“You fucking bastard.Don’t you do it.”Silas gripped the bars until his knuckles turned white.“Back away from her now!”
He gave Silas a patronizing look.“It’s over.Laina’s blood and that of her unborn child will be the ultimate sacrifice.Watch, Alpha,” he spat out.“Learn what happens to those who cross Alex Ravien Bloodright.”
Alex placed his hand on the open book and began to chant.The amulet around his neck ignited, glowing bright red.Sweat beaded across his forehead as his face tightened with concentration.Purple flames sparked near the bonfire, then spread along the stones, encircling the demon, the vampire, and Nickelova.
The dragon fae’s screams rent the darkness.Ordinary fire couldn’t hurt a dark fae, but this was far from ordinary.It blistered her flesh.Silas covered his ears at her pitiful cries.She was helpless against the flames that consumed her.The vampire, drugged and barely conscious, did not scream at all.She burned as if she were already dead.The demon’s shrieks rivaled Nickelova’s.
Silas had no personal attachment to the three creatures burning alive.Nickelova, at least, had earned her place in the flames.But no creature deserved the brutality of this ritual.The entire thing turned his stomach.Evil by any definition.And he knew Laina was next.
As Alex continued his chant, Silas noticed something change.The glow of the amulet faded with Nickelova’s screams.Was it possible that once she was dead, its magic would die altogether?
And then it was over.Nickelova and the demon went abruptly silent.The three rings were swallowed entirely by fire, Nickelova’s body now unrecognizable, a silhouette of ash.The demon was gone too, along with the bones that had called it there.The vampire had been reduced to a pile of dust.
Alex slumped over the book, his chant becoming weaker.The amulet was as dark as an ordinary piece of jewelry.Now was Silas’s chance.Alex was drained, and Nickelova’s death appeared to have rendered the amulet useless.If he could escape, he might be able to take Alex down.
A hand landed on his shoulder.Jason.His brother pointed toward the hole.Meredith, human Meredith, stood naked on the other side of the bars.She motioned to him, glancing back at Alex.
Silas approached her cautiously.“Can I trust you?”he whispered.
“It wasn’t me,” she said.“Whatever you think I did, it was my mother.She made herself look like me.Do you remember what I tried to show you in Soleil’s room?”
“The pink-tinged jelly.”
“Every time a skinwalker shifts, they leave behind an excretion.It’s a thick mucus their body produces to protect them from the shift.When I saw it in Soleil’s room, I knew my mother had been the one to steal the book.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?Why did you run?”
“I left you the heart, knowing the enchantment around your house would protect it,” she babbled, not answering his question.“I thought you’d destroy Nickelova and end this.But then my mother lured your sister away.”
“I hate to break up this little reunion, but we’ve got to hurry.Come on, brother.There’s no time for this.”Jason glanced over his shoulder.
Alex’s chanting grew louder, the fire blazing toward the sky in great plumes.
Silas stared at Meredith, trying to fit all the pieces together in his head.Had she been the one to shoot Soleil?Why had she run?
Jason shoved him aside.“Snap out of it!You can talk it out once we’ve saved Laina and are standing over Alex’s body.”
He tried his best to fit through the hole.It was too small, even for him.Meredith picked up a stick and started breaking off pieces of rocky soil, helping Jason fight his way through.
“Can you shift back?It will be faster if you dig,” Jason said.
With tears in her eyes, Meredith took one more look at Silas and shifted into fox form.She dug frantically at the hole.
Jason succeeded in getting his head and one arm through but could go no farther.
“What now?”Silas murmured, his heart a lead weight in his chest.
As if in answer to his question, the ground began to shake.He bent his knees to avoid falling over.Jason backed out of the hole, and together, they turned around to face the ritual.The three interlocking circles crumbled and dropped as if a massive sinkhole had formed beneath it.Fire shot from the hole, sparks cascading into the night sky with a bloom of sulfur-scented air.In the center of it all, a dark figure rose, a huge beast, humanoid but for two massive horns growing from the sides of its head.The sight of the thing filled Silas’s heart with the kind of dread he’d only known in nightmares.
“By the goddess,” Jason murmured by his side.“What the hell is that thing?”
Silas took a deep breath before answering.“We’ve never been formally introduced, but I’m guessing that’s Panaal.”
Olivia held a dagger out to Alex, whose eyes focused on Laina’s unconscious body.
Rage filled Silas, a deep, hot need for revenge that made his skin bubble as his wolf came to the surface.He hated Alex, and as the goddess was his witness, he would not let him win.Concentrating all his hateful energy on his right hand, Silas drew on the eclipsed moon above and willed the appendage to shift.His bones broke and his fingers melded into his palm.
“Silas… Holy shit.”Jason stared in amazement at his shifted hand.“I didn’t know that was possible!”
