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The leader’s eyes dragged back to hers, and she purred, “Let’s play a game.”

“It appears as though you’ve already cheated,” he hissed, his fangs on full display.

Scarlett winked at him. “I was just leveling the playing field a little bit. You still have way more men on your side than I do on mine.”

A snake’s smile slowly flitted over the leader’s features. “Then let’s play a game, Princess.” His honey-colored eyes locked onto hers as his voice shifted. It was calm and soft and enticing. Her body went tense and lax all at once. The other Night Children around the men began to move once more. Her gaze flickered to them, but the leader tsked, and in that same voice purred, “Your eyes stay on me, Princess.”

Her eyes slid back to his and held. Something in the recesses of her mind thrashed in response, but she quieted it.

“Take down your flames,” he ordered smoothly.

Scarlett did so, and as the last of the flames disappeared, the leader came to a stop directly in front of her. He reached up and ran a finger along her jaw. “Everyone desires you. Everyone fears you. Everyone finds you so…uncontrollable. It wasn’t really that difficult to leash you.”

“What is your name?” she breathed, bringing her own hand up to his cheek, stepping into him further.

His nostrils flared, and he grazed his nose along her throat. “Lennox. Say it,” he demanded. “Let me hear it on your lips.”

“Lennox,” she crooned, her hand sliding across his chest.

One of the other Night Children came up beside Lennox and whispered in his ear. He only nodded, that serpentine smile growing wider as the male stepped back. “It appears I am winning our game, Princess, and our plans have changed.”

“What plans?” she asked, her fingers continuing to trail along his chest.

“Our plans to enter the Night Children land, but much more interesting prey has come along,” he answered, his hand coming up to cup the back of her head. His fingers gripped her hair, and he gave a sharp tug to jerk her head back and to the side. Again, his nose grazed her neck, a fang sliding along her throat. “The mortals have fallen back to give us room to…work. To contain you.”

Scarlett stepped farther into him, all of her pressing against all of him. The vampyre groaned softly. “I’d love for you to contain me,” she whispered.

Lennox chuckled. “I bet you would, Princess.” A fang scraped again. “If it would not make my death imminent, I’d taste you in more ways than one.”

“Pity,” she breathed into his ear, “because your death is imminent, anyway.”

Her shadows struck, wending around his throat and lifting him off his feet before her. Lennox was kicking his feet in the air, his hands trying to grip the shadows around her neck, but his fingers slid through the darkness as if going through fog. “Interesting fact, Son of Night,” she drawled, “entrancing doesn’t work on me.”

“How?” he gasped out.

“Not entirely sure, and I don’t entirely care.” With a thought, her shadows threw Lennox to the ground, and she shoved that darkness down his throat into every vein on his body until he stilled.

The remaining eight vampyres descended on her, and flames of white erupted from her hands. Two were dead before they took another step. She dragged up more and more power as she plummeted down into that pool inside herself. A swirling vortex of darkness and starlight,flame and water. She wreathed the spirit sword with those white flames and plunged it deep into the chest of a vampyre that charged at her. Hands snagged her around the waist, but her shadows immediately clamped onto him, prying arms from her. They held him in place until her sword went through his throat.

Two shadow panthers took down two more Night Children, ripping them apart. Arms and legs and chunks of flesh littering the ground. They prowled to her side as she faced the final two vampyres. They were hanging back, fangs bared, circling her.

Two left. She could feel herself lagging, exhaustion seeping into her being. She’d get information from these last two and then Travel back to Sorin. She’d collapse into his arms and apologize for what she’d done and beg him to touch her to get the feel of Lennox’s hands off of her.

“What do you want with the Contessa?” she snarled, trying to hide how drained she was.

“The Contessa controls the Night Children,” one hissed in response. “Whoever kills the Contessa, takes her place.”

And could order the Night Children to aid the mortals and Lords.

The vampyre that had spoken suddenly had a shirastone dagger in its head. Scarlett whirled in the direction it had come from, but blinding pain sparked in the back of her head. Her vision blurred and spots danced. Her shadows flickered as she dropped to her knees.

Another burst of pain…and then blessed darkness.

CHAPTER 59

SCARLETT

“Hurry, baby,” Eliné said, gripping Scarlett’s hand. “We are almost there.”