Tarian steps to the side to give her more room. And then he tells us he’s going to check on the others, but before leaving, he cinches Gael’s neck and whispers the undoing spell.
“Don’t kill him yet, all right?” Tarian must rid the others of their runes because he adds, “You can send the rest of them to hell, though.”
When Quinn’s palms rise to Reeve’s cheeks to bend his head to hers, I turn to do as Tarian instructed.
“Electra?” Reeve’s broken timbre stops me in my tracks. “Wait…” He coughs.
“I love you,” I hear Quinn murmur, her declaration cracking the brittle pieces of my heart.
I try to leave, but Calanthe holds me back.
“Let go,” I mutter.
“You should talk to?—”
“I will, but not right now,” I say just as Quinn steps in front of us.
“Mind if I end the son, Mrs. Hadez?” she asks.
“Callie. And sure. I didn’t have much of a preference anyway.” Are they really chitchatting about whose life they’re about to take? “Elle, you have a preference?”
“Yeah, my biological father, but the overlord called him.”
Calanthe snickers. “You know, I still haven’t called Tarian that. Pregnancy brain.”
“You’re pregnant?” Quinn asks.
“With triplets,” Calanthe chirps, which makes my teeth slide, because that’s the sort of thing you tell friends, and Quinn is the opposite.
“Electra…?” Reeve’s hoarse voice skates down my spine. “Can we talk? Please.”
I purse my lips but linger, with my back to him and my eyes on Quinn. I watch her sink, not one, but three bullets into Alexander.
“Get Otto, too.” Calanthe crouches, holding her palm over the other guy’s nose and mouth until his skin turns blue. As shestraightens, palm on her belly, she asks, “Ouch. Did you do that, Quinn?”
“Do what?”
Calanthe grimaces. “Castrate the man with a bullet.”
“No. That must’ve been Electra.”
Both women look my way.
“Of course that was,” Calanthe says around a smile.
“Brutal. Hey, Reevey, you better respect the woman,” Quinn muses, her puffy lip tugging to the side.
I frown.
Calanthe wiggles her fingers, levitating Gael’s body. “Let me get this one out of the way. Quinn, can you get the door once I float Monta through it? And maybe point your gun elsewhere?”
“Here. You can take it.” Quinn holds it out.
“I hate guns. You keep it.”
Is this conversation really happening, or am I still lying on the kitchen floor, hallucinating from my gunshot wound?
“Callie?!” I hear Tarian shout.
