Page 38 of A Storm of Fire and Ash

My heart nearly stopped. I knew that voice.

Kalista.

I didn’t think. I just kicked the door in. The wood cracked and splintered beneath my boot, slamming open so hard it rebounded off the stone wall.

And I saw Hel.

Kalista was on the floor, her gown torn, her breasts exposed and being groped.

Her long blonde hair tangled and matted with blood.

Her arms were pinned by one man—Bastion—and her body twisted unnaturally as she tried to fight.

Two other men were behind her, their trousers pushed to their ankles, their small cocks hard, their intentions disgusting and unmistakable.

One held her legs as the other knelt between.

Their mouths were open with sick laughter. Their eyes glinted with cruelty.

And Kalista—Kalista was shaking, her face bruised, her lip split, her body struggling beneath them, and her dress was scrunched to her waist.

I couldn’t breathe.

Bastion looked up at me, still holding Kalista, with a sneer. “Well, well,” Bastion said, voice thick with mockery. “Another pretty one to join. Hope your back is healed. Get her.”

The other two turned their gaze on me, leering.

Something snapped inside of me. Not just in my chest—in the earth.

My magic surged like a storm unleashed. Vines erupted from the cracks in the castle floor, thick and black with thorns as long as daggers. They writhed and twisted at my command, hissing as they slithered across stone, wrapping around columns and sealing the room like a cage of living rage.

I used my magic to create a new door so the bastards couldn’t escape, sealing us inside.

I was done holding back.

“What in the fuck?” One of the men said as he gripped the wall.

The air bent around me, sharp with heat.

Flames danced along my fingers, flickering between green and gold as I stepped forward, my boots crunched over shards of splintered doorframe.

My rage burned with focus. With purpose.

I saw their faces—Bastion, the others—and I remembered them.

The ones who beat Fintan. The ones who grinned when blood spilled.

The ones who cheered the King on as he whipped me.

I burned their faces into my memory. I would not forget again.

I pulled the dagger from the sheath hidden beneath my breast leather.

No hesitation.

I moved like fire.

The first man—one of the ones with his trousers down—barely had time to react before I was on him.

I drove my blade into his gut, twisting hard and then sliced up.

His intestines fell to the floor with a thud.

He gasped, staggered, and crumpled to the floor in a wet heap.

The second man—the one who almost had his way with Kalista—scrambled.

He pushed himself up from the marble, fumbling with his trousers, trying to run.

Like he stood a chance against my magic.

The ground shuddered beneath my feet. Roots erupted from the stone, twisting together as a new door of living wood and thorned vines burst into existence. The vines snapped tight, sealing the entry with cruel, spiked tendrils that hissed as they locked into place.

“No one’s leaving,” I said coldly.

Kalista whimpered behind them. I saw her, crumpled and bloodied, watching me with wide, terrified eyes.

The man backed toward Bastion, stammering. “She’s a witch—a demon—gods—”

“Fae,” I said through my teeth, stepping closer, fire curling up my arms. “And you’re going to wish you’d never touched her.”

The man screamed as my vines shot up from the floor and wrapped around his bare thighs.

The thorns dug deep, piercing flesh and muscle with a wet, ripping sound.

Blood splattered the stone. He howled, bucking and thrashing, but the vines didn’t loosen.

They climbed up his body like living chains—coiling around his wrists, his torso, his throat—until he was held wide open, trembling and sobbing, blood dripping from a dozen wounds.

They wrapped around his now flaccid skin and squeezed.

He screamed. I didn’t flinch. I watched him tremble—pathetic and half-naked, strung by my vines like meat on a spit. His eyes rolled with panic, his mouth babbling prayers to gods that had never listened.

I smiled.

Then I sent the command.

My vines tightened—sharply, mercilessly—around the now soft flesh between his legs. He shrieked as the thorns pierced deep, twisting, tearing. Blood gushed in hot, pulsing bursts. The sound of it—wet and raw—was almost musical. With a sickening rip, my vines tore his small cock from his body.

He tried to scream again, but it came out as a gurgle.

Before he could pass out, I stepped forward, raising both hands. The vines shifted, weaving themselves into a long, thick spear—hard as wood, barbed like a rose stem. It pulsed with my fury.

I tilted my head slightly. He sobbed.

I opened his legs wider with a flick of my fingers. Then, slowly, deliberately, I nodded.

