Kylan hissed.Turned toward him.Blood on his lips.
“You brought this on yourself, child.I didn’t seek to harm you.”
Antonio braced for the crash of magic against him.Heat, and a flare of mint.Scattering like dandelion seeds when it touched him.Hollow, and Kylan’s outburst was nothing like the forceful intent of the kelpie’s curse.
He grabbed Kylan’s wrist.Almost as thin as Declan’s.The man jerked back.A shower of sparks.Flame against his palm.Magic fires still burned.
His grip loosened.Just a little.
Too much.
Kylan fell backward.
Toward the fight.Onto the ring of silver blades.So many edges.So sharp and ready.
“Have you ever shivved anyone?”
Red skin and red blood.So much of it.
Kylan’s eyes.Wide with shock.Dull in death.
He didn’t even scream.
But someone did.Screamed.And screamed.And screamed.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Declan
Nimailoomed,eyeswildwith that nasty little temper of his.Declan bared his teeth, reached for power, that dark writhing hum off himself, and found it wanting.
Every pull came with less, and gilded with an edged, medicinal taste.Mint?
A burn like metal left in the sun.Antonio’s anger, eating away at the strangeness, a blast of sand over crumbling leaves, as sharp edged as the tendrils of magic Declan snapped toward Nimai’s face, only for the brownie to stagger out of the way.
A collective gasp filled the air.Through the crisp bite of mint, lilac ink blossomed, spilled over, flooding his veins with a force that nearly knocked Declan off his feet.The sudden return of his magic hit like the aftermath of a needle.
Nimai’s handsome face twisted in shock, then a rictus of horror.Declan faltered, fell still entirely when the brownie’s mouth opened in a raw, guttural scream.Anguished.Ripped from the depths of his soul.
Deep lungfuls of smoke and steel engulfed Declan for a second time, another rush, the scrape of copper and stroke of leather at odds with Nimai on his knees, expression still twisted and that primal sound torn from him again and again.
The urge to look back, to see what was going on, tugged at Declan.A rash, suicidal instinct.Instead, Declan approached Nimai and clapped his hand over that shrieking mouth.Nimai scrabbled at his arm with blunt, frantic nails, those lovely blue eyes streaming tears and fixed on Declan’s face.
Declan, who smiled with all his teeth.Who dug his nails in, cut deep into cheeks, and dragged Nimai up, in.Who hissed in his ear,“Pathetic.You deserve worse.”Who then forced all those pretty, glittering rainbow shards of glass through the brownie’s back and neck, and sealed them closed with his slick, oozing magic, thentwisteduntil he heard thepopof vertebrae.
Nimai fell silent.Slack.
Declan dropped the body to the floor, already turning on unsteady knees.Red on silver blades greeted him.Kylan’s crumpled form collapsed to the ground as the swords disintegrated like so much sand.
Antonio stood just there, unharmed, staring down at the qilin’s corpse.Shock reverberated through the bond, though the man’s expression remained blank.
“Antonio!”Declan skirted around Kylan’s broken form with barely a glance.He took hold of Antonio’s arm, relief and concern bright in equal measure.
Antonio blinked numbly, then glanced behind Declan.Recognition, there, in the bond, and the cold creeping voids Declan knew from his own first foray into self defense.
“I told him.”Antonio’s voice was flat.His eyes, when he looked back to Declan, were pleading.“I told him to stop.He wouldn’tstop.”
“I believe you.I do.”Declan cupped Antonio’s cheek to turn him away from Nimai’s body.He pressed his forehead to Antonio’s and swallowed back ash.“He’d have cored me out before I realized.”
