoke billowed around us.
I stepped off the pyre with Alastor at my back as my body healed. Something hard and metallic clanged onto the ground and I looked down and saw the collar I’d been wearing on the ground. The ring had been split in the middle and the two tips still smoldered with a red and orange glow.
The whistler’s tune echoed in the air again and I raised my gaze to him. I thought of silencing him and his mouth vanished, just as Lily’s had when we’d left the prison.
His eyes widened and he scrabbled at the place where his mouth had been.
I lifted my hand and the collar rose up from the floor. With a flick of my wrist, I sent it flying toward the whister, securing it around his throat.
Despite the fact that the whistler’s magic was now trapped by the collar, those who had heard his tune continued to self-destruct all around me. The fae on the dais who had agreed to accept me as their peace offering were slowly ripping bloody chunks out of one another.
With the collar now suppressing his magic, I gave the whistler his mouth back. His voice was now harmless.
My gaze scanned the room and came to rest on Jon. He was in the corner, white froth spilling down onto his chin as he pinned Victoria to the floor and repeatedly jammed the Star of Torment into her chest.
White hot rage rushed in my veins.
“See the abomination and let it know true agony!” My voice intoned with raw power and Jon dropped the Star of Torment.
He rose from the floor and turned to the pyre from which I had freed Alastor. With his eyes wide and staring and his jaw slack, he moved over to the pyre and stood up on the grate. Realisation flooded his eyes and he met my gaze as the first of the flames licked up out of the ground and curled around him.
“I can’t move,” he said. “Why can’t I move?”
The flames intensified and he opened his mouth and screamed. Lily, who was still stood on the other pyre, turned frightened eyes on me. The shackles above her head clicked open and I turned back to face the whistler as Jon’s screams echoed in my head.
I crossed the floor to where the whistler stood.
“Why would you help him?”
“He freed me,” he said flatly. “I owed him a debt.”
“And these people here?” I gestured to the others who had completely lost their minds.
“They will burn out and die. There is nothing that can be done to stop it.”
“Could you stop it?”
He curled his lip in contempt. “I could but I won’t.”
“Then I have no use for you,” I said.
He opened his mouth to speak but before he could form the words, I thrust my fist into his chest. I’d seen enough shifters and vampires do it during my time as an Elite officer but it wasn’t as I’d imagined it would be.
I grabbed his heart and ripped it back out through his chest. For a moment it beat in my grip and I met his gaze as he opened and closed his mouth. The action reminded me of a goldfish. I could feel the beginnings of a smile curl up the corner of my mouth.
“His power will be yours if you eat his heart,” Alastor said.
“I don’t need his power,” I said. “I have my own.”
I tossed the heart to Alastor as the whistler dropped to his knees, the light in his eyes fading as he slumped onto his side and grew still.
As soon as the life left his body, the others in the room stilled their insanity-fuelled rampage.
Power slammed into me, sending me careening into the wall. I hit the bricks and collapsed to the ground in a tangled heap.
The metallic taste of blood which had become all too familiar filled my mouth.
“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” Jason’s voice carried the full weight of his power and I struggled to regain my footing.
“I never did like that bible verse,” I said as I sucked in a deep breath.
Groaning, I heaved up onto my hands and knees despite his power weighing mw down. Jason took the opportunity to land a kick in my solar plexus, pushing the air from my lungs.
He reached down and lifted me from the ground, his hand wrapped around my throat as he hoisted me up the wall.
“Why did you have to go and ruin everything?” His eyes were completely white, lost to the magic that pulsed inside him.
“I didn’t ruin this. You did. I didn’t want you and you couldn’t take it.”
He squeezed my throat a little tighter, constricting my airflow and in that moment, as he held me suspended, I could see his power, the flame that burned in his core.
“Why did you have to want him more than me?”
His words conjured an image of Nic in my head. My Nic. They would kill him and it was all because of Jason’s jealousy.
“I told you I would see you dead before the sun set,” I choked the words out as he tightened his grip. Stars danced in my vision.
I reached out to him then with my own power, channeling it through the flame that burned inside him. It stuttered as I wrapped him in a blanket of my power, starving it of his desires, cutting him off from the power of his own faith.
His strength faltered and he let me go. I hit the ground, my knees buckling so that I hit the floor in a crouch and still I forced my magic through him.
“What are you doing?” The white of his power receded from his gaze. The tiny capillaries burst giving him bloodshot eyes and still I channeled my magic into him.
Pushing up onto my feet, I closed the distance between us.
“Please, Amber, whatever you’re doing… Stop it!”
The other Saga Knights hit the ground as though through their connection with Jason, they too suffered the same pain.
Blood trickled from the corners of his eyes and then his ears.
“Nic wouldn’t want you to do this,” he said.
“Nic won’t want anything at all because you took him from me,” I said bitterly. Rage fuelled my power as I placed my hands either side of Jason’s face.
