Daniella’s long cloak trailed behind her as she crept closer with the svethulka pointed at my head.
I was close to ending the woman who took so much from me and I couldn’t summon the energy to even activate the bracelets.
‘Adeline was right. I shouldn’t have done this. My body can’t handle it.’
15
I was tempted to shut my eyes. To drift away and not give Daniella the pleasure of seeing the emotional agony I knew was written all over my face. But something told me to be firm. To not give an inch. I wouldn’t allow her that. I stared up at her with as much defiance as I could manage. To show her how a proper and courageous English woman dies. Not with a whimper but with unrelenting fortitude.
She got within arm’s length of me and pointed the svethulka so close that I was sure it would be a killing shot.
Was she telling the truth? If the grandmaster did try to step over her then maybe she didn’t need me anymore. She didn’t need either of us. Would she go as far as killing me? Or was this a ploy to get a hold of me for the grandmaster’s purposes?
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. The next thing I saw as I lay there on the cold stones beneath my back was Daniella’s body jutting forward and her head smashing into the wall right behind me. She barely let out a grunt as a pair of strong hands with enormous claws latched around her throat and mercilessly slammed her head into the wall again and again.
Blood poured from her head and dripped onto my chest. I could hear her skull crack against the stones.
She dropped the svethulka right to my side. It was trapped between my hip and the wall.
My arm felt as though my bones were filled with iron, weighing them down with ruthless pressure.
I groaned, pushing through every last shred of willpower I had to get a grip on the svethulka. My hand moved and my fingers loosely wrapped around its handle. The only problem was I didn’t know if I could fight back if Daniella tried snatching it away.
That worry was set aside once Daniella’s unconscious body was unceremoniously tossed through the air like a discarded dirty wet rag. I heard her body crash down to the stone ground a few yards behind me only to see my father’s face staring down at me. His hands were shifted into their lycan form with his claws extended out. He not only smashed Daniella’s head into the wall. He strangled her with the strength of his lycan hands.
I couldn’t make out whether or not my father was angry with me for being weak or if he was concerned. I hoped it was a mixture of both given I always seemed to be a disappointment to him on some level.
He moved down toward me and shifted his hands back to their normal state to lift me back up when something caught his attention. His face veered up and his eyes went wide. He shook his head and stood back up. His chest rose and fell with rapid breaths.
I didn’t need for him to speak to know what was happening. The catacombs lit up in a hue of scarlet red light.
The grandmaster was awake. He was free of the shackles that bound him, thanks to me. And my father was in the way of what he most wanted. Me.
My father lifted both his arms and formed tight balls of light in his palms. But it was too late. The grandmaster was ready for him. He fired off his magic right into my father’s chest, striking him right in the heart and making my father cry out. His screams echoed throughout the catacombs, making my ears sting and my heart shatter.
I managed to roll over onto my side, keeping the svethulka close as I tried summoning any magic left inside of me. Only there was none. I was useless. Powerless. Defeated.
My father collapsed down to his hands and knees.
The grandmaster let up on his magic only to form a red noose around my father’s neck. It tightened around his throat and threatened to strangle the life out of him. I watched in horror only to realize that the grandmaster wasn’t quite ready to end him. Not just yet.
“I want to thank you, Kenneth.” The grandmaster spoke in a deep voice that didn’t suit my brother at all. It was sullen, gruff, and sinister. All the things that my brother wasn’t. “I wanted you originally. You would have made the perfect match. But with the loss of your sister, I could only hope you would breed the perfect match. The fates had other plans for you.”
‘His sister? My father doesn’t have a sister!’
“That doesn’t change the fact that you’re still a betrayer of mankind,” he went on. “No matter how much you tried to distance yourself from the lycan, you’re still one of them. Only now you’ve served your purpose. I thank you for that.”
My father’s head reared up. He was pushing his magic outside his body, creating a shield around himself that would break the noose threatening to strangle him. He fought to get up to his knees and placed a single foot on the ground. I could see sparks igniting from around his neck as his magic threatened to overpower the grandmaster. For a single moment, I thought my father might be stronger than him. That he would be able to fight him off and get us out of there.
Blue light flashed before my eyes and materialized out of speckles of cobalt blue light. Daniella swooped in from behind with an enormous sword in her hand and blood drenching her face and neck. She drove the blade right through my father’s back and into his heart.
I opened my mouth to scream. Nothing came out. My voice abandoned me. Everything abandoned me. My voice, my magic, and the lycan strength that once made me think I could do anything. It was all gone.
Daniella swept the blade back and ripped it out of my father’s body. The grandmaster held him up with the noose around his neck as my father’s head fell forward. Daniella held her hand on the gaping wound over his heart. I could see through the bloodied and torn material of my father’s coat that his heart was trying to heal.
Daniella wouldn’t have it. Her blue light molded over the wound and held it open, making sure he would die no matter how much magic was still running through his veins. The blue light inside her palm slithered into his veins and took over, sending her magic into his blood and paralyzing him.
My father was dying. I couldn’t save him.
The grandmaster released the noose around his neck so his body would smash into the ground face down. It collapsed with such a heavy smack that I immediately knew what Daniella had done. She turned his blood into liquid silver then hardened it. There was no way for him to recover.
I rolled over onto my back with nothing to see but the darkness of the catacomb’s ceiling above me and hundreds of skulls with empty eye sockets staring down. This was my fate. To lose myself to a wicked spirit that the grandmaster would magical place inside me. To take over my mind so I could never free myself. Adeline would have no choice but to kill me if she ever found me. Especially if it meant ending the Dolch Erbe. If the connection between Dirk and me remained, it would be the easiest way to kill the both of us. Not that it mattered anymore. My father was dead. We lost the Blackatter we needed to break the curse. There was nothing left that could be done.
