“Seren, we should go.”
Behind her, Arabella stepped from the shadows, trailed by Roxanne Laurier and Lilith Sinclair, a strange and dangerous combination. If Lilith went to her aunt about this . . .
“This doesn’t concern us.”
Seren shrugged her sister’s grip off as Icarus considered a step forward, the words to send them away again danced unsteadily on his lips.
“Listen to your big sissy, Seren. Be a good girl for once.” Calder winked at her and shifted back so his head rested in a mucky crown of pine needles and twigs beneath him. Sharp rain splattered over his face, mixing with the crimson blood from their fight.
She hissed at him, and that lightning danced its way into her eyes now. She was stunning, long dark hair dripping with rain, but the dangerous power that flitted off her fingertips is what made Icarus swallow and take that careful step forward, hands raised to reason.
But Arabella beat him to it. “Seren,please,” she begged. “We shouldn’t be here.”
“Heshouldn’t be here,” Seren countered, gesturing towards Calder. “But since he is, he can do some explaining. Don’t you care, Bella? Don’t you want to know what true plans he has in store for you? He’s changed you. Tricked you into thinking you’re part of whatever this fairytale encompasses.”
Arabella wiped thick rain from her forehead, looking back to Roxanne for . . . reassurance? Support? Icarus couldn't be sure.
Seren wasn’t having it. Her fists clenched, and she pounded forward a step, a foot from where Icarus stood. It was as if he didn’t exist. Her dark eyes stayed narrowed on Calder, a promise of reckoning. “Tell me, Darkmore, how do we reverse it?”
Biting laughter escaped Calder, and Icarus knew he was about to make things worse. The reckless abandon shrouding those sharp features screamed it.
“Jealous, are we?” He shifted to stand, mud coating his back and flecked along the muscular planes of his abdomen that peeked through what was left of his fire-singed shirt. “But is it jealousy from the pain of me choosing her over you? Or because this new power of hers is beyond anything you could ever dream to yield?”
His tone was cold, petulant in a way that provoked terrible shivers up and down Icarus’s arms.
Seren’s face transformed with ethereal rage. “I will show you true pain, Calder Darkmore.Truepower."
To the brothers' joint amazement, they watched as Seren rose an inch off the ground, eyes glowing, streaks of lighting bounded along her skin like the lethal ripple of a swarm of electric eels. With a great rush of breath, that crackling heat shot from her hands, aimed at Cal with deadly accuracy.
Cal raised his augere, a malevolent spell waiting behind his lips.
“Wait, stop!” Arabella screamed, trying to move past her sister.
Without thinking, Icarus dove in front of his brother. Simultaneously, Arabella and that dark electricity slammed into him. White light and pain flooded his vision. Every nerve, every fiber screamed as Seren's lightning struck them. The pointed heat erupted from his chest to spread along his arms, up his neck, to the base of his skull.
There, darkness waited for him like an old friend.
Chapter thirteen
Calder Darkmore
ThemomentCalrealizedhis magic hit Ara, he collapsed, calling it all back to him and regretting every decision that had led him to this. The world around him slowed as her magic shot back as she fell, intertwining with his, racing and twirling, slamming into his body. He had told Icarus that she meant nothing to him, that she was a means to an end, but seeing his magic bring her pain had brought him to his knees even before her magic had retaliated.
He ran to her, but she was beyond his reach, the compulsion magic keeping him at bay. The witches that had come with the sisters ran to her instead, holding her in their arms. He let out a breath as she came to and stared at him in confusion, holding her head. His bruised ribs ached from the pressure of his lungs as they filled in relief when she got to her feet, supported by the redhead.
“Release me now, Icarus,” he demanded, his chest heaving as he pressed his hands into the invisible wall keeping him from Ara. He could feel her power like an invisible tether between them, drawing him to her. If he had doubted she was the vessel before now those thoughts were erased.
A muffled cry of agony behind him caused him to turn around, and he watched in horror as Icarus’s body was wracked with the black magic Seren had meant for him. His brother’s body seized violently on the ground, and Icarus’s hands clawed at his chest where the curse had been absorbed. The veins throughout his body were visible and black beneath his pale skin and they bulged grotesquely up his neck.
“Seren, release him,” he demanded, glancing at her. What he saw caused his heart to clench. She was lost to her magic.
Eiridis circled overhead but did not attack her despite the pain she inflicted on his master. Was it the snake poised at her feet ready to strike keeping him at bay?
“Please, Seren, let Icarus go. You’re killing him. You aren’t a murderer. You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if you killed him. Hurt me instead. It’s what you came here to do. I’m the one you want to punish.” He held his hands out, palms up in surrender. As much as he had desired to see his brother in pain only moments ago, he knew he would sacrifice himself to Seren if she would only stop.
He was kneeling next to his brother now, unsure of how he had even gotten there, the knees of his pants wet from the decaying leaves of the forest floor soaking through underneath. He gripped Icarus’s wrist to drag his hands away from where they were trying to carve at the magic eating away inside his chest. The muscles in his forearms strained as he pinned his brother to the ground. He vaguely wondered if his ribs were fractured instead of bruised as he panted with the effort it took to keep his brother from injuring himself further.
The Whispering Woods were silent now except for the sounds of Icarus struggling against her power. Eiridis and Horacio circled each other overhead, their silence unnerving, as if they were harbingers of death.
