Flare of Villainy: The Imdalind Series, Book 10

by Ethington, Rebecca

  “Demon, eh?” Thom propped himself up on his elbow, leaning over me as the hand wrapped around mine moved to trace the bottom of the Styx shirt I was wearing. “And here I was thinking it was a baby. Hello little demon, I’m your daddy. I can’t wait for you to claw your way out of your mommy’s belly--”

  “Thom,” I half-pleaded, half-laughed. I was trying not to puke all over the bed but the images he was conjuring were not helping with the whole not vomiting thing.

  Unfortunately, he just ignored me.

  “I’m going to teach you how to possess bodies and raise the dead and rule the underworld--”

  “Are we trying to bring another Sain into the world?” I asked, and that shut him up.

  “Naw, but that man was a demon. Maybe that’s what Black Water is, an elixir of souls harvested from hell. Don’t tell Jos I said that,” He added quickly, his blue eyes bright even as he laughed.

  I just rolled my eyes. Sometimes I could have sworn that he was more scared of Black Water than he ever had been of Edmund.

  “You know you gotta get over your fear of that stuff, right?”

  “Maybe in another hundred years. You do know it burns right?” His voice shook, and I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

  “Is the big bad ghost of Edmund scared of a little burn?” I tried to pat his head, really drive the taunt home, but he batted my hand away, his face all serious now.

  “Well, that and someone else seeing into my future. I’d rather not know when bad stuff is coming.” His voice cracked. We had talked about this before, we had talked about all of it, but there was something broken there. Something that was cracking in his eyes as his fingers stopped tracing and he instead flattened his hand against my stomach, which thankfully hadn’t developed more than a ‘I ate too many tacos for dinner’ bump.

  “I have a feeling that good stuff is coming.” I placed my hand over his, letting my magic move through him in a warm wave. His magic perked up, moving right to mine as it always did. As it had every day since our bonding. My perfect match.

  God, I loved him.

  “You say that, but you do realize that Jos is heading into a war zone to rescue my brother and every Chosen in the world is heading for us so some evil tyrants don’t harvest them for electricity, right?”

  “Way to suck the joy out of the room, Thom.” I rolled my eyes at him again, making sure to over exaggerate the motion. He hated that.

  “I’m being realistic, Wyn.” He narrowed his eyes at me. Damn, he was all business now.

  “So am I.” He tried to pull away, but I gripped his hand, my magic still flooding through him as I pressed his palm to my stomach. “Listen to me and your uterus demon spawn.”

  He tried to pull away again, but I held on tight, staring him down as I let my magic grow.

  His power was a warm rain against my fire, the two the perfect combination as I let them twist together in that line of power that was so distinctly ours; then I pushed it inside me. I prodded our magic through his hand, through me, and right into the child Thom and I created.

  So tiny. So precious.

  Just as precious as the wisp of smoke that was their magic.

  Not their magic.

  His magic.

  Thom felt it as I did, his eyes widening as he looked at me. He didn’t even try to hide his tears.

  “It’s a boy?”

  I nodded and he tackled me, his lips pressing against mine in a hunger that flooded me. The fire that lived in my soul ignited and I wrapped my arms around him. Suddenly the twist of nausea in my stomach didn’t matter.

  I wanted Thom. I wanted him everywhere.

  I had only just hooked my fingers under the waistband of his pants when someone knocked on the door with so much urgency that you would think the ghost of Edmund had come back.

  “Edmund is dead, there is no ghost, we’re busy!” Thom yelled toward the door before coming back to kiss me. His mind was obviously in the same place mine was.

  “What?” a voice shouted through the door.

  “Come back later!” Thom and I yelled together before turning back to yet more kissing. Why did he have to taste so good?

  “I can’t! We’re under attack!” We both froze, this didn’t sound like a ghost story. “That woman! Her magic is alive. She’s trying to kill us all!”

  10

  Wyn

  At least Thom and I hadn’t caused the chaos this time, not that that was saying much.

