When pink magic flashed up the sword, covering every inch of metal, I let the fury catch in me like a wildfire. With teeth clenched against a scream, I threw myself across the room, dodging bits of broken wall, avoiding bodies where they pooled blood on the floor, my gaze fixed on where Mav fought. He was trapped in the corner, surrounded, barely visible through the crowd pressing closer.
I couldn't see Sang, and his screams had tapered off. But I couldn't allow my terror to take hold, or I'd lose all my strength. Instead, I let the anger crash against the ribs to every beat of my heart, and brought the sword around in a glowing arc, slashing across the backs of three keepers.
They went down with grunts and cries, but I shut the noises out, not letting my guilt take hold as I stabbed down into chests and shoulders and skulls. My sword should have stuck, something should have slowed me, but my magic shot right to their hearts and each keeper I stabbed erupted in a splash of crimson blood.
I’d lost my element of surprise, and now everyone spun to look at me, the bigger threat.2I didn't stop my path towards Mav, slashing and stabbing, shoving magic into people's bodies and not even allowing myself to wince when they exploded into gore.
Some weapons backed out of my path, the doubt I'd seen earlier flickering in their eyes—who was the real enemy here? They couldn't figure it out. But the ones who immediately rushed to fight me, I didn't hold back on. I clenched my jaw, my heart slamming against my ribcage with pure, merciless rage, and I cut down every person that stood between me and my mate.
They reached for magic, not weapons, but fury and revenge had me tight in its grip, and no matter how many times they burned, bled, or broke bones, I fought on. I'd been trained to handle a weapon with both hands so when green magic slammed into my arm and shattered bones, I switched to my left hand and kept slashing, kept shoving pink magic into their wounds, and didn't stop to watch their bodies collapse.
Sang's scream kept replaying in my head, every bit as loud as Mav's grunts of pain and Void's silence. They rang in my ears, blocking out even the metallic clash when my sword met another, a small, fierce-eyed woman stopping my path with a sword she'd grabbed from the floor, too. She was the only one I might have spared, simply out of recognition of her ability, but behind her, Mav choked out a curse, pain thick in his voice.
My ears rang with the thunder of my own blood, and I stopped seeing the woman in my way as a person, someone who'd suffered, who'd been pushed to this moment by ruthless keepers. She was an obstacle, an enemy.
She was in my way, and my mate was hurt.
She twisted her wrist and caught my sword with the blade of her own, victory flashing in her eyes along with the certainty of her cause—that I was the villain, the monster. I let her trap my sword; it didn't matter when I thrust my palm against her throat and pumped her full of magic.
Fuschia light splashed up her face; I held on until her grip on the sword grew weak and my blood buzzed with the rush of murder. Hairs rose all down my body as I watched the light leave her eyes. The others gave me a little burst of satisfaction and power, but her death made me seethe with it, and when she melted at my feet, I stormed through the puddle and met the Origin's eyes.
"Touch my mate again. I fucking dare you."
27
Icould barely look at Mav, but I forced my eyes to catalogue his injuries, to fan the flames of my rage. The armour had been knocked off three of his tentacles, two of which were burned badly enough that the dark blue skin was covered in red, weeping sores.
The third tentacle … it had been severed two feet from the tip and hung limply at Mav's side, blood spewing onto the ground. He had one tentacle left to defend himself, and it slashed wildly, knocking aside bursts of steam from the Origin and assaults from Vann. Vann, who was still in his human glamour, looking like his brother when I first saw him, when I killed him.
The Origin might have been happy using Vann as a weapon against us, but she wanted all evidence of his species hidden.
Hypocrite.
The Origin turned at the sound of my voice.
Touch my mate again. I fucking dare you.
A silver eyebrow raised—either at the growl of murder in my voice, or the blood and guts covering my body,orthe slew of gore I left in my wake.
Right now, blazing with magic and adrenaline, I actually felt dangerous. Normally, even when I killed shadowkind, I felt like an awkward, terrified thirty-one-year-old woman with crazy trauma, heightened paranoia, and a passion for all things cute and pink. But right now? I was steel and venom, and blood soaked my hair, turning it from silver to crimson.
"You again?" she sighed, exasperated—until I slammed my sword into her side, the muscles in my left bicep screaming at the exertion, and she howled.
I tore the sword free and came at her again, thrusting my weapon into the miasma of scalding steam around her and not giving a shit when my knuckles blistered. Wait, when had they healed from my earlier burns?
I frowned, but couldn't dwell on my new advanced healing because the Origin snarled at this second wound and lunged at me with her hands outstretched. Voices rose into a murmur—weapons and keepers watching but not intervening. I jerked aside and used the momentum to spin around the Origin, driving my sword into her back and pumping her full of dissolving, destructive power.
The rush of impending death made my heart race, and my blood sparked with rightness and victory, but before I could give her a lethal dose, something slammed into me.
I went flying into the wall beside Mav, my sword flung across the room, fingers closing around empty air.
Shit.
When I saw who'd knocked me aside, my heart stopped for a second. Vann. Empty, emotionless weapon Vann.
I glanced at Mav, partly to check he was still breathing but also to echo what he said earlier. We had to put Vann down. Vann would hate that he'd been made into this. Family was the most important thing to him; I'd lost track of the amount of hours he spent talking about his family in the hutch.
"I don't want to do this," I breathed, my eyes stinging as I pushed off the wall and faced down my friend.