This is how I die, shot through the chest by someone I thought was my friend.
Weirdly, the thought brought no anger or sadness, only peace.
I would die today having spoken a truth, having sacrificed myself to protect Maeve, having fought for the coven, for earth – the home I’d never been allowed to know.
It might have taken me my whole damn life, but I’d finally done the right thing.
I lifted my hands, palms facing Liah. I broke into a smile.
“Go ahead, Liah. I’m waiting.”
Liah’s fingers twitched on the bowstring. Her face remained passive, her eyes containing only that callous coldness she’d possessed back when I found her beside the sidhe, Daigh’s rune carved into her arm and the broken pieces of scientific equipment at her feet.
She didn’t loose the arrow.
I sucked in a breath. It was a perfect shot. She had me completely at her mercy. So why did she hesitate?
Corbin slammed into her from the side. Liah’s face crumpled as they sailed across the room. He smashed her into a pillar. They slid to the floor, limbs and bow and dagger tangled together. Liah’s rope pinned her arm, and she swore and screamed as she battered Corbin with her one good fist. None of the other fae moved to help her, and Corbin quickly pinned her other arm.
“We’ve got all we can,” a Seelie warrior yelled. “The rest will follow in the Slaugh. Fall back!”
I glanced around. He was right. Most of the humans had disappeared – fallen by the shillelagh or the bone blade, their bodies taken by the darkness, leaving behind only dark trails of blood where they had be dragged across the floor. The only corpses that littered the church were the fae we had slain.
The rest of the fae started to leap into the fissures. They dragged the bodies of their dead across the stained marble and tossed them into the void, then leapt in after them. The black abyss curled around them, dragging them down to the place we had no hope of reaching.
Liah kicked and struggled. Corbin bent over her, his lips curled back into a nasty snarl as he raised his dagger?—
“Don’t kill her,” I cried. “Let her go with the others.”
Wait, where the fuck did that come from?
She betrayed you. She lied to you. She just tried to kill Maeve. She doesn’t deserve mercy.
Corbin paused, his blade hovering inches from her neck. Liah hissed through her teeth.
“Let her go,” I repeated.
I’m going to regret the hell out of this.
Corbin growled as he swung his arm and tossed Liah away. She sobbed as she hit the marble and skidded into the fissure. “Blake—” she choked out, but the void stole her words as it consumed her, her body disappearing into the blackness.
I sank to my knees, sucking a breath in through my lungs – lungs that should have been perforated by Liah’s arrow, but weren’t.
It didn’t make sense. Liah had made it clear she was with Daigh. The burns from touching Maeve’s scientific equipment and the raw cuts from Daigh’s rune still marred her flesh.
So why did she threaten Maeve?
And why didn’t she follow through on her threat?
Liah could have killed me, but she hesitated.Why?
CHAPTER NINE
MAEVE
Blake looked shell-shocked. I rushed to him, but I’d barely grazed his shoulder when someone behind me yelled. “Maeve, help!”
When will this nightmare end?
