Page 117 of Magic Claimed

“Where is Faris?”

Her eyes turned bleak, and her chin jerked towards the street. “Out there somewhere. I don’t know. Last I saw… He was shielding a woman from a falling building and was buried in the rubble.”

No.

He couldn’t be dead. I wouldn’t allow it.

Faris was the glue that held us together. The only one who could have forged this alliance—bringing every court together and ensuring the cooperation of the local government. The only one powerful enough to fix everything Blake had broken.

And he was the heart of this family I’d been lucky enough to become a part of. If anything happened to him? I had no idea whether we would recover.

Or whether Kira would ever forgive herself. She’d agreed to stay back—along with Hugh—to guard Morghaine, Kes, Ethan, and the kids. But if Faris fell without her…

I wouldn’t let it be true.

“I’ll find him,” I promised. “Can you hold the walls?”

She nodded. “For now, we have enough. But only because the skies are safe.”

Only until the black dragon put in an appearance.

But where was it? Who was it? And why had Blake not yet deployed his greatest weapon?

The answer came in the form of a wailing siren—one that didn’t remain in the distance but drew closer and closer, until a black SUV emerged from the smoke, crunched its way over the debris, and came to a stop a few dozen yards away, just outside the ballpark’s main gates.

The passenger door opened, and Blake Masterson stepped out.

Still in his casual, everyday office-worker clothing, still with his tie loosened and his hair slightly rumpled, a small smile tugging at his lips.

Talia let out a cry of rage and produced spinning blades of water between her fingers, but Blake jerked up a hand, and the rear door of the SUV opened.

Two of his people jumped out, dragging a body between them.

Limp and covered in dust and blood.

Broken. Barely recognizable.

“No!”

The scream ripped involuntarily from my lips as they dragged Faris forward by his elbows and dropped him on the ground right in front of Blake, who crouched at Faris’s side and laid a blade of glowing blue against his throat.

“And this,” he said mildly, “is where your resistance ends. Or I… will kill him.”

A part of me simply hadn’t believed that Faris could be stopped. He’d seemed immovable as a mountain. And the sight of him lying there broken and still… broke something in me too.

As the sounds of battle fell away, leaving only watchful silence, I was forced to clench my fists until my nails drew blood from my palms.

I would not cry. Not yet.

“Surely…” Blake said into the silence, “surely you understand that this battle is now over.”

I heard feral cries from overhead as the dragons recognized the danger and dove nearer…

Only to pull up short when they realized there was nothing they could do. Not fast enough to stop Blake. They could only settle on the wall and wait, while Blake looked around at the chaos and death and destruction he had caused… and smiled.

The bastardsmiled.

“Today has been everything I dreamed it could be,” he said, his eyes bright with wonder and satisfaction. “Everything I hoped for since the day I discovered my calling. Now, if you want me to spare Lansgrave’s life, you’ll stand aside and let my people do what they came here for.”