Page 107 of Fighting for Her Heart

“Killing her will not assist Ember,” Zuben says from beside me.

“How the fuck do you know that?” I glare at him.

“Because Evanora is vengeful and angers easily.”

I glance back. The illusion surrounding Ember—at least the one I can perceive—has changed. The monster is back, fucking her again, and this time Ember is feeling the pain. Even worse, Evanora is pointing a crossbow directly toward her heart.

“You leave me no choice, daughter,” Evanora says. “Call off your bear and cooperate, or I will kill you.”

“You will not kill her,” Zuben calls out. “You need her. She is the Illuminant.”

A chilling look comes over Nora’s face. “The three of you will provide enough blood to last a thousand years. By then, I will have found another to replace her.”

“How?” Zuben asks so calmly I wonder again if he really is a robot. “How will there be another Illuminant if Ember does not have a daughter?”

Nora laughs. “Because I know where her sisters are.”

Ember cries out, through the pain. Even if the monster is an illusion, her pain is real.

Axe roars and brushes past me. Using his claws and his powerful jaws, he tries to tear a hole in the cage, and the smell of his burning flesh and hair is overwhelming and real.

The room fills with light again and when my vision returns Ember is free. She points to the ground near my feet and I discover a key.

Axe has momentarily backed away from the cage bars, but lunges toward them again.

“Hey, buddy.” I slide my hand onto his back, shocked by the heat and the force contained in the muscles under his fur.

His head turns back toward me and he snarls.

“Ember gave us the key.” I show it to him.

His golden eyes flash and he nods, still huffing and his claws scraping and etching the stone floor.

Zuben takes they key from me and opens the cage. The witches rush up behind him, but Axe lunges forward and the three women back into the far corner of the cage.

Axe pushes past Zuben and I, knocking us away from the door. The bear rushes toward Nora.

He stops suddenly, howling in pain, but I can’t see what stopped him. Clearly it’s an illusion aimed only at him.

“Stop hurting him!” Ember shouts and she shoots a bolt of light toward her mother.

Evanora’s thrown back, but recovers quickly and shoots the crossbow.

Horror floods my body as I watch the bolt penetrate Ember’s chest.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Ember

Sharp pain invades along with the wooden bolt as it enters my chest. But light floods from inside me and I sense the bolt slowing. It scrapes against a rib, and then stops with its tip pressing against my heart, poking at it with each beat.

Fury rises inside me in tandem with the light. My mother, the woman who claims to love me, she not only tried to trick me into working with her, she tried to kill me.

I pull the bolt out from my chest, and then glare at her shocked face as I toss the bloody wooden bolt to the floor. My chest continues to bleed.

“Ember. Baby.” She steps toward me. “Thank the Earth Mother you’re okay. The crossbow released by accident.”

Axe shifts back from bear form and groans from his fetal position on the floor.