Page 69

“Charcoal, angelica, honey, yarrow, and clay. Now.”

She vanished.

Whether it was my authority or Adrastos standing behind me that inspired such unquestioning obedience, I didn’t know.

I didn’t hesitate again.

I turned toward the man who’d destroyed my life, weighing the blade heavily in my palm.

A monster.

This man was a monster.

The world would be brighter without him in it.

Adrastos’ eyes stayed my hand. Not fear. Not anger. A warning flashed through those dark irises, accompanied by an almost imperceptible shake of his head. As though we were back in that alleyway. As though he were once again sitting across a chessboard from Magnolia, a lesson laid out between them.

And goddess damn me, the threads echoed his warning.

This wasn’t an impulse I would survive.

Ansel and Aren had taught us that escape depended entirely on timing. Their words I could trust. Nothing in my intuition suggested I would survive if I struck now.

Certainly not if I broke my oath and removed one player from the board.

Perhaps that wouldn’t have mattered if the Angel of Death weren’t imprisoned one floor beneath us, every bit as much a rat in a cage as I was.

Swallowing, I seized Moros’ right arm and carved a slender line down his bicep—not deep enough to scar once his power began working, but enough to redirect the blood flow when I draped the arm across his body and let it hang from the table.

“Blood type?” I asked as the bastard hissed in pain.

“Are you joking?” he ground out through clenched teeth.

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

He scowled. “Rh-negative.”

“I need another demon-infected Rh-negative,” I told Adrastos. When no one moved, I added, “You can’t tell me you don’t have a blood bank.”

“Oh, we do,” came a sultry voice from behind me, her English lilt pronounced. “But I’m faster.”

Marlana sidled up beside me with two healers on her heels, already mixing the poultice and antidote.

She extended an arm.

I eyed it for one heartbeat before the three of us moved into action.

The healers fell into step as though we’d worked together for years instead of mere moments. Between the three of us, we drew the toxin upward and out, funneling it into a vial before applying the poultice for good measure.

I instructed the older healer to tend to the captain’s hand.

All the while, Marlana sat as still as a gargoyle, watching my magic carry her blood into her twin.

The same dark eyes regarded me skeptically from the table until the work was done.

“Move slowly, Your Majesty,” I said when we finally allowed him to sit up.

Overkill? Maybe.