“I’ll charm him,” Christian said decidedly. “We’ll get him to do our bidding, one way or another.”
I stood at Sparrow’s feet. “You can’t. He’s immune to Vampire gifts. That’s why he surrounds himself with Vampires. He’s not afraid of them controlling him.”
Blue folded her arms. “Then we have to kill him.”
“But if we kill the male, we stay this way.Allof those at the party stay this way,” Claude countered. “There’s no undoing it. At least if he’s alive, we can come up with a plan.”
Gem clutched Claude’s arm and rested her head against him. “But what choice do we have?”
Christian’s brow quirked when I gave him a steely look. He couldn’t read my mind, but he sensed I was scheming.
I stood over Sparrow, my feet planted on either side of him. After I sat on his chest, I raised his arms up by his head, palm side up.
“Everyone has a weakness.” I stared deep into his brown eyes, hoping Sparrow could sense what was coming. “Yours is underestimating people. You knew if we found you here, the only way you could get out alive was to trap us. Weren’t you even a little bit curious as to what my Mage gift is? Maybe you have it all worked out in your head what spell you’ll do next when I pull out that dagger, but guess what? I’ve got a surprise.” I gripped his hands and locked fingers. “Lights out.”
As I extracted his energy, I felt the usual current flowing into my hands. His core light was strong and harder to steal. Light crackled between our hands as I drank his power like a summer wine.
Gem gasped. “Jiminy Christmas! Look at her hair!”
I met eyes with Christian. “Take out the dagger when I say. Don’t touch it yet.” Mage energy didn’t affect Vampires, but I didn’t want him touching that blade until it was time.
He knelt beside me, his hand ready.
A strange humming vibrated through me at a low frequency, and I suddenly knew what an amplifier felt like. I cried out, but it wasn’t until I saw the terror in Sparrow’s eyes that I knew I would win.
Or blow us all the hell up.
“God,it hurts!” I bit out.
“You can do this,” Christian said, feeding me courage.
My skin instantly heated up like a boiling pot of water. Christian was speaking, but I couldn’t hear anything but a constant buzzing. Sparrow’s power was unlike anything I’d ever known—like comparing a marble to a planet. All his darkness poured into me, but it wasn’t as concentrated as other men I’d stolen from. It was as if his power was a separate entity, like a borrowed suit that didn’t quite fit.
Blue threads of light hovered over my entire body as the energy and heat swelled between our palms.
Almost there. Just a little bit more. Ohh, it hurts so much. I can’t do it. It burns.
Incensed by his stubborn energy, I channeled my rage and focused on consuming every drop of his light until I thought I might spontaneously combust. And then I felt it—his core light just within my grasp.
“Now!” I shouted.
When Christian pulled out the dagger, I reversed the energy flow but only slightly. Just enough to give him healing light before it was too late. A feral scream poured out of me. A second before his wound completely sealed, a pulse of white light blinded everyone. Sparrow’s immortality snapped free, generating a powerful blast like touching a million volts of electricity. Thunder crashed, and the force of energy blew me backward.
CHAPTER28
“Raven, wake up,” I heard Christian say.
My skin chilled, and tremors racked my body. It wasn’t the snow against my back but the tremendous power within me cooling down. For a few moments, I didn’t feel like a person anymore. I was a lake of energy beneath an electric-blue sky. The muffled sounds of my panicked teammates were distant. I closed my eyes, drunk with Mage energy. This was the first time I wasn’t sickened by dark light. Maybe Sparrow hadn’t personally committed that many sins. Or maybe his power was so great that it masked his own energy instead of fusing with it.
Christian came into focus, and he looked so handsome. The air around him was light and smoky, making his dark hair and eyes absolutely beautiful. My gaze drifted down to his sexy mouth and the scruff around it that had become overgrown. It was as if I was seeing the world for the first time. Everything was so vivid.
He stroked my cheek with his thumb. “She’ll be all right,” he said, his gaze tender. “You can’t kill this one.”
Gem’s frosted lavender hair dangled over me, her violet eyes cartoonishly wide. “That was epic. I’ve never seen so much power in a transfer before.”
Gem was too pretty to be working in a dangerous outfit like Keystone. Her eyes sparkled from all the shimmery makeup she had on, but she hadn’t covered the beauty mark below her left eye. I couldn’t stop staring. My senses must have been altered in some way by the energy, and all I could smell was ozone.
They helped me sit up.
