The seething, sputtering immortal didn’t offer a response. He just struggled against the wisps of rope.
“If you won’t tell me. I’ll look for myself.” I took a step closer and the vampire snapped at me.
From the corner of the room, Lydia gasped. “Hurry.”
I nodded to her, sensing her draining energy somewhere in the invisible ether dancing around us. The vampire’s dark eyes grew even more menacing as I reached out to touch his arms. As I made contact, I thought of Dommik. Of his stormy gaze and preferred black leathers. In my mind, he was smiling wide. A grin that lifted his cheeks and dipped his dimple.But what came to me as I searched the vampire’s mind was a distorted version of the Dommik I knew.
My body stiffened as the vision unfolded. The vampire’s memories showed flashes of an ambush. Rhazien’s guards had been slain and without his sword, Dommik was overpowered. They beat him senseless and I wanted to cry out for them to stop. My heart cracked seeing him bruised and bloodied.
He’d fought. With every fiber of his being, he’d fought. Just as I would expect him to. But there were too many of them. And after his body fell still, the Northern Hive guards hauled him away.
The vision cut to Vaspar’s face, his pointed chin accentuated from his snarl. “What do you mean they escaped? FIND THEM,” Vaspar roared with a motionless Dommik behind him. Other guards were unshackling Dommik’s bruised wrists to move him again.
“Bring them directly to the Moon Garden,” Vaspar ordered as he returned his attention to his brother.
There. The Moon Garden. I knew what I needed to know.
I released my grip on the squirming immortal.
“Free me, sorceress!” he snapped.
Not a chance.
I moved to pick up the nearest piece of a broken chair. The splintered leg ended in a fine, deadly point. In three confident strides, I was back in front of the male. His eyes were wide and I wondered what he saw. What kind of feral creature I’d devolved into in the moment before plunging the stake into his panicked chest.
Blood poured from the flesh and his gurgling breaths made my gut swirl. But more than the nausea was my determination to see him dead. To see my family safe. To hold and be held by Dommik again.
His pale skin faded to a lifeless gray and his quivering chest stilled as Cova withdrew her shadows.
The body thudded to the floor, pushing the stake clean through his middle on impact. From the corner of the room, Lydia gasped for breath, her energy spent from siphoning her own magical source into Cova.
“I’m so proud of you. Hear me? I’m so proud of you.” Cova wrapped Lydia into a supportive, consuming hug. She rocked her daughter, whispering praise in the dark. I moved to join my family as Cova took Lydia’s cheeks into her hands. “How did you know how to do that?”
Lydia swelled and looked at me. “I just…knew I could.”
I nodded at her in silent understanding. The thrum of magic in her veins told her instincts to take over.
“You amaze me,” Cova said, stifling a sob.
“Youamaze me,” I echoed and placed a hand on my sister’s shoulder. “I thought you said you hadn’t practiced?”
“I guess—” Cova placed her cheek on her daughter’s forehead. “I just knew I could too.”
We spent a moment there in the dark, reveling in the comedown as each breath took us further from the scene around us. It was clear we’d only scratched the surface of what our magic was capable of. I regretted that we hadn’t explored the possibilities of our power before this pivotal moment.
Cova looked up and stilled.
I jumped into a defensive stance as a figure entered the room. Dommik’s sword was mere feet from me and the person’s frame didn’t seem that big. I considered charging them but stopped when I heard their voice.
“My lady?” Alba cooed in the dark.
Relief swept through me and before I knew it, my limbs were around her.
“You’re alive!” I breathed into her robes.
“You are too.” She sounded just as grateful as me. “But we can’t stay here.”
Cova helped Lydia to stand and the four of us formed a small circle of trust. While so many had perished in Eryx’s call for a culling, we four mortal women had somehow survived. And from the look in our eyes, we intended to keep it that way.
