I had to focus on this one thing, thishugething that could free Castiel and ultimately help us take on Lora and the others.
I had to kill a Fae Lord.
Like a ninja, I stalked through the frantic crowd moving hastily to the exits, and kept my eyes on the Fae Lord with salt and pepper hair. According to Natalie and Castiel, Mace was the weak link of all the Fae Lords. And I was going to kill him.
No big deal.Easy peasy.
My hand felt empty without the weight of my Walther P22. But the magic thrumming through my veins was far more powerful. I wanted to look for Brayden, to protect Leah from Lora, to see if Artemis was still nearby, but the element of surprise was all I had so I pushed everything else away and seized my moment.
Pushing through the chaotic crowd, I finally found myself at the base of the stage. One of the other Fae Lords had exited with Lora and now it was just Mace and the other female. Her name was Ellaria; Natalie had told me she was second in power to Lora.
Awesome.
I’d trained months for this. In the middle of the night first with Maddy and then with Castiel and Natalie.
I can do this,I told myself.
Pulling my power forward, I felt it sizzling along my skin. I opened myself to it like Castiel taught me, letting it fill up every cell in my body like an open reservoir. Once the power had settled into me, I pushed a little bit of it outward in a coating across my skin as a shield. I was going to focus on freezing time. Since there were two Fae Lords up there and I could not fight them both, it was the only shot I had.
Without overthinking and creating the space for myself to freak out and have an anxiety attack, I popped up onto the stage and did an army roll, landing right before the two fae. They couldn’t even so much as look down at me before I’d blasted them with my power. An invisible blanket of magic washed over them and they both froze where they stood.
Castiel’s training came to me.Once you freeze him, you will have mere seconds to act before retaliation.
I’d have to worry about Ellaria’s retaliation later and focus on taking care of Mace.
Natalie’s advice was in the forefront of my mind:My brother might tell you that a Fae Lord is nearly impossible to kill, but that’s not true. Take their heads off and they are as good as dead.
I’d learned a lot in my time with the Greywolf brothers and sisters—most importantly that only Lora had the retaliation kill curse on her, the same one Silas had. The others didn’t, as they weren’t powerful enough to hold them, and Lora held not only hers but Silas’ as well.
Without overthinking it, I built the explosive power of one of my shockwave energy balls between my hands. Mace was starting to move, slowly as if thawing from a deep freeze, fighting my freezing power.
Lurching forward, I threw the shockwave right at his head from only inches away and it was pulled from his neck in a gruesome fashion. One second he was staring at me with a menacing snarl and the next his face disappeared, blown from his body in a stream of blood. The cuffs fell from his wrists, hitting the floor a second before his body did.
Bile lurched into my throat.
I killed him. I killed someone.
I staggered backward, completely in shock that I’d actually done what I’d set out to.
‘Castiel is free! Get out of there!’Natalie shouted to me, just as Ellaria broke the hold I’d had on her and flicked her wrist in my direction.
That was all it took. A flick of the wrist and pain like I’d never felt before slammed into my body. A blood-curdling scream tore from my throat, bringing me to my knees.
“You. Little.Bitch!” Ellaria yelled as she stomped towards me.
I was frozen to the spot, fully submitted under her power as my limbs groaned in protest and agony. It was as if I was being burned alive.
“Averly!” Brayden’s sudden bellow was hair-raising, enough so that it caused Ellaria to look away from me for a split second and search for him in the crowd.
I pushed against her power, trying to fight her hold on me, but the pain made me too weak and I felt sick to my stomach. I was in so much anguish. It stung and burned and throbbed all at the same time. Sweat beaded my brow and black dots danced at the edges of my vision.Please pass out, I prayed. If I could just lose consciousness, this misery could all just go away. But I didn’t. It was like the pain sensed when I might pass out and it lessened just enough to keep me conscious.
Holy hell, make it stop.A sob ripped from my throat, and then something semi-transparent flew over my left shoulder and crashed into the Fae Lord, sending her stumbling backward.
“I’ve got you,” Brayden’s deep voice whispered in my ear. A strong hand laid on my back, and like a balm to my wounds, all pain fled. I whimpered and then he pulled me into his arms. Looking up at him, I was so relieved to be protected from that pain that I nearly burst into tears. With me in his arms, he spun, ready to take off running, and the air was sucked from my lungs. As if things couldn’t get any worse. The great hall had emptied of most people; only about fifty or so were left, as opposed to the couple hundred from before. And that fifty looked to be mostly Brayden’s pack. Leah was in the middle of the pack; they’d formed a circle around her. But that wasn’t what had stopped Brayden and I dead in our tracks.
It was the creature looming over us.
Novus.
