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Seb made a grab for her.

Thea sidestepped easily, twirling her blade, resignation settling heavy in her gut. ‘I should have ended you years ago.’

And then, he attacked in earnest. With his belt buckle still undone, Seb raised his sword and lunged for her.

Thea barely needed to think as she deflected his blows with quick taps of her blade. She was stronger, faster, more agile than he would ever be. For all his parries and strikes, his sword got nowhere near her. Thea let him attack with everything he had, watching as his rage intensified with every unsuccessful blow, sweat beading at his brow.

As she deflected another jab, she realised that his fury wasn’t for her alone, but for all women. That despite every ounce of evidence she’d shown him over the years that she was capable, that she was a true protector of the midrealms, he would never believe it. He didn’t want to. And that meant there was no place for him in this world, the world they were trying to defend and rebuild anew.

Panting, Seb thrust his sword at her and Thea knocked it aside, wondering how long it would take him to realise that he was at her mercy, that he could never win against her.

Vile words spilt from his mouth along with flecks of spit. ‘I’m surprised you can walk after taking so much cock for that totem. But at least you’re broken in. When I’m through with you —’

Thea blocked another pitiful strike of his blade.

He snarled. ‘I’ll leave you bleeding in the dirt where you belong, stray.’

Stray… The name he’d called her since they were teenagers; the word he’d spat in her direction at every chance he got.

‘Have you said everything you need to say?’ Thea asked, her voice cool and steady.

He lashed out with his sword, swiping it through the air clumsily. ‘Fuck you, whore. Drop the blade and it’ll be over soon.’

Thea took a deep breath and poised herself to strike. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It will be over soon.’

She knocked Seb’s blade from his grasp without a thought, his eyes widening as it hit the snow. Her gaze didn’t leave him as she sheathed her own sword, waiting.

Momentary confusion flashed across his face before he tried to take the advantage. Seb charged her.

And Thea’s hand closed around his throat.

With her Furies-given strength, she lifted him up so his feet kicked the air beneath him and his nails clawed at her.

This time, she showed no mercy.

This time, he would not walk away.

His pulse raced beneath her palm and she stared into his bulging, bloodshot eyes, watching as a pitiful realisation dawned there.

But it was too late. There was no coming back from this now.

With a flick of her wrist, Seb’s bones broke beneath her strength, and Thea snapped his neck.

He went limp instantly in her hold and she dropped his lifeless body in the snow.

A blur of black fur shot out from her side, a vicious growl echoing through the trees. A powerful canine jaw closed around Seb’s neck —

Blood spurted.

And in one violent wrench, Dax ripped out Sebastos Barlowe’s throat.

Though Seb was already dead, Malik’s dog tore him to shreds, and Thea watched every gory moment of it. When his blood stained the snow in wide red pools and his face was an unrecognisable pulp, Thea stood over his body.

‘It was everything he deserved,’ she told Dax, who rubbed his bloodied snout through a patch of clean snow. ‘Thank you, my friend.’

Thea had wanted to end Seb so badly herself that she’d forgotten there were others who were owed that taste of vengeance as much as she was – more so. Malik, Cal, Kipp… They had all suffered at Seb’s hands, had all endured his malice and cruelty, but no more. Blood oozed from the corpse at Thea’s feet and she felt no remorse, only relief, for there was one less monster in the midrealms now.

‘Come on, Dax,’ she said quietly. She didn’t know what the consequences of Seb’s death would be, for her or for her canine friend, but she wasn’t going to risk Dax being discovered beside the mauled body.