I lift my hands to raise an ice shield against a spray of bullets before sending another solid wave of ice and freezing a nearby siren just as she begins to sing. Baelfire snarls at some other attack and sweeps his tail through the growing sea of enemies. Crypt continues to send maniacal, homicidal chaos throughout the crowd.
But it still seems like we’ll be lucky to make it out of this with all our limbs attached.
Amid the flashes of magic, snarling shifters, deafening gunshots, and howls of hellhounds, a dark cold sweeps through the street, which has become a battlefield. I tense until I see Maven stalking out of the ruined, smoking rowhouse with daggers in both hands, her hair tied up, looking every bit as deadly as she did in that photo on the news.
Especially because she's smirking like sheactuallystumbled across a party and not an oversized attack.
“Thetelum!”a nearby vampire shouts. “Atta–”
One of her daggers plants itself in his throat. I grimace as his head falls back at an unnatural angle.
As soon as they know my keeper is here, all forces target her. She deflects several blasts of magic, rolls away from a shifter, rips out an elemental's heart, and kills off a hellhound within a matter of seconds.
It's impossiblenotto watch as the woman who owns my heart and soul steps into the slaughter like she owns the damn place. The way she moves with lethal agility and kills as naturally as breathing is both spellbinding and fucking terrifying.
Or maybe the terrifying part is her smile…except I really like watching Maven enjoy herself.
“Arati, bless my beautiful maniac,” I breathe.
37
EVERETT
On your right,Silas warns just in time for me to turn and freeze a hellhound.
The fight continues, but with Maven and Silas now in the mix, it starts to lean in our favor—until I hear Silas swear nearby over the loud fight.
A necromantic spell he’s casting fizzles out as he tries to dodge a coyote shifter. Its claws still slice shallowly through his chest. He falls back, rolling away from the shifter until I stab it with my ice saber and kick it aside.
“Two types of magic, and you're still useless,” I huff.
He glares at me, red irises blazing. “Only with a Void nearby.”
Shit. I almost forgot about the Void.
I help him stand, and we turn to watch a tall, thin woman with completely whited-out eyes walk into the street. All magic dies within a few yards of her. She's getting closer to where Maven is gleefully slaughtering our enemies with crackling explosions of dark magic—but before we can warn our keeper, Crypt blurs into existence behind the Void and snaps her neck.
Okay, then. That problem was solved way easier than I thought.
Except then, Crypt’s voice comes urgently through the bond.
Our pretty berserker has come out to play.
As soon as he points it out, I can see it, too. The way Maven is tearing through the decreasing enemies has changed completely. Her movements are just as brutal but far less calculated and precise. She still sweeps through the legacies and hellhounds like death itself—only now she’s completely wild, flinging herself into each new threat with a deranged, breathtaking bloodlust evident in every movement.
She’s too far gone to notice when two bullets hit her.
Or when a hellhound clamps its jaw around her thigh, tearing at her flesh.
Fuck,Baelfire swears through the bond.She’s going to get herself killed.
Baelfire’s dragon slices through the hellhound latched onto our keeper with one massive claw. The dragon’s tail wraps around the berserker, trying to prevent her from diving back into the fight. But he roars in shock and pain when more dark magic explodes from her body, crackling over his tail and sending the massive beast staggering in agony.
Our berserking keeper immediately darts back into the massacre. Silas and I race after her, using magic and ice to blast enemies away from our out-of-control keeper before they can harm her. She rips out hearts, tears hellhounds to pieces with her magic, and sends crackling waves of her uniquely unholy ability through anything living that she sees, leaving a path of blood and excessive gore in her wake.
Unstoppable and fueled by death. The perfect weapon.
Except if we’re not careful, she can be killed permanently.
