The only one of Amadeus’s Undead that can wield magic after death—and they’re fucking powerful.
Withdrawing daggers from their hiding places, I roll my shoulders before racing into the battle with Crypt and Everett on either side of me. Already, I can sense the irresistible weight of death in the air as my blood begins to rush with readiness for the delicious chaos of a frenzied battle.
I race to leap up onto a ghoul, slicing Pierce through his neck. As he falls, I roll and take down a banshee, then several Undeadin quick succession. Twirling Pierce in my hand, a grin stretches over my face.
This is a fight I can handle. I was made for brutality like this.
I am nothing but deadly calm.
No—I’m more than that. Much more.
And as soon as this is over, the Divide is restabilized, and the dust begins to settle, my mission will be over. Then, finally, I’ll be able to focus on my newlybound quintet and give them every part of myself until I fade away.
We just have to survive this first.
40
MAVEN
Gods,I love combat.
Ice explodes to my left, freezing a section of shadow fiends solid. Crypt swings his enchanted sword, beheading a monstrous vampire before he drives it through the stomach of another lumbering ghoul. A bright flash of Silas’s unmistakable blood magic catches my eye in the distance. I hear Baelfire’s dragon roar just before the great beast leaps into the sky, its majestic wings sending powerful gusts of air down onto the battlefield.
Fighting alongside my quintet is glorious.
Baelfire laughs through the bond, the sound like cheer itself.You’re so fucking unhinged and cute, hellion. I love it.
Enough with theL-word. And I’m not cute, I correct, slicing through several more Undead.
Sexy as sin itself?Crypt suggests through the bond.
Temptation personified,Silas tacks on.
Everett’s internal voice is exasperated.You horny idiots are going to get yourselves killed. We’re all right as long as we agree that Maven is attractive to a ludicrously unholy degree. Now get your heads out of your asses and focus.
Lightning crackles through the sky high above as the storm that has been threatening finally breaks above the raging fight.
Amadeus can’t keep sending forces forever,I tell them through the bond as I use dark magic to incapacitate a wendigo before beheading it.If we drive them back into the Divide, I can get to the nearest temple and start refortifying the?—
I cut off when a blast of spine-tingling magic sends me flying backward. I crash into a pile of dismembered Undead, smacking my head on something as my ears ring. Blinking and rolling to my side, I realize that attack came from one of the liches. He’s spotted me and is crossing through the battle, his glowing red eyes like miniature fires inside that fleshless skull.
Crypt and Everett are at my side immediately. Crypt helps me stand. He stares down the approaching lich while Everett checks my head for damage. This time, when the lich sends a blast of its magic toward us, I lift my hands to rip through it with my own magic.
I barely register the chilling hiss of a nearby basilisk before the shadowy serpent sinks its fangs into Crypt’s leg. He swears and turns to slice at it with his sword, but a rotting Undead barrels into him, knocking him to the ground. His scuffle distracts me for a fraction of a second?—
And when the lich hurls a cutting spell toward me with blinding speed, Everett leaps in front of me.
He cries out, collapsing. I swear, dropping to the ground to dodge another attack spell as I turn Everett toward me.
Shit. His face is covered in blood.
He was hit hard.
Cutting spells are simple. They function just like blades, and now my ice elemental looks like someone cut a long gash from one of his hips, diagonally through his chest, and up over half of his face, passing over his eye all the way up to his left temple.Blood drips freely from the long wound as he hisses in pain, squinting the eye that the slash crosses over.
Everett’s eye isn’t gone, thank the fucking universe—but the rest of the cut is deep. He’s losing blood quickly. When he tries to move, he chokes on the pain.
Seeing my beautiful match in agony floods me with rage. Looking up, I deflect another attack spell just in time, dipping into the life forces rushing inside my veins. I grit my teeth and fire off several brutal attack spells toward the lich to ward it away and buy time.
