Page 31

Kit

T he sound was like razored, red-hot glass splintering through my ear drums. Sound could be weaponized, especially against anybody with super-sensitive hearing, and if it hurt me like this, I didn’t want to think about what it was doing to Damon.

But he didn’t let it stop him, whipping away from Azazel and striking again.

Movement from the corner of my eye had me recoiling and I barely dodged the clawed hand aiming for my gut.

Doyle jerked and twisted away, grabbing onto the misshapen, poorly formed monstrosity at the end of his right arm, gripping the wrist with his normal-looking left hand.

“I’m sorry,” he panted. “Get away…Kit, she’s trying to take…”

His neck snapped to the right, so viciously, I almost expected to hear bone crack and then Arsay was back in the driver’s seat, smiling at me from Doyle’s face. He was still in there, fighting , though. I sensed the crazed energy of his cat, all enraged tiger, claws extended, teeth bared. He gripped his right wrist with his left hand and jerked her backward when she tried to step forward—it was like watching one side of a body war with the other. But it was two beings in there.

“It looks like the drugs you’ve been slipping him have worn off.” I grinned at her and swung my wrist. “Not having such an easy time controlling him on your own, are you?”

“Maybe I’ll just bleed him,” she said.

She rushed me, drawing the long dagger she wore strapped to her thigh.

Sensing her intent, I sidestepped and fended off her clumsy attack with ease, rotating my wrist to get inside her guard. Her blade went flying.

“Is that the best you’ve got?” I clicked my tongue. “In all the time you’ve been wearing Granny as a second skin, did you never bother to learn anything about using a weapon?”

“I don’t need weapons. I can beat you to death.” She lunged again.

“Now you’re contradicting yourself.” I slid under her furious strike, the air from the punch fanning my air. If it had hit, it would have caved my head in.

Mental note: Don’t get hit .

Coming up behind her, I let Volund’s blade graze her spine. She screamed and the archaic wizard laughed inside my head, greedily demanding more.

“No ,” I told him, shutting the voice down and focusing on Arsay as she whirled to face me.

“You little bitch . You dare ?”

“Save me the bad movie villain dialog,” I suggested. “Come on, can’t you fight any better than this? I saw Fanis fight my aunts and she kicked ass. Both Damon and I have been training the kid—I know he kicks ass.”

She snarled and moved —it was like I was in my dream all over again, and the distance between us just disappeared. She practically flowed into my space and in a heartbeat, she had her hands fisted in the front of my vest. Jerking me off my feet, she hauled me into the air and I dangled inches off the ground as she sneered up at me.

“Maybe I should just wring the life out of you.” Her face twisted with rage. Then the muscles froze and her head jerked backward. “Annoying child —be silent !”

The hands on my vest let go and I fell to the ground. Flexing my knees to take the impact, I immediately dropped and swung out with my booted right foot, taking her legs out from under her.

Doyle would have been able to compensate.

But whatever Arsay had spent these years doing, it hadn’t had anything to do with fighting.

She went down hard and since she was wearing Doyle’s body, she went down with his mass—he had a shapeshifter’s bone density and she hit hard . As her head hit the hard, rocky surface of the plateau, I banished the sword and called a blade—the first that came to mind.

It was the bronze dagger that bonded me to Lemeraties.

She was at my side in a blink.

“What are you—oh.”

Arsay screamed as I sliced one hamstring, then the other, then went for the Achilles tendon, slicing both of them. That done, I sheathed the blade and pulled a pouch from my belt—shaved silver filings. I tore it open and spilled the contents into her wounds. Only the body she wore still belonged to Doyle .

Both of them screamed.

I heard his pain and silently apologized even as the pragmatic part of me said he’d understand.

As her wounds started smoking, I eased away from her, careful not to turn my back to Azazel and Damon.

“You should have paid more attention when my bitch of a grandmother was strolling the training grounds, Arsay . Shit, Madae wouldn’t have made those mistakes. One of our eight-year-olds wouldn’t have made them.”

She rolled onto her side, half-lifted herself, glaring at me with so much hate in her eyes, it might have terrified me, if I hadn’t already lived through it before.

But then she smiled.

“A mistake like the one you are making, perhaps,” she said as she reached up and wiped blood from the corner of her mouth.

I heard the scuff of a leather-clad foot on stone and wrenched away.

I was a fraction of a second too late.

“ No !”

Lemeraties moved at the same time.

Neither of us reacted in time.

The blade buried itself deep in my stomach and the deep, chilling cold of it was followed immediately by a burn some part of me recognized.

Copper …

My skin tried to crawl away from the metal as I stumbled back, staring at Meti in dismay.

I’d tried to help her.

Her face crumpled.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Lemeraties shoved her hand through Meti’s chest.

“Don’t!” I shouted. Or I tried to. I had no breath left.

Crashing into Frankie who appeared out of nowhere, I swayed. Blood pumped out of me. Blood and other, nastier, foul things.

“Should have been more careful there, kid,” Frankie said, voice casual as she lowered me to the ground.

I stared up at her, panting. I hurt so bad. Had anything ever hurt like this?

Her face swam in and out of focus and the pain intensified, heat gathering in my belly until I felt like I was being cooked from the inside out. The agony was so obscene , I thought I’d puke.

Something roared—no. Somebody .

Two of them.

Frankie disappeared from my sight and Damon was bent over me, his hands cradling my face.

“Kit!”

The air around us grew cold.

“Stop him,” I whispered, grabbing onto Damon’s wrist. “Stop…Azazel.”

“ Fuck him!”

Tears blinded me and another spasm of agony twisted through me. “ Please ,” I begged. “It can’t…don’t let it all be…for nothing.”

A massive shadow spread over us and terror blanketed us.

Damon’s face spasmed. Then he twisted and moved.

I closed my eyes.

Lemeraties touched me.

I felt her hands on my face.

But it was distant.

So distant.

Everything was fading away.

…everything….

“ Kitasa !”