“This has been fun, Amana. Chasing you with a gun in my hand is kind of a turn on, to be honest.”
He casually slapped me across the face, and I used the momentum to sneak a glance behind me. Mella was crouched beneath her desk. Why wasn’t anything happening?
The chains. Maybe her pelt wasn’t enough against the Naud Chains.
Fuck.
I turned my attention back to Bruce.
He raised one eyebrow and stood, placing his foot on my stomach. My ribs screamed at me as I struggled, but I was trapped like a butterfly on a pin. I needed to keep him talking.
“Now you’re going to die, and I hope Lucifer makes it last for weeks.”
“And what do you think Samael will do about that?”
He angled his head. “Not my problem. I have four people who’ll swear I’m hanging out with them right now.”
“And Wes and Ben?”
Something dark and excited slid into his gaze. “Sacrifices must be made. And those sacrifices will pave the way for a world without demons.”
A shiver ran up my spine as a warning siren rang out in my brain. There was something I wasn’t seeing. Some bigger part of this plan that I’d missed.
I swallowed. “Think about the worst way you’ve ever thought about dying,” I advised him. “And prepare yourself, because when the demons get hold of you, it’ll be worse.”
He jabbed his foot into my stomach. I screamed as he jostled my ribs.
“Hey Bruce?” Mella’s voice was achingly sweet.
He glanced past me, and I slid my hand beneath me, pulling the knife Rose had given me. Now or never.
Power exploded.
I flew through the air. My body hit the wall and my knee popped.
The air left my lungs, and then a scream was ripped from my throat as an unseen force lifted me, then pushed me beneath the closest desk. It jostled my knee further.
Mella. Maybe she was trying to be helpful. I dragged myself further from the selkie, tears streaming down my face as agony ripped through me.
I used my arms to pull myself behind a fallen bookshelf, the movement making my stomach swim.
WHOOSH
A fireball flew past my head. Every window in the library shattered.
Bruce’s screams were terrible. He begged for mercy, and while I hated him more than I hated most people, his desperate wails made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
The building shook as Mella laughed. The entire right wall of the library disappeared.
I was going to die here, crushed like a bug as the building pancaked.
“Mella, stop!” I screamed.
A bookshelf fell on top of me, pinning my legs. My knee was on fire, and I leaned over and vomited.
Someone was snarling. The deep, animalistic sound made me shudder and I peered around the bookshelf, squinting through the smoke. Mella had transformed into something out of a nightmare. Her long, blonde hair had darkened to a blue so deep it was almost black. Her teeth had lengthened, becoming long, lethal fangs, and her face was sharper somehow, her cheekbones jutting out in a way that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
But it was the feral, vicious expression on her face that turned my blood cold. I froze as my deepest instincts warned me not to attract the attention of the predator in front of me.