Tilting his head up I met his gaze. “I said I would see you dead. I keep my promises, Jason.”
With one final thrust of my power his eyes filled with blood. He coughed and blood spluttered from his mouth, splattering down the front of my T-shirt. His eyes rolled back in his head and his body went limp.
Exhausted, I released him and let his body hit the ground with a dull thud. Pain thumped in the back of my skull, making it hard to concentrate, and I slumped back against the wall and slid down into a sitting position, cradling my face in my arms as tears blurred my vision.
It was over and there was no going back.
22
A couple of hours and a change of clothes later, I stood in the airport with my bag packed and at my feet.
“Are you sure this is the best idea?” Victoria asked. She’d healed almost all of the wounds Jon had inflicted on her but there was still some bruising around her throat.
“I don’t have a choice. I can’t let them kill Nic. I won’t let them kill him.”
“But what if they kill you both? I mean, I know you took out a bunch of Saga Knights back there but just think how many more there’ll be in the Vatican. That place is going to be crawling with them.”
I shook my head. “I don’t care. I love him…”
She dropped her gaze to the ground. “And him?” She jerked her thumb in Alastor’s direction who was at that moment chatting up one of the air-hostesses.
I shrugged. “He’s my demon. Where I go, he goes.”
“I don’t mean it like that,
” she said. “That oath you took, it almost sounded like you two got married.”
“Hey, how do you know that? Weren’t you getting choked out by Jon at the time?”
“Amber, please. Everyone in that room heard you declare yourself to the demon.”
“I had to do it. I couldn’t let him die.”
“You could have. He’s a demon.”
I shook my head. “You don’t understand.”
“Yeah, yeah, you said already. He’s your demon. Whatever that means.” She sucked in a breath and squared her shoulders. “How are you feeling after all of that anyway? You did some pretty heavy shit back there.”
“Actually, I feel great.” A small white lie wasn’t going to hurt. I felt like crap. Everything hurt and the headache I’d developed after channeling my power through Jason hadn’t subsided at all.
Victoria narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re not lying to me are you?”
“Nope.” I grinned at her but it felt weak and Victoria sighed.
“What am I supposed to do with Lily?”
“Keep an eye on her I guess.”
“She’s a shadow sorcerer, how am I supposed to do that?”
“I don’t think she’s going to cause you any trouble. She’s pretty badly shook up after her near burning at the stake moment.”
Victoria grimaced. “It reminded me of the old trials.”
“You were there?”
She nodded. “Mostly they murdered women who weren’t witches at all, just suspected witches. I thought we were passed all of that.”
“Well clearly the Elite didn’t get that memo.”
“What do you think will happen with the Elite now?”
“Don’t know and don’t care.”
Victoria stared at me in surprise. “You’re not going to work for them anymore?”
“I don’t know what ‘almost public execution’ you were at but no, I won’t be working for them anymore. Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, they know the truth about me now. I’m a wanted witch.”
She nodded and chewed her lip thoughtfully.
“Flight 676 to Rome Ciampino Airport is now boarding.”
“That’s us,” I said as I bent down to grab my bag. Alastor’s hand closed over the handle of it before I could reach it and he hoisted it onto his shoulder.
“I’ve got this.”
“You don’t have to keep doing stuff for me you know,” I said sourly.
“I’m your demon, it’s my job,” he said altogether too cheerfully.
“He’s never going to stop saying that is he?”
Victoria shook her head. “I guess not…”
We paused awkwardly until finally I reached out to her. “I’m sorry for everything you know?”
She nodded but wouldn’t take the embrace I was offering. “I know you are.”
“We’re still not good, eh?”
“I don’t trust easily, Amber. And when I gave it to you, you broke it. So no, we’re not ‘good’ as you put it.”
I nodded. “I can understand that.” It hurt to admit it but I’d known she wouldn’t forgive me for everything that had happened. She hadn’t trusted me since that day in the cemetery when I’d almost drained her and I couldn’t blame her for that.
“But you did save my life,” she said. “If you need my help you know where I am.”
Smiling at her, I let my hands drop to my sides. “Thanks for that.”
“Go before you miss your flight.”
Turning away from her, I trailed after Alastor who moved swiftly through the crowds.
“Make sure you bring that asshole hunter home,” Victoria called after me and I turned back to wave but she was already gone.
With one last look at the airport I headed for my flight with trepidation churning in my stomach. Nic would hate me once he found out what I had done to his brother. He would never understand that I had no choice. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t bring myself to feel bad.
Jason had deserved to die.
But I had killed Jon as though it were nothing at all and that frightened me. Not because I had done it but because it had been so easy.
No, Jason’s betrayal would not be fulfilled. I would make sure Nic survived. No matter the consequences. Because if he didn’t survive--if I failed to rescue the man I loved--then I wasn’t sure what would stop me from completely giving into the powerful rage that churned inside me.
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