  Bangs and blasts echoed from the large room we had been using as the hospital wing, the stone of the cave groaning as whatever attacks she was using blasted against it.

  “You know, I’m gonna be pissed if she brings anything down.” I had worked too damn hard to get this cave back into a suitable living condition to just let some renegade bring it all down.

  “Well, that’s the last thing I want,” Thom said with a bark, he was already going into full takedown mode. “You distract her, I’ll restrain her from behind.”

  “Why do I have to be the distraction?” I snapped as we rounded the corner and another blast rattled over the stone.

  “Because then you can use your magic. Unless you want to be the one to go in ‘all stealthy’?” He grinned at me, already victorious. He knew I wasn’t going to agree to that, and that earned him a scowl.

  “Hell no.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  Insufferable man.

  Thom blew me a kiss before he vanished from sight, his magic pulsing through the air as he sped ahead of me.

  I guess I would need to hurry if I wanted to have any kind of fun.

  I kept close to the rumbling of Thom’s magic as we raced through the last stretch of hall and toward the hospital wing that blast after blast was echoing from. The hallway was lined with a myriad of patients, kids, and Chosen who were all peeking in like this was some kind of training exercise and not a crazed woman trying to finish her task to capture The Oheň.

  I didn’t care what anyone said, I was still disappointed I didn’t get a cool nickname.

  “Please! If you will just listen to us,” one of the Skȓíteks yelled, Giel, judging by the firm command of the voice. Giel had never been one to back away from a fight.

  “Sorry, there’s no point in talking anymore,” the woman returned, followed by another flash of light.

  I slowed to a walk, putting as much of a strut into my step as I could as Thom and I weaved through the crowd and into the room, leaving more than one confused Chosen behind as an invisible Thom pushed them aside.

  Sure enough, Giel, stood before about five other Skȓíteks, all of them standing calmly behind a shield as they tried to reason with the woman Ryland had captured a week ago.

  She tried to kill him in an attempt to get to Joclyn, but her magic was still that stringy rotten stuff that Edmund’s Vilỳs gave off. As powerful as that magic was, it couldn’t compete with the pure, healed, magic of the Chosen. As a thank you for her attempted murder, Joclyn had healed, but not centered, the woman’s magic so that she couldn’t use it. Somehow she had found a way to use her busted magic regardless. Not that the poor girl knew what she was doing.

  And here I was thinking that she was in here killing everyone. At least this wouldn’t take too long.

  “Hi! Can I join the party?” I asked loudly, putting a stick of gum in my mouth as I walked the rest of the way in. Everyone’s focus pulled to me. Giel gave me a smile and a sigh, clearly happy for the backup.

  The woman, however, screamed and sent what she clearly thought was her biggest and best attack my way. I just feigned a yawn and swiped my hand, sending it uselessly into the same shield that Giel and the others had erected to protect themselves.

  “What have you done to my magic?” the woman screamed, sending another attack, which I again sent to the side.

  “I, personally, haven’t done anything. But you seem to be catching on quick.” Another attack, and another deflection. I had to hand it to her. With no training, and only having u
sed that diseased magic before now, she was actually doing pretty well.

  I mean, she wasn’t going to be able to go up against me, but I didn’t need to rub that in quite yet. Not that I had taken it off the table.

  “What have you done to my magic?” she asked again. I was supposed to be distracting her, yes, but I was all geared up to fight not chit-chat.

  “It’s fixed.” I grinned at her, holding my hand out as I pulled at the magic that was typical for a Trpaslík and not the fire magic that was so unique to me. It crackled on my palm before I sent it into the air in an arc, the power visible as I lifted one of the many hospital beds and spun it around in the air like it was on the point of a top.

  She stared at it, unable to disguise her awe at the power. Who would have thought a simple spinning bed would work so well as a distraction. Thom had gotten nearly all the way behind her without her noticing and I had spread my fire magic through the stone of the floor, letting it pool right beneath her feet. I was sure she could feel the heat of it with how she shifted her weight, even if she didn’t know what it was.

