“This is my city, little hunter.”
Elijah releases my shoulder and takes a step closer to Rainey, a move that Bronywyn doesn’t miss. “Easy, Bronywyn,” he warns. “This isn’t you.”
She snorts. “As if you ever took the time to know me. You were too busy slaughtering humans and grieving Aoife to give two shits about me. Unless we were fucking, you were paying me no attention.”
At the mention of Elijah’s ex, and the human-turned-fae who saved Rainey’s life, he sucks in a deep breath. “That’s not true.”
“So that’s why you’re doing this, then?” Delaney demands. “Because you’re jealous over their relationship?”
“Jealous?” Bronywyn’s brow arches. “Please. I’m doing this because, despite the fact that you assholes have turned your backs on me, I want to coexist in this city.”
“Why is that, I wonder?” Fearghas questions.
“None of your damn business, fae.”
“I feel like it would be all of our business. We need to ensure that your motivation is pure. How the hell else are we supposed to trust you won’t kill us?”
“You can’t. But I won’t. Not unless you come for me.”
“So, you’re threatening us now?” Delaney crosses both arms, bottom lip quivering ever so slightly. I can sense her grief, mainly because I share it. “I thought we were friends.”
“The me you were friends with is gone. But I’d like to believe we can manage a co-habitual relationship. I help you get the supernaturals in check, and you don’t try and kill me.”
“That’s a fucking joke. Your world will mean shit when your soul is as black as your fucking heart,” I snap, finally finding my voice. No one has ever been able to strike me speechless quite like Bronywyn. But hearing her admit that the part of her that existed prior to the shadow magic is gone? It frees me.
Or so I think.
She grins. “I see you’re no longer enamored with me. Good. That makes things easier.”
Delaney steps forward, emerald magic snapping at her fingertips. One glance at Bronywyn, and I see her own violet magic is sparking on hers, as well. Two powerful witches, one light, one dark.
How fucking poetic.
“We don’t want your help, Bronywyn. And if you don’t want ours? Fine. However, you’ll stay the fuck out of our way.”
Bronywyn glares at her, rage pouring off the woman in potent waves I can sense even with my diminished senses. “You don’t want my help.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because we don’t need it. We’ll win this war without dark magic.”
“You’re so afraid of what you don’t understand.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” the eldest Astor sister interrupts. “And I’m not afraid of the evil you’ve let make a bed inside you. I just don’t want your help. As you’ve painfully pointed out, we’re not friends.”
Bronywyn’s jaw tightens, and she crosses her arms. “Then you’re all going to die.” She turns to me. “You’re going to die horribly.”
With a snap of her fingers, she’s gone. Vanishing from view as though she was never really there.
“What the hell was that?”
Delaney shakes her head at Rainey’s question. “That wasn’t Bronywyn.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“It’s the dark magic,” Fearghas comments. “It’s corrupting the way she thinks, the way she processes emotions.”