Another flare of intense pain joined that of my ankle. I hollered but retained the presence of mind to cut down with my sword, stabbing the animal’s amazingly real-looking shoulder. Glowing red seeped through the honey of its magical fur before the spell burst, spraying out magical knives.
Heat coursed through me. I made fire coat my body, fizzling the magical projectiles as they hit and neutralizing the spell that had attached itself to my ankle. My power now raging within me, I turned up the heat intensity but reduced the size of the flame, making a sort of head-to-toe body armor.
Darius grabbed my arm, probably intending to throw me again. Instead, he flinched almost immediately. His hand sizzled.
“Ouch, huh?” I said, blasting him in the face with more flame. “There go your eyebrows. It’s the worst, I know.”
He reeled backward. I landed two quick punches into his middle and swiped my foot toward his legs. He jumped over it and shoved me, sending me rolling across the floor like a tumbleweed. A green spell hit my fire armor and exploded, knocking me backward for another ride across the floor.
My head thunked against the concrete floor. I made sheets of fire drape down around me on all sides, closing me in and hopefully giving me a moment to recover.
A ghastly face pushed through the layers of flame, followed by that swampy body. He struck, those three-inch claws aimed center mass. Fear shot through me, tied to my survival instinct. Cold surged up, out of nowhere, hampering my fire. The heat around us dwindled and the ice throbbed in my middle. Strange thoughts crowded my head before I realized they weren’t mine.
She is not making enough progress, I heard from Darius.
Darius is improving beyond measure, Dizzy thought.
That vampire better not hurt her, or I will make it wish it wasn’t turned, came from Callie.
My breath dried up and I reacted without thinking. Air condensed in front of me. Sparks flew as Darius’s claws cut through my invisible shield. I pushed outward. An explosion of magic picked the vampire up off his feet and hurtled him across the room.
Rage rose inside me. Vengeance. Every dark emotion I’d ever had, intensified.
I am solely yours, mon ange, for all eternity, echoed from Darius’s mind as he skidded across the ground. I loved when he called me his angel, a sentiment that was hard to hang on to just now. You are my sanctuary. My soul.
Your mother would be proud, echoed from Callie. She loved you so much.
Is this the part where I’m supposed to think things to help her? Dizzy asked himself.
The cold throbbed within me, radiating out from my middle and through my limbs. Rocks and boulders rose into the sky from near the walls, hovering. Darius stopped rolling and jumped to his feet, facing me again. His body flexed, ready to attack, but this time, I wasn’t nervous. This time, I wanted to pull his arms out of the sockets and toss them away. I wanted to punch into his chest and yank out his blackened, still-beating heart.
Two streams of magic came at me from either direction. My fire licked at the ice magic, begging to be used, but most of its potency was blocked.
That didn’t matter.
I flicked my hand, lazily tossing up an invisible wall. I didn’t know how my magic could manipulate the very air, but it did, and in some situations it worked even better than the fire.
The spells hit it and melted, sending steam curling upward. A laugh left my mouth, inhuman and raspy. A demonic sound.
I saw Callie and Dizzy retreating, heading for the door. It had just gotten too dangerous for them. I was too dangerous for them. But I couldn’t come back. I’d forgotten how to turn away from the aching need to tear apart the world and every living thing within it.
Rage beat in time to my heart, begging me to kill.
No, to permanently maim.
No, to use a living being like a puppet. To turn the human race into my slaves.
But first, I would make this vampire beg to serve me. I would devour him.
He ran at me, his movements graceful, his speed slower than it had been. No, I realized, he was moving just as quickly—my reactions had sped up to match his. When he reached me, I dodged his strike and countered. His rib cracked.
Something deep inside of me quailed. My fire fluttered to life, but the cold quickly doused it again.
I picked up the vampire and threw him, slamming him against the far wall. The sweet agony of wrath pounded through me, harnessing the rage, the hate, the glory of destruction, and turning it into a vicious soup.
I rose into the sky—five feet, then ten—and hovered there. The rocks sailed toward me, and I made them circle my person as I drifted toward the faltering vampire. Shields of air filled the spaces between the rocks. If a spell or attack came, I would be completely covered.
Pull back, my beloved. Focus on me. Stay with me. Darius rose to his knees with obvious effort.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realized how much pain that meant he was in.
My fire fluttered up again, but I couldn’t latch on to it. The cold surged up in greater power, sucking me under. Wiping out my ability to feel anything but hate. Making it impossible to want anything but destruction.
“Will you not fight, vampire?” My voice clawed out of my throat, sickly and cracking. “Are you content to remain on your knees before me, like a coward?”
“I will always remain on my knees before you, my love. I will fight for that right. I am yours.” The pasty monster turned back into a man. Deep burns covered parts of his skin. Rips and scrapes marred his chest and arms. A bump in his ribs suggested a bad break. “Find yourself, Reagan,” he said softly. “Come back to me.”
Rushing filled my ears. The need to kill flashed through me, impossible to deny. I flung a boulder at Darius, intending to crush him.
Eyes solemn, he didn’t move. He’d lived through some of the bleakest times in human history, not to mention other magical creatures’ attempts to wipe out his kind, only to wait on his knees for an out-of-control demon-woman to end his life. A thousand years for this…
It is always a woman. His thought echoed, something he’d said before our first intimate encounter in Seattle.
His undoing was always related to a woman.
The rock veered at the last moment, punching through the wall to his right.
I screamed in frustrated rage, warring with myself. More rocks flung themselves at the walls all around him. They crashed against the ground. Ricocheted off the ceiling. The door ripped off its hinges. The larger loading bay doors flew outward, twisted and bent. Glass shattered, littering the warehouse floor.
Still I hovered, in turmoil. Freezing. Trying to fight my way back, but not sure how.