The thorned spear shot upward, impaling him through his ass with bone-splintering force. It tore through muscle, spine, lung—everything. And then, with a final, revolting crunch, it exploded from his mouth.

His body twitched once. Then he went still.

I didn’t spare him a second glance.

Bastion had Kalista now, one arm tight around her middle, the other pressing a blade to her neck. A thin line of blood trickled down her collarbone. Her eyes were wide with terror, locked on mine.

One twitch, and he’d kill her.

“Fae don’t have all that power. What are you?” Bastion snarled, voice shaking, but not from fear—for him, it was fury. Entitlement. The unraveling of control.

I tilted my head, smiling coldly.

I clucked my tongue. “Your worst fucking nightmare.”

My fingers glowed. The air in front of me shimmered as I lifted my hand—and from it, Mage Hand emerged. Spectral. Burning with purple fire.

It hovered for a breath, weightless and wicked, and then—

I nodded. The hand shot forward.

Bastion barely blinked before the spectral fingers plunged into his face with surgical precision and plucked out both of his onyx eyes. He screamed—no, shrieked—staggering back, his blade falling from Kalista’s throat. His hands clawed at the empty sockets, blood pouring from his face.

“MOVE!” I shouted at Kalista.

She scrambled away quickly, gasping—blood staining her gown.

I was already leaping. I crashed into Bastion mid-scream.

We hit the floor hard. My knees straddled his chest, and before he could beg or crawl or say a single vile word—I drove my dagger straight into his heart. And then again. And again. Until the fight left him. Until he was silent.

I stood over his ruined body, blood dripping down my arms, my face. The vines recoiled slowly behind me.

Kalista had backed into a corner, her hands shaking, eyes locked on me like I was some monster. Which, maybe, I was.

I took a careful step toward her, holding up one hand. The flames had dimmed. My magic was still singing, but I forced it to be still.

“Please,” I said softly. “Don’t tell anyone.”

I held my hand out. Kalista flinched. Then took it. I pulled her up, removed my cloak, and wrapped it around her.

“You… you saved me,” she whispered, voice raw. “Why? I’ve been so awful to you.”

I looked down at the blood on my hands. It was still warm. “Because ‘no’ is a complete sentence, and no man should ever touch a woman like that,” I said. “And none of them ever will again.”

Kalista blinked, and something in her eyes softened. A shiver ran through her. Then she nodded once, turned, and ran.

The vines slithered off the door, curling back into the cracks in the floor like they were never there. The door creaked open for her. And then she was gone.

Silence fell, heavy and strange.

My heartbeat thundered in my ears. I wiped my face on my sleeve, but it only smeared the blood worse. I glanced down—my shirt, my arms, my dagger. All soaked in red. I took a breath. Just one. Then I turned and walked out.

I slipped into my chambers, my boots leaving bloody prints on the stone. My hands were stained. My braid was half undone.

And Zayn was there.

He was lounging in a chair, shirtless of course, and a book in his hand. His eyes lifted the moment I entered, his body going tense as he stood.

“Elara,” he said, voice low, sharp with concern. “What in the seven realms of Hel happened?!”

I looked him over, standing like sin with his bare chest and delicious muscles.

I gave him a tired smirk. “Killed a few men. They were touching what does not belong to them. So I dismembered one, shoved a stick up his ass, and killed the other two with my daggers,” I said casually.

“You should’ve seen it—blood, thorns, screaming.

It was actually kind of therapeutic. I used my magic, but only Kalista lives. She won’t tell anyone.”

Zayn blinked once. Took two steps towards me and stopped. Then his lips curved. Slowly.

“You’re a little wicked, aren’t you?” he murmured, setting the book aside.

I shrugged one shoulder. “Takes one to know one.”

Without another word, I walked to the bath chamber. I filled the copper tub with warm water, steam curled over the edge like an invitation. I slipped out of my clothes, every movement slow, deliberate. Blood fell in drops on the marble floor. I stepped into the water and sank down with a hiss.

It stung. But it was quiet.

And for the first time in a long, long time—I wasn’t afraid of my power.

I sat in the tub for—I don’t know how long.

Long enough for the water to go cold until I reheated it with my fire.

Long enough for even my Fae skin to start pruning.

My knees were pulled tight to my chest, my arms wrapped around them like a shield, or maybe a cage.

I’d killed three men.

I should’ve been trembling. Should’ve been weeping into the bathwater, begging the gods for forgiveness.

But I wasn’t.

Because it felt… good.

Not just right. Good.