I shuddered at the thought as a deep and unbearable pain took hold of me. I failed to save my mother. I failed to save my brother. And now I had lost my father. Even if we weren’t close and even if I didn’t have anyone else, he was better than nothing. Only I had to lose him to realize it. I was alone now. There was no one left to fight for.
A single tear dropped over my cheek. I squeezed my eyes as hard as I could, not wanting the grandmaster or Daniella to see.
Blazing light exploded in the catacombs, sending me right into the wall with violence I wasn’t ready for.
I squinted my eyes open to see what was happening. A strong wind struck my body and sent the tail ends of my trench coat flapping into the wall. A shadow appeared at the far end of the light. I thought it had to be the grandmaster. He opened up a vixra tunnel to take me back to the ritual site. To finish what he started and get his sister back into a fresh body.
Hardly. I could see long hair swooping over the shadow’s form. There was a woman inside.
The grandmaster an
d Daniella were thrown back and pinned to the walls of the catacombs.
Adeline walked to the edge of the vixra tunnel and peered outside of it. She saw me laying lifelessly on the ground along with my father.
Her eyes fell on his corpse. A sadness swept over her delicate features and then to the bloody sword now laying flat on the ground. She lifted her hand and took control of the sword.
Daniella must have known what was about to happen. My lycan senses could hear her heart lurching at the sight of a vixra witchling with her sword in hand. Daniella wasn’t a woman willing to go down with such little dignity. Her body evaporated into a thousand speckles of sapphire blue dust, swirling through the air as she shot out of the catacombs to escape. By the time Adeline cast the sword through the air, it had nothing to hit except the cement between the stones on the wall.
My stomach clenched at the sight of Daniella getting away.
Adeline was already preoccupied with the grandmaster when I turned my attention back to her. She let her emerald green magic rip through her hand and latch onto Dirk’s torso, bringing him in closer as if he was nothing more than a runaway cattle. He let out his magic and tried fighting her off. She wasn’t having it. Not this time.
Her other hand extended right toward me and pinned my body into the wall behind me. When she pivoted toward me, there was no kindness or sympathy in her usual delicate pixie-like features. She was furious. And I was worthy of such rage. I betrayed her trust and took the svethulka right out of her trousers. Now it was her turn to take total control of the situation and fixed it as she saw fit.
Her magic swirled about my body just like it did over the grandmaster. In one clean motion of her arms, she pulled us into the tunnel and sent us flying back to the lycan realm and into the Bloody Tower.
I closed my eyes and let my body flail inside the tunnel, twirling about with no control. As if I was caught in a massive tidal wave inside the ocean. My senses were dull, my body exhausted, and my cares dwindled to nearly nothing. There was only one image in my mind. One that I doubted would leave me for the rest of my life. The fear that was plastered over my father’s face when he saw the grandmaster free of his chains and the shock as Daniella drove a sword through his heart.
I crashed onto the dungeon floor back in the Bloody Tower. My eyes struggled to stay open. The vague outlines of familiar people moved about the small cell.
Lothar grabbed a hold of the grandmaster’s arms while Jake took his legs. Rodrick was ready with a net of his scarlet red magic weaving a web over the grandmaster’s form so he couldn’t move.
Adeline let her magic swirl over his torso and forced him into submission while Alexei reached for the locksin and tied him to the wall with the magical shackles.
The grandmaster was ours. He was trapped in the dungeon. And with any luck, we might be able to break my brother’s soul free.
I let out a breath from deep inside the pit of my soul. A place that was growing darker with each passing day.
Once the grandmaster was restrained and knocked unconscious, Adeline turned her attention to me. She swept the svethulka right out of my hand and laced her fingers around it so tight that I thought the handle might snap.
Margaux appeared from the corner of the dungeon cell and stood beside her.
“What do we do now?” Margaux asked.
“Take Riley to the infirmary,” Adeline ordered. Her voice was harsh. Not at all how I was used to hearing her. “She’s going to take an extended break whether she wants to or not.”
She pointed the svethulka down at my body. The last thing I saw was jade-colored light exploding from the svethulka and completely blinding me.
I didn’t need to guess what she was doing. She was going to put me to sleep and force my body into a state where I would heal. Only I had no reservations about her hidden intentions. The only reason she wanted me to heal at this point was so she could give me a thorough lecture on my behavior. Perhaps even a punishment. I deserved it. It didn’t matter if my father encouraged it. I crossed yet another line. Only unlike last time, this wasn’t one I could recover from.
My father was dead.
We lost our Blackatter to break the curse.
And I lost the only parent I had left.
‘Go for it, Adeline. I’m too broken to care right now.’
THE END OF BOOK SIX
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About the Author
Before Shawn was a writer, she was a history teacher who spent all her spare time reading historical novels and tales of fantastical worlds, past and present.
After years of classrooms and countless hours in university libraries, she decided to pen down her own imaginary worlds in novels.
She writes urban fantasy and paranormal romance books. She lives in Georgia with her husband and pet Yorkshire terrier.
Also by Shawn Knightley
WITCHLING WARS
Kruxa Echelon Series
Blood Marked
Grim Defeat
Peril Unbound
Death Hunt
Vampire Echelon Series
Cursed Relic
Fated Realms
Hostile Rival
Resummon: (Lycan Academy of Shapeshifting: Operation Shift, Book 6) Page 16