“Destroy all of the shards of her soul!” the man yelled at me. “Only the tiniest sliver of a soul is rendered useless, and the brain must still be intact. Kill her soul shards and destroy her brain after to ensure she can’t be brought back!”
My power writhed inside of her, consuming what little of her soul was in her heart, and it wound through her limbs and brain until it ate every bit of soul inside her body.
Each part of her soul that was eaten sent waves of agony and darkness threatening to corrupt me.
As I ate each fragment, it lit up each of my matebonds, and my mates pushed their power to me to be able to handle it without losing myself.
The air was thick with the scent of sulfur, but Sybil, deprived of the bloodstone’s power and Nebula’s power, wasn’t as strong as she thought she was.
The ritual started to backfire because she was no longer in control of it. The dark magic, only half-way summoned, screeched in fury as the portal between the Veil and Kalista destabilized. The entire room flooded with dark magic, and the cultists screamed as the spell Sybil had cast consumed them one by one, their life forces and the dark magic in their bodies sucked into the collapsing portal, which pulsated dangerously below Sybil and I.
She furiously attempted to seize back the stone, sinking into a portal that appeared above the one below her before oozing back up behind Dex, zapping him with dark magic as she swiped for the stone in his hand.
But my power brought me with her as I ate away at every piece of her soul and dark magic inside her body. I fell out of the portal behind her.
“Pandora!” Dex tossed the stone above her head, and my shadow struck out, grabbing it and sinking back into my palm, leaving the bloodstone with me.
Sybil’s rage twisted her expression, and her eyes blazed. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with! Return it to me, or I’ll tear you apart!” Her voice echoed, almost demonically, as she fought to regain control of the ritual instead of fighting for her life.
“You only have one shard of a soul left,” I informed her.
“No!”She screamed, her dark eyes flicking around the room to every dead cultist lying on the ground. “You can’t do this, you little bitch!”
“I already did.” I felt the souls I’d freed and the dark magic I’d consumed swirling within me, but my magic only surged in response as my power continued eating away at her. “This is for every life you’ve stolen, every mind you twisted, and every demon you’ve corrupted.”
Vengeance sparked to life inside of me. I’d waited so long to enact it upon this dark magic witch that caused so much fucking pain in my life and my mates’ lives—and Nebula’s life.
Sybil dropped to her knees in front of me, the dark magic in her veins had faded to gray as she weakly smirked up at me. “Do it, if you dare. You think you can handle the two-hundred years of darkness I’ve wrought?”
“With Nebula’s support, I know I can,” I told her as Dex and Damien snaked their shadows around her body. My shadow came out and did the same before another shadow encircled her as Wren appeared next to a fae with long, blue hair.
“I told Thorn to bring me, so don’t be mad at him,” Wren told her mates. “I needed to be here for this.”
Rowan huffed, but he didn’t argue as he stepped behind her with the rest of her mates that were here.
“Your death was only possible because of Nebula’s sacrifice. Youneverdeserved him,” I croaked as I absorbed the last bit of her soul, tearing it from her body.
Her eyes rolled back, but at the last minute, a vampire swooped in and created a bloodstone of Sybil as she broke down into ash. Her body and brain had been completely destroyed.
“Good,” the warlock with brown hair breathed. “She won’t be able to come back with her body reduced to ash.”
My power encircled the bloodstone, stuffing the smallest fragment of Sybil’s soul within it before funneling back into my body, where her soul fed my reserves and the dark magic inside her was destroyed.
The vampire’s red eyes lit up with mischief as he looked at me. “Did you just…”
“I—”
A blast of dark magic erupted from the portal in the floor, sending us all to the ground.
Dex barely snuck underneath me before we hit the ground. “I’ve got you, trouble.”
“Close it!” Grimsworn shouted, and he and the warlock that arrived with Damien, I was pretty sure his name was Kian, used their magic on the portal to close it.
They made quick work of it, and soon, we all stood outside of the corrupted temple with the portal safely closed and dark magic nowhere to be seen. Grimsworn and Kian had also warded the temple off completely, so if anyone came down here, it’d be almost impossible to open.
I dropped to my knees with a tired sob, and all of my mates reached for me at once, helping me back to my feet.
“Are you hurt?” Dad was in front of me, checking me over in an instant, and he only relaxed when he saw no harm had come to me.
