The stories of my childhood warned against the very thing I thought about doing. I’d already killed someone with my magick, something I knew was going to come back to haunt me,but to go against everything my parents taught me was almost as hard. It was like a fail-safe built within me. Before I could talk myself out of it, I approached Kol.
Ezra and Kai tensed and stepped up in case the djinn suddenly broke free and tried to cut my throat. Or whatever. Overprotective, the both of them. I had plenty of power left to do what needed to be done. It was strange, acknowledging the untapped stores resting at my core. They rivaled what I knew lurked inside Kai at any given moment, and he was the most powerful super I’d ever come across.
I was stalling.
I shook out my hands and gathered my magick. Unspooling threads of it, I pulled more than ever before, then added a little extra—just in case. It was going to take a lot to get through Kol’s defenses, and I had to be precise. The very tips of my fingers touched the heir’s temples, and I fell. Deep into his mind, even deeper into my power, I pushed past layers of blockades and mental defenses that were as complex as my own.
This was an entire lifetime’s worth of work. Some of these walls were probably laid in childhood, and yet, I found ways around them. Through them. I smashed them the fuck down with surgical precision. My hair lifted off my neck, exposing sensitive skin to the humid air. Static raised goosebumps on my arms. This was almost too much power, it blinded me as I forced it to bend to my will. I wondered what it looked like from the outside.
Your eyes are black,Kai answered.It’s kind of hot.
I snorted. He would find that attractive.
A few more slices through Kol’s psyche, and I severed his ability to ever find his way back. For the rest of his days, as long as he breathed, he would be unable to function as heir ever again. If he could do more than babble nonsense it would be a good day for him.
I basically obliterated his mind.
Vomit flooded my throat as I pulled back and away from the tangled mess that was left. I turned just in time to be sick over the side of the boat. I never wanted to do that again, but my work wasn’t done. There were three more djinn to deal with. Breaking them wasn’t necessary, and I wasn’t sure I had it in me to do it again anyway.
With shaking knees, I floated to each of my victims, my magick on a tight leash lest it try to take more liberties now that it was free. I erased the events of tonight and whatever I could find that led up to it. In their place, I planted ideas that their heir was unraveling.
Kol was insane, obsessed with killing Kaiden Alantes and his bond. He would do anything to stay in power, including frame the fellow heir for murder and try to kidnap the protected nightmare. I installed thoughts of doubt and negligence and wrapped them all up in a pretty bow that ended with the djinn laying an illusion around the boat until their people could get here to clean it all up. The guard I killed would have to be lost at sea because there was no other way to hide how he died.
Three birds, one stone.
Between their testimonies, the now-broken Kol, and the video on Rani’s phone, we should be in the clear. I tried to find a way around the guilt, but despite the djinn deserving everything I’d just done, regret and shame tried to dig their claws into me. I had to push them into a little mental box and hide them in a dark corner to be examined later. After tons of therapy and puppy cuddles. Definitely some chocolate.
And sex,Kai added.
I glared at him, but a small smile pulled at my lips. I was going to be okay; he’d make sure of it.
The morning sun was slow to rise, and that fucking sucked because I needed its light to help find my best friend. Storm clouds created a gray haze as we ran down the beach, hands shielding our eyes against the random gusts that swept over us. Rani’s glow was new and…different. An aquamarine color. It pulsed on the edge of my map near a well of power so deep I almost wondered if I was hallucinating.
Over a mile from where we had crashed the boat, this stretch of shore was private property and belonged to the fancy houses on the overlooking cliffs, with their private stairs cut into the rockface. She was somewhere over here; I just knew it. Ezra kept pace beside me, his eagle eyes scanning the water in case there was a splash of red floating somewhere out there.
I double-checked my map, we had to be getting close.
“There!” Ezra shouted, flinging sand in my face as he took off toward a pale, crumpled form in the distance.
Kai and I fought to keep up, and I slid the last few feet on my knees, sobs escaping at seeing Rani half-soaked and caked in dried salt but very much alive. Rope lay in chopped pieces around her, with some thick chunks still covering her chest. Crabs and a few seagulls picked at them, almost like they were helping, but they scuttled away at our approach. Her chest rose and fell in steady breaths, and her eyes moved behind closed lids. She was alive! Against all odds, and by the grace of the gods, she wasalive.
“I told you,” Ezra cried. “I fucking told you!”
He reached for her, his hands shaking with relief and adrenaline, only to yank them back at the first brush against her skin. I stilled, worry now battling with my relief.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. What could possibly go wrong now?
Ezra touched her again, a gentle hand on her arm, and shook his head in wonder. Kai’s confusion blended with mine, but there was an undercurrent of something else: suspicion. My patience was on its final legs. I wanted nothing more than to throw my arms around Rani and squeeze until I was sure she was real.
She was now cradled in Ezra’s bare arms, his damp shirt removed to try and cover as much of my friend’s cold body as he could. She was paler than usual, causing her hair and lashes to stand out in stark contrast to the rest of her. Hypothermia probably set in a while ago. We needed to get her to a hospital, but no one was moving like we were at risk of losing her…again.
“Someone fucking tell me what’s going on before I go postal.”
Ezra didn’t look at me when he answered, too busy staring at Rani like she’d disappear if he so much as blinked.
“She isn’t human.”
What? I took a harder look at my friend. There was nothing different about her. She was pale and limp and alive, which by all accounts should be impossible, but there had to be a rational explanation. Just jumping from human to supernatural was a stretch. Wasn’t it? Doubt crept in when Kai didn’t contradict him. It was weird that I could suddenly see her with my magick…but that…gods, my head hurt.
