I try struggling, but I’m completely pinned as the others fight the creepily coordinated attacks of Natalya’s puppets. Baelfire has lost his dragon form and is passed out from the tranquilizer. Crypt and Silas try to keep the mind-controlled legacies away from Maven’s icy enclosure. But Silas’s magic is flagging, and as I watch, Crypt is tackled from behind by a fucking bear shifter.
Meanwhile, Natalya Genovese uses her vamp speed to dart to where I’m trying to summon ice—but I’m also running out of steam. I can’t breathe under this heavy mass of bricks and shit.
Natalya shows off her fangs as she examines me, preening like the well-dressed predator she is. “Why can’t I get into your handsome head?”
I’ve never been so grateful for Silas’s magic. If we survive this, I’ll even thank him.
The immortal reaches down, her hand wrapping around my neck. I choke in pain as she pulls me out of the crushing debris like it weighs nothing to her—but then, in a blindingly fast move, she pins me to the asphalt with my hands over my head. Struggling against her is like fighting against steel bands.
Fucking vampyr strength.
Natalya’s blue eyes still glow, her pupils like hungry pinpricks as she bares her fangs at me again, this time with a carnal smile. Somewhere in the fight, I hear a loud crack?—
Like ice breaking.
Like someone just got through Maven’s shield.
Maven?I send through the bond, alarmed as I struggle.
I try to send a spike of ice up beside my head to stab Natalya, but she’s too fast and dodges the spike with ease.
“Worry not, I’ll let my new friends rip that hideous revenant of yours to shreds,” she purrs. “It won’t be long now, and I just cannot stand getting my hands dirty when they could be so much morepleasantlyoccupied.”
I strain away from her, bending my neck desperately to see if Maven is okay—but the bitch takes the opportunity to lick my neck.
Dear gods, that is fucking repulsive.
I gag and try to freeze her, but the glaze of ice barely encompasses Natalya before she breaks out of it as easily as a snake shedding its skin. Proof that I’m tapped out from the fight.
“Get the fuckoffof me,” I grit out.
From somewhere beyond this horrific moment, I hear Silas shout before it gets quiet.
Really damn quiet.
Natalya has the audacity to fuckinggiggle, batting her eyes at me. “I think I’ll keep you alive. I’ve always wanted to play with a Frost. Now that your brothers have fallen and I’ve won, let’s take a look at how your keeper looks in pieces, shall we?”
She darts upright, pulling me with her. I struggle to keep my footing, looking around desperately for Maven.
I don’t see her, but I do see why it’s quiet.
The rest of Natalya’s puppets are now dead, their corpses joining the countless others on the street. The only people left standing are Silas and Crypt, but just barely. Both of them look like injury-riddled shit as they turn to face us.
Just as Natalya hisses in displeased anger, Maven blurs to a stop in front of us, moving quicker than a shifter. The vampyr drops me, reaching for Maven with an infuriated shriek.
Maven moves faster. She sidesteps the immortal, ducks under another attack, reaches around Natalya’s head, and?—
Rips it clean off.
“That’s for Amato,” she mutters as the immortal falls.
I watch in disgusted, morbid fascination as my keeper drops the head before reaching down and searching Natalya’s headless corpse. She removes a choker necklace from some hidden pocket inside the cut-out dress’s skirt, sets it on the asphalt, and wastes no time driving Pierce into it.
As the pendant shatters, I realize it was etherium.
Immediately, the ground rumbles like there’s a distant earthquake. The dawn seems to dim, and snow begins to fall lightly from clouds that have steadily crept into the sky during the ambush. Everything feels darker—almost less colorful, somehow.
The Nether is creeping into the mortal realm even more.
