Page 145 of Her Blood Revenge

‘You have done what you wanted!’ I call over to her, blinking the blood rain from my eyes. ‘You used her body to kill Athir, and your Goddess is free. Let me have her back.’

Neve’s eyes narrow on me and the malice I see in them tells me she has no intention whatsoever of letting me walk away from here with her daughter.

‘Dorian is dead! You will let me keep her!’

She lets out a scoff.

Pixie’s breathing is laboured as blood continues to seep from her wounds. The hole in her neck makes each one of her breaths fill her lungs with blood, and I know she has seconds of life left.

‘Feed her your blood, Ronan,’ she commands. ‘Heal her. Or I will kill the Wolf, and you can bury two brothers instead of just the one.’

The blood seeping from Neve’s fingers becomes a solid point and rests at Archie’s forehead.

We share a look, and Archie nods.

‘Save her,’ he says.

I go to Pixie, and I feed her my blood. She swallows from my wrist as I pull her into my lap. One by one, her wounds close, but she’s still barely conscious and utterly out of it. I hold her tightly as the hot rain continues to fall, smothering us all in red.

‘Step away,’ Neve orders.

‘Neve. She is your daughter. She has done what you wanted. Let me take her.’ I hold her tighter. My girl. I can’t allowmyself to think of what Neve will do to her. What she will inflict on her as she seeks her revenge against us. ‘She doesn’t deserve-’ I stop speaking when the blood moves closer to Archie.

‘You murdered my sisters, Ronan. And your dog destroyed Sinthia’s skull, so I can never resurrect her.’ She steps closer and holds her cruel smile. ‘And you think I will give her back to you? You think I will satisfy any plea for mercy fromyou?’ She takes another step towards us, and I cling to my girl. ‘You should have destroyed every bone of every blood witch that you killed, Ronan. Not succumb to the whim of a weak human king. A king who thought displaying our bones would show his strength when all it did was preserve us all… for later. A suggestion I sowed the seeds of many years ago. Nothing I do or have ever done has been by chance. Not a single death. Not a single step. I needed the blood coven to die to give my goddess all her strength. And I needed their bones for something extra special. So I will be taking my daughter now. And you can either hand her over and die with dignity. Or we can take her, and you can die screaming.’

She glances over my shoulder, and Neve’s lips curl into a sadistic smile.

When I look up, I fill with a fiery rage.

‘General,’ Cole grins. ‘I’ll be taking my fiancé back now.’

‘You touch her, I’ll shove your remaining hand up your fucking arse,’ Archie warns.

‘Oh yeah?’ Cole snorts, blood rain dripping down his face. ‘You and what army.’

He’s slammed with a blast of fire and hurtled through the air just before the remaining coven and their humancompanions leap through the trees. And all hell breaks lose as water, air and fire witches, as well as humans, attack.

I grab Pixie as Archie dives out of the way of the blood dagger, and when I get to my feet, I face Cole.

‘That’s my whore,’ he snarls before reaching out his hand to the ground.

But no magic comes. The earth doesn’t move. And he looks utterly stunned. All around us, earth witches are trying to fight with their magic, but there’s none to be found.

Cole looks at Neve with a horrified expression.

‘I have no magic! I… I have no magic!’

‘Of course not. I killed the earth god. Without him sealed up and trapped so you could steal his magic, how did you think you would still be able to have magic?’ She shrugs as if that’s obvious. Neve finds nothing but amusement in Cole’s suffering, and if it weren’t a life-or-death situation, so would I.

‘That’s not what was agreed!’ he roars. ‘You never said this would happen! I need my magic!’

‘A queen does not need to explain herself to a peasant.’ She looks him up and down. ‘Consider it your punishment for trying to rape my daughter. She may be nothing but a tool, but she is still my child, and you attempted to defile her. Consider the payment of your magic sufficient, Cole. Or I will reconsider it and demand your life!’

She throws back her hand, and I’m smothered in blood. It whips around me and throws me back.

Pixie slips from my fingers, and I fly through the air, slamming into a group of unseelie who start attacking before I can blink the blood clear from my eyes.

I’m blind as I fight them off, throwing punches and stabbing with my sword in the dark.

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