  One step out of line and I was going to sink her in a pool of lava. And there went my stomach, just the reminder of the smell of burning flesh wasn’t exactly helping with the whole ‘don’t vomit on the bad girl’ situation. How the hell had I killed so many people when I was pregnant with Rosaline? Maybe morning sickness was worse with boys...

  “You think I care about that?” she snapped, pulling me out of my reverie as I stared at her, the bed still spinning between us even though she clearly wasn’t paying attention to it anymore. She was back to snarling at me.

  I grinned at her, my magic still heating below her as I felt Thom’s magic position right behind her.

  “No, but all it was supposed to do was distract you anyway.” I shrugged, and Thom reacted, his hand flinging out as magical ropes of glittering orange spread from him, wrapping around her like a maiden tied to railroad tracks.

  “Well that was--” Thom began, only to be flung aside as his ropes exploded, the woman smashing her way out with a scream.

  She turned to me, eyes enraged, back arched, she was even baring her teeth like some kind of dog as she heaved. I was sure she saw it as a threat. With how much magic she was letting grow in her palms I actually had a brief moment of thinking that she might be able to do some real damage. It might have been a good fight, but I was too sick to care.

  I shrugged and threw the spinning bed at her.

  It slammed into her as she screamed, Giel and the others that were watching from behind the shield and from the doorway gasping as both bed and woman were slammed into the wall.

  “What the hell was that, Wyn?” Thom asked with half a laugh as he popped back into existence.

  “It was me not using rope and avoiding the smell of human flesh burning.” My stomach heaved, but I clenched my jaw, forcing it to behave. “You’re welcome.”

  Thom rolled his eyes at me as we both raced to the bed and the woman who was groaning and trying to pick herself back up.

  “Next time, chains.” I said, letting my magic wind around her before she was able to pull herself to standing.

  “Do you really think that will stop me?” she snarled, already trying to pull her magic to her hands.

  “Yes.” I leaned in, smiling as I flicked a little bit of my magic to life and the chains caught fire. “I have all the ways to stop you.”

  I wasn’t sure she heard that last part though, considering she was screaming from the fire. So much for avoiding the smell of human flesh.

  “Oh god,” I grumbled, snapping my jaw shut the second Thom looked at me.

  “Wyn. Watch it.”

  Keeping my face as far from ‘I am not going to vomit’ as possible I pulled the fire back into me, leaving her clothes a bit scorched even as her magic repaired the burns on her skin.

  “You really don’t want to try me.” For once, the woman actually seemed scared.

  She sat there, covered in chains, huddled next to the remains of the bed I had thrown at her head, and she actually nodded. I resisted the urge to give into my smug celebration, even if Thom rolled his eyes at me. He knew that I would be rubbing in this victory later.

  “Okay, awesome.” I sat straight up, waving to Giel and the others as I set the bed nearest me upright, letting my magic pick up the now restrained woman and plop her right back onto the squishy mattress.

  “So now that we got all of that out of our system.” I leaned against the bed frame, sitting myself right next to the woman who was clearly trying to find a way out of the chains. Again. “Are you going to tell me what you know about the SSU, now?”

  “Like I’d ever tell you that,” she said with enough malice that I was sure she would have spat at me if she wasn’t afraid I would burn her. I did anyway. It didn’t take more than a pulse of power to light the chains on fire with a greater intensity than before.

  “Wyn.” Thom’s reminder was a calm wave and I shut the flames off.

  “I think you will. See, the Queen and I have different ideas of torture and seeing as the Queen left me in charge--” I let the threat hang as I shrugged, feeling my magic boil in excitement as it flooded the chains again. I didn’t let them catch fire, I just let them heat until she began to sweat.

  “So… tell me about the SSU. About this ‘God’,” I made sure to give the word air quotes, “that they have.”

