Magic, powerful and overwhelming, rippled through the air as strikes of lightning tore through her. Dante’s scream was a whisper compared to the sound of Thor shifting, his silent warning—Ivy’s instructions—replaying in my head. As he rushed towards the students, Rhadamanthus followed, and I turned my attention to the male vamp who clearly knew too much about my mate.
From the corner of my eye, I watched Elias shift, taking in the bulky form of his wolf as he leapt at the two wolves under the vampire’s control. Xerxes was with him in an instant, taking the black wolf while Elias took the blond one.
“You should pray you never touched my mate,” I said as I turned towards my prey, hearing the venom in my voice as I stalked towards him. “Because if I learn you did, you’ll be begging Nyx for death.”
The male took a single step back before pulling a weapon from his belt. I tasted his magic in the air, but it was nothing compared to the power rushing through me from Ivy.
She’d unlocked her power, and now it flowed easily through me—through all of us. Fractures of her magic suddenly came together in a burst of light within me, and thepieces of myself that went missing when Dante stole her away finally reappeared.
Before he could take aim, I had the gun out of his hand. “It won’t matter in the end,” I added, “because you, and everyone else who freely sided with Dante won’t see freedom ever again.”
I shot first, the bullet lodging itself into his shoulder. The male dropped with a scream. How many times had he laughed at screams like his own? We’d learned pretty fucking quickly about the horrors the shifters faced in their cages at the hands of Dante and his soldiers. The pain, the torture. Not just the children who’d been forced to shift, but the continued pain they’d experienced throughout their lives.
How much of that had this male witnessed? For how long?
And Goddess above, what the hell made my brother think any of it was okay?
The vampire dropped to all fours and panted, eyes watering as he stared at me. “If you kill me,” he gasped, gripping his shoulder, “you would be no better than him.”
I barked a laugh but lowered the gun. “I never said I’d kill you,” I replied. “I said you would never see freedom again. You’re going towishyou were dead once we’re done with you.”
Before he could respond, I grabbed his wounded shoulder, digging my thumb into the entry wound. He cried out, the sound grating, but it gave me the leverage I needed to put the gun away and grab a set of cuffs. I hooked them around his wrist, waited until the pain was unbearable—too distracting to fight back—before shoving him onto his ass and bringing his other hand behind him and finishing the cuff.
Within seconds, a subtle blue light flared on the metal, and the male passed out. I was sure as fuck glad now that Phoenix had developed the cuffs before everything happened. They were going to come in handy tonight.
A bullet whizzed past me, hitting the water at my back. I spun and came face to face with an annoyingly familiar Fae: Layla. My gaze flickered to Orion, but he was busy fighting off a different attack. I had a feeling he would haveenjoyed being the one to take her down, especially after all the shit she’d said about Ivy.
“Weren’t you taken out before?” I asked, unholstering my gun. “How do you keep coming back like a pathetic cockroach?”
A sneer pulled at her red lips, and the gun rose, despite the tremble in her shoulder from where Rowan got her in the Old World. “You and I could have been great,” she said, voice thick with a bitterness that made my stomach turn. “You told me once we could.”
I grimaced and looked her over. “If I did,” I replied, “I must have been really fucking drunk.”
I didn’t give her a chance to respond and got her in her already injured shoulder. Her scream cut through the air, as did the shot of her own gun.
The pain hit me before I even realised it, but I got to her and kicked her gun out of reach. I could ignore the agony that ripped through me easily. Adrenaline pumped through my veins as I got her onto her stomach and slapped another set of cuffs on her, grunting as I stood and watched her pass out.
“Shit,” Rowan said, appearing behind me. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
I frowned and followed his line of sight down to my leg. Blood spilled from my thigh, leaking down my gear. I’d felt the shot, but not where—not this.
Blinking hard, I stumbled and glanced at her gun. Our bullets had been charmed to lodge and be a bitch to cut out. But hers…their bullets were poisoned.
Rowan got to me before I could fall, pulling my arm over his shoulder. “Ivy’s magic should be able to heal me,” I said through gritted teeth, trying to pull away. “I don’t need your help.”
“Fuck off,” Rowan muttered, dragging me from the fight. “You aren’t helpful bleeding out. Sit down and watch our backs. Put bullets in them.”
“She doesn’t want them dead.” Even as the words left my lips, I knew it wouldn’t matter if theygot us first.
My eyes went to the bubble of power surrounding her and my brother. One person I loved without any doubt, another who should have cared for me but didn’t.
The magic coming from the two of them was a clear struggle; Ivy’s violet magic, bright and strong against Dante’s blackened magic, thick like sludge. Too long, and Dante might consume her. Douse her in his tar-like, tainted power. Drown her in his darkness. Too long, and she might not survive.
There was no reason for his magic to look like that, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
Rowan dropped me with a grunt, grabbed extra bullets from his belt, and dropped the pouch into my lap, forcing my attention back to him.
“Then take them down so we can do the rest,” he said, eyeing me warily. “I’m going to make sure our mate survives this thing.”
