She looked immaculate in her pristine white coat. Hair perfectly swept back. Hands folded loosely in front of her like she’d arrived for tea instead of blood.
“Honestly, Cora.” She sighed. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
Hudson’s shoulder brushed mine. I could tell he was fighting the need to step in front of me.
“Leave. Now,” he growled, lethal and low.
Eloise’s gaze flicked over him with bored disdain.
“You’ve upgraded,” she mused. “Reaper suits you. But you have the power of a fallen angel, while I command the power of a god. It won’t save you.”
My power flared and instinctively reached for the well inside of me. Both my own and the borrowed magic Donn had forced me to take. It slammed into something solid.
“What did you do?” I snapped.
Eloise smiled. Slow. Satisfied. “Darling, I anchored you.”
The elementals moved as one, a practised group with a look of determination etched on their faces. These people weren’t here to take prisoners, and they wouldn’t hesitate with a blade.
Sigils flared beneath our feet, snapping into place with a thunderclap that threatened to drop me to my knees. The air thickened, reality locking around us like a cage.
Hudson roared, and his reaper power slammed against me as he tried to shift us away.
Nothing happened.
He looked at me. “I can’t.”
“I know,” I hissed.
Warmth dribbled from my nose. I swiped at it, finding blood.
Eloise stepped closer, her eyes bright with triumph. “You’ve been siphoning what’s mine, pulling threads you don’t understand. Nashville was enlightening.”
The ground trembled beneath us.
“It was never yours, Eloise; it was borrowed. If you paused to really take a good look inside yourself, you’d see that it is rotting you from the inside out.”
“Ridiculous. That power is rightfully mine.” Her voice snapped like a whip, vicious and sure. “You didn’t make a deal with a god.”
I folded my arms and raised a brow. Eloise’s jaw ticced. “You stupid, stupid, girl. Did I teach you nothing?”
I shook my head. “Oh, Eloise, you taught me so much, so you only have yourself to blame.”
The elementals raised their hands, and power glowed between them. All four types were represented. Eloise brought the big guns.
Hudson met them head-on. Reaper steel emerged in his hand, and power exploded outward as he tore into them. Their souls should have been spilling into the world, but they didn’t come, and their bodies kept moving.
Hudson swore, fury edging into something sharper. “They’re empty.”
“Not empty,” Eloise corrected with a harsh laugh. “Hollowed. Reinforced. You can’t reap what I’ve already carved out.”
Pain exploded across my shoulder as an elemental’s spell slammed into me, hurling me into the side of the car. Something cracked in my face. Cheekbone, maybe? I tasted blood.
Hudson turned at my cry, giving them the opening they wanted. Chains of magic snapped around him, dragging him to one knee, trying to yank his scythe from his hand.
I forced myself up, vision swimming. We were losing. Outnumbered. Outmatched. Trapped. She’d shut me off from my power, and I couldn’t match her right now. Not when I didn’t even understand what drove her.
Eloise approached, her heels crunching glass as she crouched. “Give it back,” she whispered. “Every stolen thread. Or I’ll peel it out of you piece by piece.” She caressed my throbbing cheek, and I screamed when her magic tore into my chest, ripping power free like an exposed nerve.