  “I will never--”

  “Yes, we know,” Thom grumbled from above me. “You will never tell us. Except that the Kyō have now taken over the world and the SSU will fall any day. You aren’t protecting anyone.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Why is it always the revolutionaries that are so stubborn?” I mumbled, pulling out my phone and tapping on my screen as the woman continued to snarl at me. “Here.”

  Turning my phone to her, she gave me one last glare before looking at the headlines. I scrolled through them, the list of countries that fell going on and on and on.

  “You’re… you’re lying!” she was snarling, even if she still didn’t seem so convinced. She didn’t even try to fight against the chains. She just sat in the bed, looking like a caged jungle cat.

  “Yes, because I enjoy wasting my time creating hundreds of fake news articles.” I rolled my eyes and turned to Thom, who was still scowling at the woman.

  His magic warmed as I turned to him. I hadn’t realized how much he was shielding me. He wasn’t letting anyone touch me or his uterus demon. I would have to scold him for being overprotective later; that was if seeing how he took care of me wasn’t such a turn on.

  What the hell pregnancy hormones? Getting turned on by a protective guy while I’m seconds away from torturing this woman. At least I didn’t want to throw up anymore.

  “The SSU is going to fall. Our Queen went to help.” It was a lie, but it did what I needed it to do and she snarled at me again. “She is going to find the woman who leads you and end the SSU once and for all.”

  Another lie, but I didn’t care, neither did the woman who went from snarling to laughing.

  “You think she can defeat Nastya Klotz? You are all fools. Leader Klotz is the greatest ruler Ukraine has ever known, and with her God--” She laughed again, but I just stood there, pretending to look horrified as the information that I wanted anyway came pouring out of the woman’s mouth. “She wants your ‘Queen’. And now your queen is going right to her, to find the man she took. She’s been playing with him for years, you know. I’ve heard his screams. Nastya defeated him and she will defeat your Queen as well.”

  Oh, the pride of a revolutionary. That was just too easy.

  “Oh no!” I gasped, not even trying to make it sound like real shock. “Do you mean The Oheň is walking into a trap? Heaven save us!” I turned in feigned shock to Thom who was already tapping on his cell phone screen, probably sending Jos a text message.

  When I turned back, the woman just stared at me in shock, realizing what she had don
e, and what she’d walked into.

  “What did you--” she began, already yelling.

  “Thanks for all your help,” I sassed, patting her on the knee before I tightened the chains, moving them over her mouth so she didn’t drive everyone in the hospital mad. “And no, since I know you are going to ask, I didn’t give you anything. I’ve just been around a few too many revolutions to know how to get information. Although, burning would have been fun too.”

  I grinned at her, finally pulling my fire magic back as Giel raced over, adding her own binds to the woman. The bound woman screamed as Thom and I walked away. I couldn’t make out much through the chains, but I was one hundred percent sure there were more than a few expletives thrown my way.

  “You know, you are ruthless,” Thom hissed in my ear as we left the infirmary, hand already around my waist as he pulled me against him.

  “Well, she interrupted something I really wanted. I wasn’t going to let that slide.” I wound my arm around his waist, sticking my hand in his back pocket and squeezing with enough force that he jumped.

  “I take it we are continuing where we left off?” His voice was a low rumble as he nipped at my earlobe, the tiniest hint of his French accent peeking through as it always did when he was turned on or angry.

  “Oh no,” I teased, turning us into the hall that Jos and Ilyan’s rooms were in. “I’m going to get what I want. And I’m going to remind you just how strong your mate is. Just how much she takes what she wants.”

  “Yes, please.” Thom grinned as I opened the door to Jos’s room and threw him in, shutting the door behind him.

  “I’m going to go take a nap!” I yelled, turning back to our room and racing down the hall. Knowing he was going to follow.

  And that I wouldn’t be sleeping.

  11

  Ilyan

  It was the screams that woke me.

  The same as they did every morning. As they did every moment someone walked into the hallway we were all locked in. The screams grew into roars at the sound of doors opening and closing. The heavy thunks grew closer as the screams did, the sound of trays being slammed onto the cement becoming clear.